Bespoken: An Opposites-Attract Standalone Romance (Carmel Cove Book 2) Page 24

  My eyes widened.

  I’d never seen her this angry before, her shoulders drawn back, her eyes maniacally wide, and certainly never this mad at me. It was hard to get mad at someone who always did your bidding… Air rushed from her flaring nostrils as her mouth disappeared into an enraged void.

  “I-I’m sorry, I wasn’t—” I cried out as her hand smacked across my cheek with such force I stumbled to the side, grasping my cheek, the shock drowning out the sting.

  She’d hit me.

  My mother.

  She’d—

  “How. Dare. You,” she spat and raised her hand again as I looked up.

  “Jacqueline,” my father cut in, grabbing her wrist just as I was about to duck and cover for another blow. Relief rushed from my lungs. At least my father was sane enough to stop her. “Now is not the time. There are guests inside.”

  The relief I felt fizzled; I’d only been spared because there was an image to uphold, one that didn’t include a princess with a bright red welt on her cheek.

  My cheek pulsed with heated irritation under my palm as my mind tried to process what had just happened.

  I’d walked away from a man who viewed me like a piece of property and my mother had hit me for it. For embarrassing her. For disobeying her.

  Her eyes flared with barely restrained anger—a savagery I’d never encountered.

  “How dare you treat Mr. Couronne like that?” she demanded. “Do you know what he is doing for this place? For your home?”

  My jaw tightened. I was no longer sorry.

  “How dare he treat me like that?” I countered, rising back up straight. “How dare you hit me?”

  I steeled myself, refusing to flinch if she chose to strike out again. In truth, the hit had hurt less than the instant and irrevocable severance of our emotional and familial relationship.

  “You need to remember your place,” she accused. “A few weeks of leniency and you forget your purpose.”

  “My purpose?” I gaped, pressing my palm to my chest, searching for my beating heart to confirm this wasn’t just some vivid nightmare. “Did you even hear what he said? He talked about me like I was an accessory. I’m not his property.”

  She let out a harsh laugh that chilled me right to my bones. “You stupid girl. You are whatever I tell you to be.”

  I reeled.

  She turned to my father and accused, “You never should’ve let her see Laurel. It was a mistake from the start. Look what’s happened.” Her eyes returned to mine.

  “Enough.” My father’s domineering tone broke through my mother’s hysterics like it always did. “Julia, you will go back inside and be the perfect hostess and partner for Mr. Couronne. I don’t care what you’ve forgotten or decided to ignore, you’ll go back in there and remember your purpose.”

  I was drowning in a sea of glass, gasping in broken shards of my home and family that sliced through my insides with every straining breath.

  “My purpose has never been much of anything,” I shot back, not giving my father a chance to respond. “You can do whatever you want with Mr. Couronne, but I can tell you right now my place will never be alongside him as his partner. My place will never be a part of Rock Beach.”

  “You don’t have a choice, Julia,” my father informed me bluntly, his voice lowering viciously. “And you won’t be running this business as his partner, you’ll be doing it as his wife.”

  I flinched back as though I’d been hit again. “W-What?”

  My mother stepped toward me, threateningly. “You heard your father. This investment comes with a tax. You.” She shrugged and sighed. “I was hoping you could reach that conclusion on your own since Mr. Couronne is a gentleman—and a good-looking one at that. But it seems that bump to your head has done irreparable damage.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Is this a joke? I’m not… I’m not going to marry him,” I choked. “And you certainly can’t make me.”

  What world were they living in that they thought they could just arrange my marriage?

  Distantly, the answer echoed in the back of my mind that it was the same world they’d been living in this whole time—the world where they’d controlled everything about my life.

  “Is this how you treat us? After everything that we’ve done for you? Everything that we’ve given you?” she spat. “A life of luxury in exchange for one simple task, Julia—to do what is necessary for this business.” Her arms folded matter-of-factly over her chest. “And that means marrying Mr. Couronne.”

  “I can’t, Mama,” I stated, standing tall. “I can’t do this anymore. I won’t.”

  The river had run its course. Time had made it smooth down the jagged bed it flowed over, wearing through the restraints that confined it. Perseverance. It was a slow process, but one that was unmistakable and irreversible. Now, I saw the two distinct shores on either side of my life and realized there would be no bridging them.

  “And what are you going to do?” she scoffed incredulously. “What other options do you have for your life, Julia? Let me tell you—None. You have no education, no skills, no friends, no connections… you have nothing outside of these walls—outside of what we have given you,” she informed me with a sneer. “You have no options because this is what you were raised to do, this is the only choice you have.”

  “You’re wrong. You don’t know me anymore.” I shook my head, looking between them. “Not only do I have another plan for my life, I also have people in it who will support me and my dreams. But more than all of that, Mama, the most important decision I have in life is who I love, and I can assure you, it will never be Mr. Couronne.”

  I’d defied her. For what felt like the first measurable time in my entire life, I’d stood up against the woman I’d grown up doing anything to please and told her she wouldn’t get any more of my life for her own purposes.

  “Oh, please. You can’t be serious about the carpenter,” she replied dismissively, waving away the idea like it was a piece of dirt. “He’s a carpenter, Julia. You want to give up all this for that oaf?” She laughed.

  I reeled.

  Not when she insulted me, not when she hit me, not even when she thought she still had the right to speak for my life and my future had I been more enraged than this moment, when she’d insulted him.

  The man who had more character and honor in the smallest piece of him than she could ever fit inside of her palace.

  “His name is Mick, and he’s not a fraud like everyone inside that room,” I said through clenched teeth, my body vibrating anger. “He’s not like the crystal and the paintings and the silverware and the fancy clothes… he’s real. He’s never had to pretend to be richer or more powerful or more influential because who he is, is enough.”

  I was yelling. I didn’t know the last time I yelled—the last time I got angry. The last time I fought for something I believed in.

  “He saved me that night,” I charged. “Does that even matter to you? He’s the one who saved my life. And since then, he’s encouraged my strength, he’s cheered me to find my own voice, and he’s shown me more love and support than all the luxury you’ve insisted those were interchangeable with.”

  “Now, Julia,” my father broke in, his face red and flushed with barely restrained rage. “You are the future of all this. You will not walk away from it—from everything. If you don’t do this, the deal with Crown Enterprises falls through. The money is gone. And all of this. Is that what you want to have on your conscience?”

  My shoulders slumped. Whatever trouble the resort was having, Dominic Couronne was the answer, and I was his prize; I was the sacrificial lamb sacrificed in order to remedy the sins of my parents.

  My chest caved in on itself like my ribs were made of sand against desolation’s angry wave. There was no hope for this… for us. Like a mirror that had shattered into a million pieces on the floor, there was no way to repair my family.

  “It’s not what you have that matters, but who you are and wh
ere your heart is,” I reminded calmly as my shoulders softened.

  “He has nothing—he is nothing!” my mother shrieked, stepping up to me and grabbing my shoulders, her nails digging into my skin as she shook me. “For the love of Christ. He. Is. A . Carpenter.”

  She swore like she didn’t go to church every Sunday, though, like everything else, that, too, was just for show.

  “Mick is just a carpenter,” I agreed, my voice steeling like armor around me, and continued, repeating her words, “But, for the love of Christ, so was Jesus.”

  I met her eyes for one more moment, watching her mouth fall in complete horror before I wrenched my shoulders free from her grasp, grabbed my dress and fled for the side exit of the balcony.

  I took myself out of the fight because sometimes, exiting a battle that is beneath you speaks louder than arguing to prove your worth to someone who would never see it.

  My dress swirled behind me in the breeze as I left my parents standing on the terrace.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Julia?” my mom yelled after me. “Richard, call security!”

  I wasn’t sure what to expect. My mother had just struck me. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to have security lock me in my room until I agreed to what they wanted like this was some Medieval monarchy.

  But then I heard my father’s voice, driving home the last nail in this crystal coffin.

  “Let her go, Jacqueline. She has nothing outside of this place. It won’t take her long to realize that and come crawling back.”

  My heartbeats fractured over the harsh words and even crueler opinion of their own daughter.

  Tears leaked down both my cheeks as my feet moved swiftly across the back lawn, carrying me without a second thought to the maintenance truck.

  That was the worst of it all, I realized. Knowing my parents thought so little of me, so little of my ability to stand up for myself, they didn’t even think it worth the effort to try to stop me from running. They truly believed I was so helpless, so voiceless, so bespoken by this life, that I would have no choice but to return to its chains and call them comforting.

  My vision blurred to the point of danger as I folded my dress onto my lap, grateful even more so now for the flats I’d chosen to wear, and cranked on the ignition. The lights from the resort, aggrandized by the wintery decorations blurred in my periphery as I pulled down the drive.

  I was Cinderella, fleeing my ball in a pickup rather than a pumpkin. Except I wasn’t leaving behind a glass slipper and shattered hopes, rather, I left in my wake a glass house, cracked with lies and broken promises, and a fractured heart.

  Mick’s phone rang through to voicemail.

  I tried to keep my voice steady but it ebbed right along with the waves, thick and subtle, as I assured him I was okay, but that something had happened with my parents and I was going to stay with either Laurel or Gwen for the night.

  Neither of them knew that yet but calling them was my next step.

  And I was only capable of taking this one step at a time.

  And then I apologized because he’d planned something special for us tomorrow morning—Christmas Eve. Another surprise he wanted to give me before the holiday. And now, it didn’t look like that was going to happen. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to see him before he flew out to Aspen to spend Christmas with his family.

  Clutching my flats in one hand, I stepped closer to the water’s edge, forcing tomorrow’s worries to wait until tomorrow.

  I’d parked in the lot of Mick and Gwen’s apartment building—I’d driven without thought to where I was going and ended up there. But I wouldn’t just show up at his door, so I’d crossed the street onto the beach instead.

  I was going to need someone… I was going to need help. But first, I needed a few moments to myself to grieve.

  The street lamps hardly provided any illumination this close to the water but some of the light managed to flicker off its surface as the waves rose and fell softly onto the sand.

  I took a deep breath of the salty air, holding it down deep in my lungs like my grandfather had taught me. Ocean air can cure anything. The scent made the tears that pooled on my lips and leaked onto my tongue taste even more poignant.

  Letting go of whatever anger remained, I stepped into the cold water and freed my shoulders to shake as I sobbed.

  I cried for the girl who’d given in and given up everything to make her parents happy, to repay their generosity and earn their love. I grieved for her because she thought it would be enough, and she’d been wrong.

  The water pushed against me, sticking my dress to my legs and floating the chiffon behind me, turning the fabric into faux fins. I loved the Little Mermaid growing up, maybe because I, too, had been the princess to give up her voice for the sake of love—love for my family, love for our legacy.

  I wept for the woman who’d stayed weak in order to keep those she loved strong. With good intentions, she’d made the wrong choice. And I grieved for the woman I was becoming because she knew there could be no more compromise, not when it came to loving herself and making her life her own.

  “Jules!”

  I turned, wiping my eyes to see Mick jogging across the beach toward me. He kicked off his shoes and splashed into the water without a second thought until he was next to me, the water up to our knees.

  “You alright?” Even though it was chilly out, his hands were warm as he cupped my face and tipped it up. His gaze scanned over me and even in the dark, I knew he could see just how broken I was right now. “I got your voicemail and when I called back, you didn’t answer. So, I tried Laurel and Gwen, but they hadn’t heard from you either.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, shaking my head. I wasn’t trying to worry him.

  “Don’t apologize, darlin’.” He let out a long breath and dropped his forehead to mine. “Don’t apologize for doin’ what you need to do, just don’t scare me like that. I thought…”

  I nodded because he didn’t need to finish for me to know what he was going to say.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Was goin’ to drive up to Rock Beach and look for you,” he murmured as he kissed my forehead. “But then I saw the truck in the lot and thought I heard the ocean in the background of your message, so I came down here.” His thumbs rubbed softly over my cheeks, and I hoped the darkness hid at least some of how red and swollen they were. “Are you alright?”

  I took a deep breath as “No” came out on a sigh. “But I will be.”

  I stared at his chest as the ocean and my emotions swayed me toward him, toward his comfort and strength.

  “You don’t have to tell me, Jules,” he said softly, sliding his arms down to wrap me in his embrace. “I’ll be here for you regardless… just needed to know you’re alright.”

  My hands curled into his shirt, holding on to him tightly though it made hardly any measurable difference when I was engulfed by the thick steel of his arms.

  I wasn’t expecting the words to come, but I found myself needing to say them, needing to speak up even if it was to only be heard.

  “I left Rock Beach. I left my parents. I left it all.” I shuddered against him, loving even more how his arms pulled me closer, like he could pull me inside of him to protect me while I hurt and while I healed. “I thought they were bringing in a partner hoping they could see my heart wasn’t in it—wasn’t in running the business. It turns out they brought in a partner because they need him and his money, and to secure the deal, they promised him me.”

  His body went rigid, like fire turned to stone.

  I wasn’t just telling him what happened, I unloaded the events like they were rocks strapped to my chest, able to drown me if I dwelled on them. Instead, I threw them off, one by one, leaving the cold, heartless weights in my wake.

  “She hit me… my mother hit me.”

  “What? Are you—” His whole body shook as he swallowed down the force of his curse. I’d never seen such exertion of his
strength than when he restrained himself around me.

  I knew how hard this was for him. After what happened with Riggs, it couldn’t be easy to hear that someone else laid a hand on me, and he hadn’t been able to stop it.

  “I walked out of the ball because I couldn’t take it anymore—the shallowness of it all—and she smacked me.” I leaned into him, flattening my front to his; the heat trapped between us making it hard to notice the cold water around my legs.

  “Jules…” His gaze searched mine, sincerity and the willingness to sacrifice himself for me bleeding from their depths.

  “And then, her and my father told me I needed to marry their new business partner because it was my duty.” I laughed bitterly. “Like my life, my love, was nothing but a servant to their needs.”

  “I’m so sorry, darlin’,” he apologized, his jaw vibrating with tension between each word.

  “I’m not,” I said thickly. “I let it get to this point… I let it go too far.”

  “Dammit,” he growled, spearing one hand through my hair to angle my head and gaze up to his. “Don’t say that, Jules. You were just a kid, and they’re your parents. Of course, you wanted to make them happy. This isn’t your fault, and you shouldn’t be apologizin’ for people who kept you silent when they should’ve been encouragin’ you to speak your mind.”

  “I’m not apologizing for them,” I admitted. “I’m apologizing to my past self. The girl I left behind tonight. The one I never spoke up for.” I shuddered again. “I have to admit the role my silence played, Mick. How can I move forward—be better—if I’m not honest about what brought me here?”

  He grumbled. “As long as they aren’t the victims in your mind. They don’t deserve your sympathy, darlin’.”

  He was right; they didn’t.

  That was the thing about Mick Madison, he could be firm without muffling my thoughts, he could be strong for me without diminishing my strength, and he would hold me when I felt weak without using it to his advantage.

  My parents… their success always came with a cost of taking someone else down. And in the end, that person had been me.