She shrugged. “You know how they are, Cole. You better than anyone know how set they are in their opinions. The first time they ever saw my tattoo I thought my mom was going to blow a gasket. She actually called and made an appointment to have it removed.”
“Still, that couldn’t have been easy for you even knowing or expecting their condemnation,” he said quietly.
She went silent for a moment. “No, it wasn’t. At first I thought I’d just give them some time. Make a clean break. Let emotions die down and then I’d contact them again.”
“Did you?”
“No. I got out to L.A. and I could use the excuse that I was busy or that I was involved with my own life, but the simple truth is I was scared—I’m still scared—that if I contact them again or actually go see them, that I’ll get that door slammed in my face and I’m not sure I could handle that. Thinking or assuming that it’ll happen is far different from the cold reality of seeing it.”
“I understand,” Cole said. “Still, maybe …”
She nodded. “Yeah, I know. I keep saying maybe. Maybe one day. Perhaps one day I will. But then I got involved with Grant and maybe in the back of my mind I thought that they were right about me because I was so miserable with him and nothing was right about my relationship with him. I just couldn’t face their judgment because a small part of me wondered if they’d been right about me all along and I had sprung from some mutant gene pool.”
Cole scowled, feeling the hot edge of anger tear through him. “And do you still feel that way?”
“No. It’s the way I felt then, but you have to understand I was a wreck and I over-dramatized everything. So to get back to the point of all this, Grant wanted to go out to Vegas for a weekend. I didn’t really want to go anywhere with him but I was still clinging to the idea that I owed him my loyalty and my obedience. I was stupid, but there you have it. I went and it was the worst weekend of my life.”
Cole’s eyebrow went up. He wanted to press. He wanted to know in exacting detail precisely what happened and he didn’t want anything left out. Lucas had covered part of it, but it had been vague. Ren had hinted at the things that Grant had done but Cole wanted hard facts because then he wanted to go kick the ever-loving shit out of the asshole.
“What did he do to you, Ren,” he asked softly.
They were interrupted by the waiter bringing their food. Ren looked relieved, but Cole wasn’t going to let it drop. He was a patient man, and this was key information.
He waited until she’d received her food and the waiter disappeared.
“Ren?” he prompted.
She set her fork down and her lips turned down into an unhappy moue. “This is so embarrassing. It sounds like something out of a frat party instead of a thirty-something man with a reasonable amount of intelligence.”
Cole pursed his lips. “I’d say you’re being generous on the intelligence factor, but continue.”
“He wanted to demonstrate his authority over me in a very public way. He was cruel and he humiliated me at every turn. If that wasn’t enough, he also wanted to have a veritable orgy in his hotel room. An orgy he wanted me to participate in. I’m as kinky as the next person but my tastes just don’t run to women. He fucked their brains out but I had no desire to join in. All the while he taunted me with how much of a woman they were and how much better they were at following instructions, blah blah. Well duh, he was paying them a hell of a lot of money.”
“Son of a bitch,” Cole bit out. “Did he hurt you, Ren? Physically, I mean?”
She shook her head. “I can take care of myself, though that’s probably hard for you to believe. I was appalled at myself for putting up with his shit for as long as I did. I don’t even know why I did. He was there, he was comfortable—for a while—and I didn’t feel quite so alone when I was with him. At first anyway. After a while I think I felt even lonelier when I was with him simply because I knew the relationship was a disaster.”
She waved her hand again and shook her head. “Anyway, to make a long story short, I packed my shit and got my own hotel room. The next night I went to a club because I love music and I love to dance and I just wanted to lose myself for a while. I didn’t want to have to think or feel. The very last thing I wanted was to hook up with another guy, but I met Lucas and I’m still not sure what happened exactly. He took me home with him and I’ve been with him ever since.”
There was a hell of a lot she was glossing over. He let her eat and he concentrated on his own food for a while before he gently turned the conversation back to Lucas.
