Page 41 of From West, With Regret (NYC Billionaires #2)

TWENTY-SIX

LONDON

West slams on the brakes, and the tires screech against the road.

Tears are streaming down my cheeks, and my vision wobbles. My entire body is shaking.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t. Breathe .

My hands shake uncontrollably as I scramble to unbuckle my seat belt. After the third attempt, I finally break free and jump from the passenger seat.

My feet hit the road, and I stand in the middle of it, still holding onto West’s necklace as I look around.

We’re in the center of a neighborhood. Old, Victorian-style houses are situated along each side of the road, but it’s the sign in front of the one three houses down that caught my attention.

I know I’ve been here before. Since I was fourteen years old, I’ve never been certain of anything.

I couldn’t be. Memories are unreliable. Distorted. Fact turned to fiction.

But this. This place I know for certain holds the key. I feel it in my soul.

“London, wait,” West’s calls out for me, but my feet are already carrying me toward the house .

I jog down the road, my heels clicking against the pavement. I hear the pounding of West’s feet following me, and when I reach the abandoned house with the sign out front, a sob breaks free.

The scent of fresh pancakes, and the feel of West’s finger against my cheek. The plastic tablecloth, sticky with dried maple syrup. I reach out and run my shivering fingers across the faded paint.

Sunlight Foster Care

Albany, New York

Snapping my head to the right, I look up at the house.

Peeling gray and purple paint.

Broken windows.

A lawn that looks like it hasn’t been mowed in years. It’s completely abandoned.

West catches up to me. His leathery scent immediately surrounds me, pulling my attention away.

“London.” His voice is shaky, and when I turn to look at him, the memory of being at the kitchen table comes back to me.

“I remember,” I whisper, unsteadily. “The kitchen table. The first day I came to the house. We sat and ate blueberry pancakes, and you touched my cheek.”

“What?” His eyes widen, and his hand flies to his chest. Tears line his gorgeous blue eyes.

“You called me dimples,” I sob. “You said it was because they made your heart melt every time I smiled, and you’d never felt that before. I was twelve. You were fourteen.”

“London.” His voice strains, and he can’t breathe. “You remember me?”

“Yes,” I try to say but the word crumbles when it spills from my mouth.

“But…” The memories are still fragmented, coming to my mind in pieces.

A large chunk of the puzzle is coming together.

The happier parts. The ones where I knew I fell in lo ve with West. It was the innocent kind.

The kind where we never did anything but spend every possible minute together, holding each other’s hand.

We’d never kissed or done anything other than be each other’s best friend.

Even at twelve, I knew he was my soulmate.

“But what?” he asks, reaching out.

I take a step back, my body growing cold.

An older kid runs by as West presses his finger to my cheek. He tugs on my hair, laughing and taunting when he passes us. His cackling laughter sours my stomach.

I look up at the house again, then my attention moves to the dilapidated, detached garage beside it and the trees behind it.

I start walking. My feet carry me through the front yard, then to the side, where I find myself heading straight for the woods.

With every step I take, the less I smell the crisp, warm scent of West’s cologne, and the more I smell blood.

Blood and tears and dirt.

“London, wait!” West calls. “Don’t go back there.”

I’m breathing heavy. Every breath that passes through my lungs is painful. My feet are unsteady as I tread over the tree roots and dead leaves. Twigs snap under my weight. My ankle rolls, and I hiss, shoving aside the pain. I stop momentarily, willing the memory to keep playing out.

It’s dark and ugly and full of pain.

This isn’t like the memory I had out front. It’s taken a turn, and darkness edges my vision as I walk farther back until I spot the broken-down tree house. It’s nothing but a floor of planks, twenty feet above the ground, but it’s the backside of the tree that tugs on my chest.

“London,” West says, running up behind me. “Please, stop.”

I’m struggling to breathe as I round the large trunk. My fingers grip into the peeling, aging bark, and it crumbles under my touch.

So do I.

I fall to my knees and lean forward.

My hands press into the wet dirt, clutching onto the dead leaves as the memory slams into me at full force.

I feel his body on mine. The sickening sound of his zipper opening. The cold metal pressing against my throat. His dirty fingers pressed to my mouth.

“Make one peep out of that pretty little mouth, and I swear to God, I’ll slit your fucking throat right here.”

“No, stop,” I sob, crying out. Tears stream down my face, and everything hurts.

But it’s what I said back then, too, when he attacked me. When he woke me from a deep sleep, held a knife to my throat and forced me outside and into the woods.

“No, stop!” I cried out, but it was no use with his hand clamped tightly over my mouth.

“You think I’d let you leave with that new beautiful family you’re getting without taking what’s mine first?”

I wanted to vomit.

I felt his knee between my legs, forcing them open, and it was then I looked up at the night sky.

Tree branches swayed in the breeze against a backdrop of twinkling stars.

It was a warm, autumn night. I closed my eyes and imagined myself somewhere else.

Anywhere else that wasn’t with him on top of me, touching me in places I’d never been touched.

I pounded my fists against the hard ground.

I kicked and flailed, but it was no use.

He was too heavy. Too big. Too overpowering.

He tore at my shirt, exposing my chest. I tasted my own blood as it dripped from my nose.

“Please, stop…. ” I cried again, uselessly.

“London. Baby.” West’s hands are suddenly pressed against my face, urging me to look at him. “I’m here.” But the memory pulls at me again.

“Get the fuck off her.”

Panic had overtaken my body. I was frozen, afraid that if I moved even a single inch, he’d kill me. Surely, he was going to kill me. Use me, then kill me. I was ready to surrender. To let the star-studded sky swallow me up, wrapping its warm arms around me.

But even then, surrounded by the shadows, I recognized his voice. The one who always swore to protect me, and did.

“I said get the fuck off her.”

Then the sound of crunching bone. The sharp metallic scent of freshly spilled blood filled the air. He was no longer on top of me. Instead, he was now the one with his back on the ground.

I was gasping for air when I shot up and saw him towering over him, beating him without even a second of hesitation.

“I’ll fucking kill you, you worthless piece of shit,” he seethed.

He beat him until he stopped resisting. He beat him in the dead of night before crawling toward me. His hands were covered in blood and dirt as he cupped my face. The Big Ben charm I’d given to him for his birthday glinted in the moonlight.

My attackers body laid still beside me.

“Is he…” I gasped. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know,” West said, his warm hands cupping my cheeks. “But I’m here, London. I’m here. You’re safe.”

My fingers dig into the ground now, clutching fistfuls of leaves.

The dirt slips under my nails, and I let out a scream.

A tight, painful scream that sucks all the life out of me.

My lungs burn and my muscles contract. Every single fucking memory comes flooding back to me.

It’s as if every memory, a flash in time, has been stored in neat little boxes, but now I’ve found the skeleton key, and I’m unlocking every door. They swing open, flooding my brain.

My knees are pressed into the cold dirt as the memories are now alive, back from the dead. They’re unrelenting, a flurry of bitterness mixed with sweetness. Dark twisted with light.

“London. Please talk to me.” West kneels beside me and wraps his arm around my shaking body as I remember all of it.

The pain. The beauty. The love. The hatred.

“I remember what he did. The other foster kid. He woke me up, forced me out of the house while everyone slept. He tried to…” I can’t get the words out.

“He didn’t die, but you almost killed him,” I sob, sniffing.

Steeling my chest, I look up at West. My hair clings to my wet cheeks as I look at the man I’ve loved longer than I’ve realized.

The one who promised he would find me again. “I remember it all.”

“Oh, my God.” West’s eyes widen, and his mouth falls open as he rocks back. His feet slip out from under him as he sits on the cold, wet ground. Then he’s back on his knees again, sobbing. I’ve never seen him this way. Even when he saved me that day, he’s always been the strong one.

He crawls toward me, pressing his hands to my cheeks again, cradling my face.

“Being here,” I choke out, shivering. “Something about this place brought all of it back.”

“I didn’t mean to drive through here,” he pants, tears streaming down his face. “I was just trying to get away from that asshole. I didn’t realize how close we were to this town or neighborhood.”

I nod as the weight of everything tears me apart. I’m looking at West now, at thirty, but remembering it all. Him at thirteen. Then him at fifteen. The last day when I’d walked away from him. His kiss on my cheek lingering long after I’d driven away from this place with my new family.

“You promised me,” I say, my voice shaky as fresh tears spill .

“I know.” He nods, his own voice breaking. His gorgeous blue eyes are wide, glassy with tears.

Then reality hits. My marriage to Heath. The day of the funeral, when West had seen me at The Veiled Door, drawing the charm on the napkin.