Tough Enough (Tall, Dark, and Dangerous #2)(50)

I can still feel the fear. I can still smell the alcohol. I can still hear the whoosh of flames erupting all around me.

“He threw the match through my window before I could roll it up completely. It landed right in my lap. Everything around me went up in flames. It melted most of the hair on my left side. Gave me third-degree burns on my neck and the top of my shoulder. Second-degree burns down my side and on my leg. All the places you saw. That was the end of my acting career.” Even thinking back to that time of my life produces a crushing weight in my chest. “I guess my parents were right after all. And that’s not even the worst part.”

“How can it be worse?” he asks, his voice a coarse, husky croak.

“My parents were notified. They’d been on their way home from church that Wednesday night. They didn’t even go home. They drove straight up to New York.” I stop to meet Rogan’s eyes for the first time, but I can’t stand what I see there—a reflection of my own pain—so I look away before I finish. “They were both killed in a car accident on the way. I never even got to tell them I was sorry.”

My throat is tight with controlled emotion. I haven’t talked to anyone about this in years. It was easier than I thought it would be, but still not easy by any far stretch of the imagination. I lost everything that night, everything that ever meant something to me.

Rogan says nothing. And that’s good because there’s really nothing to say. I’ve heard all the platitudes from my friends and friends of the family. Yet another reason I moved to the middle of nowhere. I needed to be someone no one knew. I needed to be someone other than this poor girl who’d had such a tragic life. I had to be someone other than the girl who everyone pitied. But I also needed to get away from Calvin. Permanently.

After a length of silence, I glance up at Rogan, trying my best to smile. “I was in a medically induced coma for three days and in the hospital for twenty-four more. I had surgeries following that. Skin grafts for some of the worst places. But as you can see, there’s no covering something like that except with clothes.”

“Katie, I’m so—”

“Please don’t,” I plead. I can’t take his sympathy right now. It would crush me.

He waits a few seconds before he asks, “What happened to the guy?”

“Since I was in such bad shape right after, the police ruled it an accident. Found a broken liquor bottle on the floorboard and two full bottles in the passenger seat. Calvin planned it well, made it look like I was heading out to a party or something. The friend that I was staying with had no idea what happened, of course. Turns out the police were going to charge me. I couldn’t believe it. Until I found out why they hadn’t. When I met with the cop who investigated it, he mentioned that my boyfriend’s father had cleared things up for me and that I’d better be thankful that I ‘had connections, young lady,’” I mimic, using my best deep, cop voice. “The whole thing was ridiculous. I knew right then that there would be no point in trying to tell them what really happened. Calvin was protected. When your father is a wealthy, influential politician . . . Well, you know how that goes. I just got tangled up with the wrong guy all the way around.”

“So that’s it? No justice? That bastard just got off scot-free?” His tone has a hard edge.

I shrug. The ending to my story is far from perfect, far from even satisfactory, but I came to terms with the unfairness of life a long time ago.

“Some people have a get-out-of-jail-free card.”

There’s a pause during which I can hear Rogan’s controlled breathing. I know he has something to say and I appreciate that he’s not saying it. It won’t help anything to be angry. It didn’t help me at all.

“At least now I understand,” Rogan finally says, his voice quiet as he sits up and reaches forward to stroke my cheek with his fingertips.

“Understand what?”

“Understand why you push people away.”

“Most people don’t. They don’t get it. But it doesn’t matter. This keeps me safe. Keeps me from getting hurt.”

“I hope you know that I would never hurt you.”

My grin is lopsided and humorless. “That’s what they all say.”

“Only I mean it.”

“I think Calvin did, too. In his own twisted way. He just wanted something of his own, something no one could take away from him. And that thing was me.”

“I don’t care what he wanted. There’s never a good enough reason for a man to hurt a woman like that. Never.”

“I had to stop thinking that way a long time ago,” I say, pulling Rogan’s hand away from my face. I can’t lean on him right now. I can’t accept his strength. I need to be able to relive this and be at peace with it on my own. “I carried a combination of fear and anger and horrible grief with me for two years afterward. My family was dead, my dreams were dead. My present, my future, my hope—everything was gone. I had nothing. Thankfully one of my professors came to visit me at the hospital. She thought maybe one day I’d change my mind about acting. She thought I should at least keep my foot in the door, so she gave me the number of Sebastian, a man she knew in the makeup business. I’m glad she came, because without her and Sebastian, I’d have had no future.

“So, almost a year after the fire, after rehab and all the surgeries, when I felt and looked almost human again, I called Sebastian. He said my professor had talked me up and that he’d take me on as his apprentice, but only if I could show promise. He flew me out to California for what amounted to an audition. Turns out I had a knack for making ugly things pretty and beautiful things more so. I worked with him for a year and a half before I got the job here with the studio. I moved to Enchantment right away and haven’t looked back since. Until now.”