Page 125 of Resisting Isaac

“You wound me, Elena.” He places a hand over his chest. “A wedding? Figured my invite got lost in the mail.”

“It didn’t. You should go.”

He steps closer. I don’t move.

“So, you’re marrying him? Really? Just because he knocked you up?” He scrunches his nose.

“I already married him. Sorry you missed it.” I wrap my arms around my mid-section.

He makes a rude snorting sound. “Scraps of paper mean nothing to me.”

“Must be hard for you, Diego.” I take a step backward because this is not the guy I grew up with. The one who cried at recess and was raised by a mother who spoiled him half to death. “Not getting your way for once.”

He looks amused. “Not as hard as it will be for you. Allalone. Pregnant. Pretending like some cowboy’s gonna ride in and save you.”

I clench my jaw. “You don’t know anything about him.”

“Oh, I know enough.” His voice drops. “Like the fact that his family has a lot to lose. Land. Cattle. Family legacy going back generations.”

“You don’t know his family.”

“Don’t I?”

He pulls his cellphone from his pocket. Turns it to face me.

On the screen is a surveillance-style shot of Laurel Logan leaving the farmer’s market where she sells her homemade pies and jams. He scrolls and I see Ivy and Wyatt leaving The Stillery, Willow getting into a truck hauling a horse trailer, Sutton having coffee with several other girls in a café, and then there’s Isaac.

So, so many of Isaac.

My blood turns to ice as the morning sky tilts above me.

“Where did you get those? Why do you have them?”

“I have friends everywhere, Elena. Even in that dusty little town you like so much.” He tucks his phone back into his jacket pocket.

“So, you decided to have your ‘friends’ start watching me? Why?”

“Start watching you?” He lets out an obnoxious peel of laughter. “Sweetheart, did you ever think I wasn’t watching? Did you believe I just let you go? How do you think you got the parts you did or that last minute opening at your fancy apartment in LA? Come on now. You’re a smart girl. Surely you knew someone had to have a hand in all that.”

I wince remembering that the lady who’d been in my apartment got moved to a nursing home even though everyone saidshe was in perfect health. And the role I’d gotten inGoing Country for Christmaswas only because the original actress had fallen down some stairs and broken her collar bone at a party.

“I thought it was divine intervention, I guess.”

His words make me question my entire reality. All this time, I thought it was hard work and determination. Not some creep pulling strings to control me.

“Well, I am Godlike.”

I can’t help it. My face shows what a joke I think he is before I can stop it. And he sees it.

“Oh, I know, little mouse. You think I’m a choirboy. That’s what I let everyone think. And that night, the night you finally spread those legs for me like the whore that you are,” he comes so close I can smell alcohol on his rank breath. “That night I played the part. Gentle. Careful. Nervous. So, I wouldn’t lose control and hurt you like I wanted to.” With a salacious grin he leans closer. I fight the urge not to flinch backward. “What? You think you’re the only one from our shitty little town who can act?”

I glance toward the door, tossing up a silent prayer that Isaac will appear any second now.

“I think you need to leave, Diego. And stay far away from me and my family if you know what’s good for you.”

“Did your mother tell you I got a promotion?”

“No.” The hair on my arms lifts. “Why should I care?”