Page 105 of Wrecked By You
Hatred poured from his.
Victory flowed from mine.
Whether the jury found him innocent or guilty, I’d won. We’d always have to be more careful than the ordinary man or woman on the street, but life came with all kinds of risks. All we could do was mitigate them to the best of our ability and live a full and happy life.
Johannes stood as I approached, and he caught my hand, leading me from the courtroom with my parents and stepfather following. I didn’t look back, didn’t need to. That part of my life was finally over.
“I’m so fucking proud of you,” Johannes murmured as the door clanged shut behind us. I didn’t get a chance to answer. Chloe tore from Ginny’s hand and raced over to me. I’d struggled with what to tell her about today, but I also hadn’t wanted to lie to her. She deserved to know the truth, however ugly it might be. I’d kept the details scant, and she’d listened carefully, then defiantly announced that Johannes was her dad, and he wasn’t a bad man like that other one.
I swear my heart had almost stopped, my chest bursting with pride at my grown-up little girl.
So far, Mateo had refused to give up his parental rights, although the divorce was progressing. Maybe if he was sentenced to a long stretch inside, he might change his mind and allow Johannes to adopt Chloe. It didn’t matter either way. We were a tight-knit family of three.
Soon to be four.
The baby kicked, almost as if it had heard me. I put an arm around Chloe and ran a hand over my extended belly. Three more months before we met this little one. I’d stopped taking my birth control pills the night Johannes and I had talked about having kids, but it had taken us another few months to fall pregnant. We’d had a lot of fun trying.
“Darling, are you okay?”
Mom’s face pinched. It couldn’t have been easy for her to hear about the attempted kidnapping of me and Chloe, or how I’d scrimped to scrape together enough funds to make a run for it, or how terrified I’d been when Mateo had caught up to me in Vegas and dragged me back to the compound. Those few days when he’d refused to let me see my daughter while allowing me to believe he’d had Johannes murdered had been among the worst of my life.
The only piece of information I’d kept to myself was how I’d gotten the fake I.D.’s that had allowed me to stay hidden for so long. I’d promised Diego when he offered to help me that I’d never rat him out. And I’d kept that promise.
“I am now.” I released Chloe into Johannes’s arms to hug my mom and her husband, Pascal, and then Dad, and Ginny, too.
“Are you coming back to the house?” Johannes asked.
He’d rented us a place just outside Oklahoma City for the duration of the trial, rather than stay in a hotel. Better for Chloe, and for us. Ginny was staying with us, too. She’d been such a godsend. A true friend. No, more than a friend. Family. She’d always have a special place in our lives. Without her taking me in, who knew where I’d have ended up? I shuddered at the thought.
Mom shook her head. “We’ll come by tomorrow after Eloise has gotten some rest.” Mom stroked my cheek. “You look a little pale.”
“It’s been a day.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “I hope the jury doesn’t take too long to reach a verdict.”
“Call us as soon as you hear.” Dad hugged me again. “We’ll be waiting for your call.”
“I will.”
We kept the atmosphere light for Chloe’s sake, but as each hour passed, I grew more anxious. The longer they took, the more likely they’d return a “not guilty” verdict. That was always the way on those TV shows, so it had to have some basis in reality. I kept picking up my phone in case I hadn’t heard it ring. Aaron had warned me not to expect a verdict today, but I’d hoped.
At six, Aaron called to dash those hopes. Apparently, the judge had sent the jury back to the hotel for the evening, so we wouldn’t hear anything before tomorrow at the earliest.
Johannes bathed and put Chloe to bed while I channel-surfed without paying attention to a single thing, Ginny’s quiet presence beside me a balm to the fear inside me. I lasted until nine o’clock when, eager for the day to be over and a new one to begin, I went to bed. Wrapped in Johannes’s arms, I fell into a fitful sleep filled with nightmares of Mateo escaping justice and dragging me back to the compound.
The next morning, under Johannes’s watchful eye, I forced down a bowl of oatmeal and a piece of fruit, but my stomach churned and rolled, the knot of anxiety pulling tighter and tighter. The baby kicked incessantly, no doubt picking up on my restlessness.
As a distraction, we took Chloe to the boathouse district. We walked along the river holding hands and eating ice cream and sugared donuts. We talked about the baby and made plans for the three of us to fly to Seattle to visit Johannes’s parents the following month, before I got too big to travel. We did everything apart from talking about the only thing on both our minds.
Not that it mattered. Avoiding talking about it didn’t change the fact that we were both drowning in nerves.
After lunch, we headed back to the car, and as we reached the parking lot, my phone rang. For a second, I froze, my eyes wide and locked on Johannes. I dove into my purse.
“It’s Aaron.” My voice shook.
“Well, answer it.” Johannes’s voice was steady, although subdued.
I pressed the green button. “Hello.”
“Are you sitting down?”