Page 89 of Wicked Games

“What would you do if I emptied out my email?” Seth asks, sitting next to me and tenderly brushing his finger over my bruised cheek.

Shrugging, I say, “Read, answer email too, maybe write a new blog post if I’m feeling something I want to publish. Evenings were lonely when I first moved here. There’s something about the day turning to night that’s unsettling when you’re alone.”

“I understand. I felt that too, when Brooke left and I was stumbling around in our house by myself. You don’t mind that I’m here? I can go and pick you up for the funeral.”

I crawl into his lap and straddle his thighs, and he holds my left hand and turns the ring around my finger. I never moved it back to my right hand. “You don’t need to leave.” I pause. “Bill says I’m your rebound girl.”

The skin around his eyes crinkles, and a smile tugs at his lips. “Does that make me your rebound guy? Because if I am, I have just as much to worry about as you.”

“Do you think we’re moving too fast? Should we slow down after Brooke’s funeral? Take a break?”

“Is that what you want?” The amusement on his face turns into tension. “Because if it really is, wait until we figure out what the fuck is going on. I’d go crazy not seeing you, wondering if you were okay. Hattie might have been involved in whatever Brooke was doing, but Vale targeted her for my money. This is my problem, sweetheart, and you’ve been caught up in it long enough. You almost died, and that’s not something I’m ever going to be able to forget.”

“It’s not what I want,” I whisper.

“Good. But I have a question for you then.”

“What is it?”

He holds my hand up. “Does this mean we’re engaged?”

Pushing back a smile, I say, “Seeing as how you don’t seem to mind, I guess we are.”

“Okay. Then taking a break sounds like we’d be headed in the wrong direction, but I’m glad we can talk about it. Always come to me if you’re having doubts. If you read something online or hear gossip and you need me to explain something. People talk about me and they’ll talk about you. It’s how it’s going to be, and there’s not a lot I can do. It will be us against the world, and I want you to understand that deep down. It's us against them. Brooke brought it into our house and into our family. Please don’t do that.”

He's so serious, maybe because he told that to Brooke too, and she didn’t believe it. Being married to Seth will be a different experience, the photographers and the bloggers and reporters like Hattie, who want to splash people’s secrets all over the place. I’m already used to my secrets being out in the wild, simply because I put them there. I have to remember that at the end of the day, when we met, we both knew in that split second it was meant to be and our secrets didn’t have anything to do with it.

“Seth, I write a lot about my life, and a while back I was thinking, what would I write about if I was happy? The question surprised me because while I was married to Darren, I never considered myself unhappy, until one day I realized I was. Our divorce and Hattie’s death piled on top of it, but all that’s slowly going away. I’ll always miss her, and my marriage, no matter how or why it ended, will always be a part of me. But those things will fade, and it will be us, in our marriage and in our life, and I’ll have to think about where my career is going to go. You just said people talk about you, and I don’t want to add to it. I started a different kind of project while I was in Lakehaven Falls. I don’t know if it’s something I should be writing, or if I can find an agent to even sell it. I guess my point is, I can’t write about being unhappy because I’m not unhappy anymore.”

He looks away and swallows, and when he turns back to me, his eyes are wet. “I’ll support whatever you want to do. I don’t know much about publishing books, but I’m going to assume that if you wrote about Hattie’s involvement in Theo’s kidnapping, her death, and your divorce and meeting me, that would sell for a lot of money. Anything that’s ever been written about me or Violet has been unauthorized because we haven’t given anyone our permission, but if you want to write it, write it. As closure or a way to get past it. We know Vale’s behind all of this, and once LaSalle can prove it and he’s arrested, it will be a big fat cherry on top. I just want you to be happy, sweetheart. That’s it.”

Maybe his words don’t ease all my worries about what I’ll do once Rowan’s in prison and our lives can go back to normal, but I can take his suggestion and write a book to honor Hattie’s and Theo’s memories and I can finish my fiction novel and then go from there. I don’t have to stop writing if I don’t want to, only what I write about will change.

I blow out a breath. “We have time to figure that out. For now, why don’t you take me to bed?”

“Do you feel up to that?”

“Be gentle with me tonight?”

Brushing a kiss over my lips, he says, “Yeah. I love you, Avery. My rebound girl.”

I laugh. “I love you too. Darren might have traded me in for a newer model, but so did I, and I got a pretty good deal.”

Seth stands, holding me in his arms, and I wrap my legs around his waist. “Damaged and all, huh?”

“There’s a sincerity and an honesty in being damaged. We saw that in each other, and it’s why we fit. We wouldn’t be together if we’d been any other way. Show me your scars, Seth, and I’ll show you mine.”

He carries me to the bedroom, and in the fading sunlight between kisses and promises, he does.

Our damage might have been what drew us together, but it’ll be our damage that will keep us that way.

I wake up in the middle of the night, sweat drenching my skin. My stomach heaves and I rush to the bathroom.

Seth’s kneeling near me in the next minute, holding my hair. Gasping, I struggle to breathe.

“What is it, baby?” he asks.

“Nightmare,” I rasp, my throat raw. “I was trapped at the bottom of the lake, and I was gagging on water. No matter how much I struggled, I couldn’t get loose.”