Page 95 of Before Eve

“No, and I don’t plan on it. I’ll be okay. What can Grayson do to me?”

My childhood strobes through my head in these flashes of horror. Noah Riley does too. Flight or fight. It’s time I fight.

“Also, and I debated if I should tell you this, but Dad told me that Grayson has begun dating a widow who has a young daughter. I don’t know anything about them, but it’s very timely given this whole presidential thing.”

“I’m coming home.”

“I told you, as long as the focus is on me, I truly don’t believe he knows where you’re at.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m coming home.” I click off, not giving her a chance to argue.

Someone knocks on my door, and I spin around. “Open up, Eve. It’s West.”

I can’t move. I’m frozen.

“I know you’re in there.” He knocks on the door again.

Still, I don’t move.

“Laura Kader.”

Slowly, I cross the carpet to the door, swivel the handle down, and open it. West stands there with an expression full of confusion and loss. He steps into my room, and I back away.

“When you said the names Grayson and Laura Kader, I purposefully did not research either one or the connection between the two. I wanted to respect whatever you had to tell me. Or maybe I didn’t want to know. Either way, Ms. Kelly met me at the airport.” He places an envelope onto the bed.

I give it an uneasy glance. “What’s that?”

“A press release that’s scheduled to go out tomorrow courtesy of your father, to be shredded if and only if you return home.”

I don’t breathe. Grayson knows where I am. He’s probably known all along. What a fool I am. I should have paid attention to my gut and ran.

West barely gets the next words out. “You’re…you’re only sixteen. And a runaway.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, weighed down with my deception and betrayal.

He shakes his head, looking so bewildered it nearly undoes me.

I reach for him, my hands shaking. “Please don’t—”

“Please don’t what? Be nice to you? Be understanding?” His voice cracks. “Fallfor you? Take you home to meet my family?Tell you I loveyou? Why didn’t you just tell me? We could have figured this out.”

“I’m sorry. I—”

“Rape,” he says.

Tears blur my vision, and I search his features imploringly. “What?”

“Your father has accused me of statutory rape.”

“Oh my God.” Horror twists my guts. “He can’t do that. Can he?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just the accusation itself is enough to ruin me. But that’s not all.” He picks the envelope back up and takes out several pieces of paper that he hands to me. “Read the press release.”

In a detached haze, I read the words: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

I skip over the paragraphs flipping to the back where there are several photos of me, sure, but also of West partying withalcohol and girls. The pictures do not paint him in a good light. There’s even a recent one of me dancing with Anne taken the night Toby grabbed me and I freaked. I look wasted.

I go back to the first photo of me taken when I was six years old. The girl stares back at me through sad, blue eyes. Her long, blond hair is parted down the middle and brushed straight to hang behind her shoulders and down her back. She wears a knee-length yellow dress with white ankle socks. Her face holds a stoic expression as if she’s never seen happiness in her life. I glance at the other pictures of me at various ages, void and hazed in a brainwashed gloss.