Page 49 of When He Defends

“I’d come home for the weekend. I usually stayed at a boarding school, but we had a three-day weekend. I didn’t think anyone else was there. Just me. I walked into my bedroom, and I realized the mirror on my wall was broken. Cracked and missing chunks, and I backed away, and as I did…he came up behind me.” She swallowed. “He put the piece of broken mirror against my throat.”

His muscles locked.

“I was terrified. I could feel him behind me. He was so much bigger. And he…” An exhale. “I fought him.” Flat. “I’d been trained by my mother’s security staff. When he tried to push me forward, toward the door, I fought him. I kicked and twisted and used my elbows, and I got away.” Her gaze rose to lock with Gray’s. “I felt the mirror cut me. I didn’t care. Blood dripped down my throat when I ran. I got out of the bedroom. I rushed down the stairs. I didn’t look back, not once. I was too afraid he’d be right there. On my heels, slicing at me with that broken mirror. I got to the front door, and I ripped it open, and—my mother was there. My mother and her head of security, Owen Porter.”

His fingers slid over the small scar once more.

She shivered.

“They didn’t catch the bastard,” he said.

“They didn’t catch the bastard.” Her lips pressed together, as if she was trying to hold words back.

He didn’t want her holding anything back. “Emerson?”

Her hands curled and fisted against his shirtfront. “I can do the undercover job. Don’t let this change anything. Icando it.”

“I have zero doubt that you can do any job, and I don’t see why it would change a single thing.” But ithadchanged things.He was lying to her. It had changed things because…I don’t want to let you out of my sight. I want to protect you. I want to destroy the bastard who scared you. Correction, I will destroy him.

Her lashes flickered. “Do you mean that?”

“Why would it change anything?”

“My mother and Owen didn’t find an intruder that night. There was no sign of a forced entry, and my mother’s home had a top-of-the-line security system.”

Just like tonight. No sign of an intruder, and he didn’t set off the security system.“Just means the guy is good.” Which wasbad.

“They thought it meant…I did it.”

His jaw nearly hit the floor. “What?”

She dropped her hands. Took a step back. Another. One more. “I didn’t. I didn’t smash the mirror in my bedroom that long ago night. I didn’t injure myself because I wanted attention or because I wanted to be a victim.”

What the fuck?Her mother had thought that crap?

“I’m not delusional.”

He sucked in a breath because he understood exactly where this was going.

“I’m not,” she repeated with harder intensity. “My attacker that night was real, even if I’m the only one who saw him. And he was real tonight.Ididn’t smash those mirrors.”

A curt nod. “Never thought for even a second that you had.”

“My mother made sure that incident never got out when I was seventeen. She was so sure I’d made it all up.” An exhale. “I never told anyone other than my mother and Owen what happened. Not until now. Not until you.”

“You’re seriously saying that an assault on a seventeen-year-old was swept under the rug by your senator mother? Thebastard could have raped you, could have killed you, and she didnothing?”

Emerson flinched.

Gray knew he needed to calm the hell down. He also knew that his rage wasn’t going to be cooling anytime soon.This is Emerson.

Her gaze had fallen to the floor. “She was afraid I was like him.”

“Eyes on me, Emerson.”

Her stare whipped up.

Calm the fuck down, Gray.Yes, he knew that he should get a grip. He also knew that wasn’t happening. His control was as cracked as those mirrors. “You aren’t your father.”