why I say it. I’m not sure if I’m protecting myself or him.
“You can tell yourself that all you want, but you know the truth as well as I do.”
I look at him with defiance. “Yeah? What’s that?”
“You’re mine.”
“You’re crazy,” I toss back.
“You need to open your eyes. This is not over.”
I grab my purse in a hurry to get out of here.
“I’m leaving.”
“No.”
“I heard you out. That’s what you wanted, and I gave you that.”
“Tori.”
“I need to think. I need to get out of here. I need to call Ivy and make sure my office and spa are okay. I have to make sure that everyone knows it’s over, Eric. I can’t just sit here.”
“You’re running.”
“Yes, I’m fucking running. Can you blame me?”
“Don’t do it. You’re lying to yourself if you think you can just walk away from me.”
“It’s what I do. I’m a fucking liar, right?” I don’t wait around to hear his response; I stayed longer than I should have. I stop and turn when I hear a loud crash come from Nathan, Eric’s apartment. I consider going back to make sure he’s okay, but I don’t, I keep moving down the stairs and outside of the building. I hail a cab, get in, and give him my address. Only then do I open my hand to look at the jump drive he gave back to me. Why? Why would he go through all that trouble and put himself in danger to help me? Could he really love me? It shouldn’t really matter because there are too many reasons why he and I would never work. I put the flash drive in my purse and think about all the ways that I can destroy it, make it so that it doesn’t exist, and I’m thankful that I took the time months ago to destroy every paper file that I owned and transfer it to this drive. I’m thankful that it was Nathan who took it and gave it back to me. He really did just save my ass, and I’m not sure what to think about that.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I cannot believe you actually left with that man,” I hear my father say before I see him as I walk back into my apartment, or what’s left of it. Destroyed comes to mind. Now I understand why everyone who works down in the lobby just looked at me as if I were a serial killer.
“That man just kept your daughter from doing the next ten to fifteen behind bars.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” he yells, actually yells at me. I don’t think I’ve really heard him yell in years.
“Can you calm down, please? You’re going to have a heart attack.”
“No. I will not calm the fuck down.”
I raise my hands up in surrender.
“It means he just handed me the evidence that could have put me away, Dad,” I tell him with a sigh, feeling even more exhausted now. I pull the flash drive out of my purse, walk it over to the fireplace, and throw it in, taking one last look at it before lighting it on fire. It’s over, I think to myself before turning around to talk to my father.
“What did you do? You need to make me understand because I’m going crazy here thinking about what you’ve been accused of. There has to be some kind of mistake here, right?”
He looks at me with his parental gaze, and all of a sudden, I’m reverted back to a little girl, desperate for her father to love her, to give her all the things that her mother didn’t. He never failed me, not even once, but I’ve failed him, and it kills me.
There's banging on the door and I scream. I haven’t seen Mommy in so long; I haven’t seen anybody. All I’ve heard is the telephone ringing and ringing, but I’m not allowed to pick it up. There’s a loud crash, and I jump down from the bed and hide underneath. I’m trembling.
“Victoria,” I hear and start to cry.
“Daddy?”
“Victoria, where are you?”
“Daddy,” I call out so happy that he’s here, that he’s finally here for me. The bedroom door opens, and I crawl our from under the bed. Daddy grabs me and hugs me tight.
“Oh, baby, my baby, I was so scared.”
I hadn’t thought about that day in a long time. The day he found me and took me out of that fucking mess I was living in. I don’t remember much else, just him picking