Thorne Princess(77)

“Tell me everything,” he said, his voice neither soft nor heartless. “Right from the beginning.”

Rehashing my weakest moments wasn’t a lifelong dream of mine, but he’d just gone to bat for me, so I took a deep breath.

“The first time, I was fourteen. I was back from summer camp, only for a few days. My parents wanted to take me to the ballet with them. I preferred to stick around with Hera and Craig. See, becoming friends with my sister was an obsession for me. I wanted her to accept me. But she had other plans. She decided to go out with some friends and asked Craig to keep an eye on me…”

“I’m not staying here, Craig. But someone needs to keep an eye on Hallie, she’s still young. Take a bullet for me, will ya?”

“Yeah, yeah, babe. Sure thing.”

“Keep an eye on her, Craig. Fourteen is still young, all right?”

“And he took liberties,” Ransom finished my sentence, piercing through the painful memory.

I nodded, licking my lips. “Craig had always been so nice and sweet to me. He helped me out with my summer homework and played ball with me in the backyard. We ordered food and played Monopoly.

“Up until then, it was all okay. Ordinary. Craig let me win, I remembered. When we were done playing, Hera still wasn’t home. Craig promised he’d speak to her when she came back. Tell her to make an effort, spend more time with me. He escorted me back to my room, then told me that Hera was being really mean to him, too, sometimes. I was so mad at her for ditching me, my loyalty immediately shifted to him. I rolled with it when he dissed her. He said she was cold and unkind to him, and that she didn’t even let him kiss her. He asked if he could touch me. Like, a simple touch. Just touch my leg or whatever.” I shook my head, remembering every moment of it, every small smile, every gesture. “I was na?ve, and young, and worst of all—grateful. I said yes. I consented to it.”

“You consented to nothing.” Ransom closed his eyes, pressing his forehead to the side of the window. “You were fourteen, he was twenty-two. He was a manipulating piece of shit. What happened next?”

“He just touched my legs. But he touched himself, too, in the process. And that…I hadn’t agreed to that. I couldn’t see what he was doing. It was dark. But I knew it was wrong, and I knew we’d both get in trouble for it if people found out.”

“Then what?”

“He finished, I guess.” I buried my face in my hands, shaking my head. “Went to the bathroom, came back after a few minutes. I was sick with shame and worry. I told him I was gonna tell my parents. He said, ‘You agreed to this. All they’re going to think is that you’re a slut on top of being stupid.’ I believed him. At this point, I knew my parents were making excuses for me. And realistically, I wasn’t going to see Craig much. I had kept hoping he and Hera would break up and I wouldn’t have to deal with him again. But that wasn’t how things panned out.”

“And your parents never suspected?”

“My relationship with my parents is…complex. We both work hard at pretending nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re both doing a shit job at it. What about the other times?” Ransom asked.

I rubbed at my right eyebrow. “Then it happened during a family vacation in Cabo—Craig got really drunk and knocked on my suite’s door to apologize. Said it had been eating at him. When I tried to push the door closed, he barged in and did it all over again.”

I heard Ransom suck in a breath, but didn’t dare look at him.

“Yeah.” I sighed. “That time, though, I managed to knee him in the balls. So that bought me a few years of peace and quiet.”

“Third time?” he asked.

“Two years ago. Thanksgiving.”

“And you never told anyone?” There was no judgment in his voice.

I swallowed the acidic saliva pooling in my mouth. “The more time that passed, the larger the secret became, and revealing it after all those years felt…weird. Like they would suspect me. Why hadn’t I come to them after the first time? You always see it in comments on the internet when someone tells their abuse story. When Hera and Craig got engaged, for instance, the tabloids claimed I was extremely jealous of her. It’d have been the perfect time to come clean…if it wasn’t for the terrible motive the press would have slapped on this kind of move.”

“Bet you my dick Craig himself planted the idea that you were jealous,” Ransom said.

I scratched my cheek. “Probably. He loves the media attention.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “The first time I saw you…you thought…”

“Yeah.” I stood up swiftly, collecting my purse. “I thought you came for me. I was ready to kill you if you tried something. What happened with Craig…it really screwed me up.”

“Did anyone ever suspect? A friend? A teacher? A boyfriend?”

“No one.” I wrinkled my nose. “All my L.A. friends, even Keller, are just skin deep. It didn’t seem right. And I didn’t trust anyone else. As for boyfriends…” I sucked in a breath. “I’ve never had one.”

“Never had what?”

“A boyfriend.”

Ransom gave me a GTFO look. “Bullshit.”

I shrugged, smiling miserably.