Page 101 of Off-Limits

It smells like her.

I force a choked sob down and squeeze it. I’ll let her run away from me today, but I’m not giving up. Maybe she needs time to work through whatever happened, that I can give her, but I refuse for it to be forever.

I will talk sense into Arrie, because I know how much those girls mean to each other, however, I won’t lose Dottie in the process.

And that’s something Arrie is going to have to learn to live with. I love my daughter, but I also love Dottie, and now that I have her, I will never let her go, not as long as I’m living and breathing.

She can run, but she can’t hide from me forever.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

DOTTIE

Ihaven’t been able to stop crying since I left early this morning. After my aunt told me her plan to get me to leave, how much she always hated me and thought I was a slut, she said the one thing that had the blood in my veins turning to ice.

She’s going to tell Arrie about me and Damon, and of all the days, on my mother’s birthday. I try and pull myself back together, before I need to leave the servo I’m sitting at, because although I’m heading back to Sydney, I’ve never missed calling mum on her birthday.

Switching on my phone, I swallow hard as the notifications start coming through. Moving my neck from side to side, in hopes to alleviate the ache forming, I look down to see the names flash across the screen as soon as it boots up.

Tin Man.

Arrie.

She knows, and I’m not ready to hear what she has to say. Yeah, it might be the coward’s way, but it’s the avenue I’m stumbling down for the moment. I don’t want to hear thedisgust, or disappointment and hurt I know will be evident in her voice.

Sucking back a breath, I close out of all the messages and missed calls. Scrolling through my contacts, I’m about to press call on my mother’s name, but the memory of my aunty, her sister, from last night buckets through, slaying wide fucking open again. She threatened to tell the cop she was apparently engaged to, that Damon had touched me when I was twelve. Unless I left.

“You’ve been a busy girl, Dorothy. Get your ass inside before I call my daughter back and tell her exactly what you’ve been up to.”

She pushes past me, shouldering me in the process. I stand there, my body freezing in panic, my mind spiralling with the what ifs, and wonder how the hell she found out.

“Close the door, Dorothy, Arrie is gone, and we are having this conversation whether you like it or not, you little slut. Did you honestly think I wouldn’t find out?”

Swallowing, I close the door, because there is no way out of this, and I know what her ultimate goal is from this conversation. Me gone. Tears prick the back of my eyes, but I refuse to allow them to form. I won’t give her my anguish, tears or even the satisfaction.

I step into the room and move to sit down on the couch opposite her. She smiles smugly at me, her eyes looking crazed and full of herself, like she’s won the marathon she’s been running for the last decade.

“Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to tell Damon that if he doesn’t sign the garage over to me, and half of his super, then I will tell my boyfriend, who happens to be a cop that I caught him touching you when you were twelve, and that’s why we separated. Oh, and then you’re going to get the fuck out of Barrenridge and never return. Then maybe, just fucking maybe,I won’t tell Arrie how much of a home-wrecking whore you are, who is fucking her father for his money.”

Red dots my vision, the anger thrashing violently through my veins.

“That never happened, and if there is anyone who is a home-wrecking whore, it is you. You’re the one who cheated on Damon, and who is actively seeking money, not me. I have my own money, and Arrie knows that.” I seethe, trying to rein in my fury and temper.

I see the tick in her jaw and eyebrow, the only show I’ve affected her with my words, but the Botox keeps her smile intact.

“Who do you think Arrie and Shane will believe, Dorothy? Some little trailer trash whore, or her mother and his fiancé?”

My eyes blow wide, flicking down to her ring finger to find a delicate gold band and diamond. I haven’t heard of their engagement from Arrie so it must be new, but in all honesty, I don’t really focus on that. What I do focus on, is what this will do to Damon’s reputation, and how Arrie will feel if this lying cat gets out of the bag.

“Oh, you didn’t know? He proposed to me last week.”

“I don’t give a shit who you screw, what I do care about, is what is coming out of your deceitful mouth.”

She smirks at me, noticing that she has clearly struck a chord.

“Your call, Dorothy. My offer expires by the morning.”

She picks up her Dolce and Gabbana bag, her heels clicking over the tiled kitchen until they go silent in the plush carpet. Clenching down on my jaw, I stay in place and squeeze my fists tightly.