I watched him come to me, my heart beginning to beat harder and my feet no longer not moving because I was trying to be cool but because I was frozen solid with shock. He came to a halt one foot from me so I tipped my head back to look at him.
He lifted a hand, pulled the wineglass from mine and set it on the counter with an alarming-sounding clink.
I looked at the glass in a vague effort to ascertain that it wasn’t broken then I tilted my head back to look back at him, mouth open but I didn’t say a word.
He did.
“He touched you.”
I blinked because I didn’t understand his words.
“What?”
“He touched you,” Chace repeated.
“Who?” I asked.
“My father. He wasn’t only in your presence, you, my Faye, mine, cute and clean and sweet, he touched you. Took your hand, held it,” he stopped speaking abruptly, sucked breath in through his nose then bit out, “Put his mouth on you.”
Okay, now, what on earth?
“So?” I asked quietly when he said no more.
“He likes kink.”
I blinked again because these words were unexpected and also I didn’t know what they meant.
“What?”
“Kink,” he ground out then, “Sex, darlin’, can get adventurous and you don’t carry on with this bullshit play you got goin’ on, we’ll have time, I’ll show you how and we’ll explore that in good ways that we both like. But it can also get weird. To each their own. I don’t give a f**k what someone does to get off. What I do not need to know is that my Dad likes it weird and when I say weird I mean sick-fuck, turn your stomach,” he leaned into me for emphasis even though he put undeniable verbal emphasis on his final word, “weird.”
I didn’t want to know this. I didn’t want him to know this. I didn’t know why he was sharing this. And I didn’t want to know how he knew this.
But he told me.
“Misty and a girlfriend took an assignment from Arnie Fuller and they did that shit to my Dad. They also taped it. They also blackmailed him with it. And I’ve seen that tape.”
My mouth dropped open as my stomach clenched and bile filled my throat.
I closed my mouth to swallow it down.
Chace’s eyes moved over my face and when they locked on mine, he whispered, “Yeah. That unpleasant enough for you, Faye?”
It definitely was.
“I –” I started.
“Gets worse,” he cut me off and I blinked again.
Worse?
How could that possibly get worse?
Chace told me.
“Her play, soon’s you get over the shock of learning that jacked up shit, you’d figure out. But still, I’ll tell you. She used that tape to get money from my Dad. Arnie used it to get my Dad under his thumb and Misty used it more to get my ring on her finger. They played that tape for me and told me the way. Either I marry Misty and tow the dirty cop line or my Mom sees that tape. So I wind up with a f**kin’ wife who did my Dad dirty in more than one way. I got that shit burned in my brain and her slut ass sleepin’ in my f**kin’ bed. Top that, through that shit, I know what they’re doin’ to Ty, I know why and I can’t do one f**kin’ thing to stop it or my Mom pays. In the end for all I know, I got no shot at anything, Misty doesn’t let me go or shit doesn’t get cleaned up. No future. No family. No you. Nothin’ that I wanted, wanted all my life, important things like a woman I loved in my bed and kids we made under the roof I provided by doin’ good work I was proud of. Just a bitch in my bed and a Dad who cheats on my Mom and how he cheats a memory I will never, ever erase.”
Oh my fraking God.