WORN by Bridget Ratidzo - HTML preview

Chapter Twelve

As soon as the taxi comes to a stop I rush out of the taxi and jump into the gate. Hunter barks and of course I jump because I seem to forget that he exists as long as I don’t set my eyes on him. When I try to slide the glass door open, the thing doesn’t even barge. I groan. I hate this door.

And just like de-ja-vu, Taylor’s hand comes from behind me and he slides the door open. Only this time I don’t turn to look at him. I just want to be as far away from him as possible.

Inside is warm and smell as good as always. I walk around the couch which is by the door. I need to sleep on this and formulate a proper interrogation for him in the morning. Let the shock of today wane a little bit. I am about to reach the entrance to the hall way when his arm hooks around my waist draws me against a strong body. His warm breath fans the crook of my neck. My body betrays me by responding to his touch. I just melt.

Like plastic under smoldering heat. My breath hitches when he plants a soft tingly kiss on my skin and starts to trail kisses along my jaw. I plan to wiggle out of his hold and rush to my room, safe from all this intense feeling he has started in me from inside the taxi but my body turns to melt into his and I meet his lips in a deep passionate kiss.

I shouldn’t be kissing him. I should be getting some answers. What he did was so wrong on so many levels. Why can’t that register through the heady feelings that have clouded my mind. He pushes me against the wall and presses on me. Either he feels the same way or the man has just figured out a way to get to me.

Just as I reach the point of surrender, he pulls away and cradles my cheek with his palm

‘We will talk tomorrow I promise.’ He whispers

I am still coming down to earth. ‘Okay.’ is all I can manage to say

But as I finally mange to get into my room and close the door. I promise myself that when tomorrow comes, I am finding a way to run from Taylor.

I am not confident that I would be able to leave but I must. I just know it.

See what happens next in the next book of the worn series:

Extract from Torn

Chapter One

My traitorous stomach rumbles loudly again for the third time, disturbing my escape plan. Maybe not exactly a plan, but it’s better to have one than not.

I rub my tummy as I try to redo my mental check list. The initial goal is that I need to get out of this one way or the other. I am not sure what the story behind all this madness is but being sold to loan sharks and being send off with a stranger is practically the same thing. Okay, maybe not your everyday stranger—but Taylor is a stranger to my family—or not?

The situation is still standing in an unfortunately imbalanced way between my two weird assumptions. But my assumptions are related to one thing that I know father swings between; money. I know that with Charles, money had to do with him being the loan shark. I’m not sure how Taylor comes into the whole picture. Unless he paid the loan for father—which would be the simple conclusion but this current madness doesn’t not dwell on simple explanations. Simplicity has never been a partner in my existence and I don’t need to start including it now.

I run a hand over my face, I could just go out there and get the answers from him instead of trying to figure out all this by myself. But I still need a plan for that as well.

Oh what good will it do? I have never been able to get information out of people and I don’t plan to start studying how. Besides, given my life history, digging up information always unleashed monsters for me. But of course, I never dug the issue of my murdered friends. I could blame it on my mental imbalance for two years but deep down I know I am afraid of what the truth will be. Just as I am afraid of what this truth is.

Oh whatever. The real truth right now, is that I am married. And I am here, with no way out whatsoever. Well I haven’t figured out one yet. And right now I am having a headache from thinking about all this. My stomach rumbles again reminding me of my other problem. I will eat first and clear my head before I go down this tunnel again.

I climb out of bed and walk to my bathroom bag. I am done with a shower and a change of clothes in less than twenty minutes before I get out of my room. It’s awfully quiet in the house. It always has been quiet, but today’s silence has an eerie feeling to it. I have the strange feeling to tip toe and peer into the kitchen, but that would just be weird. So I walk noisily into the kitchen, because I don’t want to walk into another weird conversation of things that are clearly none of my business.

And just as I thought, Celine and Taylor are in the kitchen seated in a way that shows that they were having a conversation. And doesn’t she look intimidating with her hands folded in front of her on the table and her eyes slowly leave Taylor’s impassive face to land on mine.

‘Well good morning Heather.’ She flashes a smile which is nothing more than plastic.

I flash my own back at her, ‘good morning Celine.’

Taylor’s chair scraps on the floor as he stands up and walks to stand by my side and easily swings his arm around my shoulder. Celine’s eyes narrow a bit as she tries not to roll her eyes. At this point I would gladly roll my own along with hers. But I look up at Taylor and the smile plastered on my face says – what the hell?

‘Good morning!’ his smile is almost genuine, or I am just not sure why he would smile genuinely at me when I am clearly trying to send him a message that I am not so glad to see him right now.

‘Morning!’ I say as I easily slip out from under his arm and sit myself in an empty chair. Maybe I should have bolted for the door but Celine does that part because she quickly stands and leaves the kitchen, a clear indication that Taylor and I have to talk.

‘What did you tell her?’ I ask my eyes still lingering at the kitchen entrance that Celine had just vanished

‘About what?’ Taylor has managed to pour a cup of coffee for me and a plate of breakfast the time I was staring after Celine’s kitchen departure. I turn to glare at him but gladly accepts the cup anyway.

‘I really can’t do this this early in the morning.’ I mumble under my breath as I pick up the fork and start on the eggs.

‘I agree.’

I keep my eyes fixed on my plate other than fixing him with another glare which he deserves at this moment

‘Did you wake already annoyed with me or you just didn’t like the way I avoided your question?’ he asks when the silence was just growing unbearable

When I lift my eyes I am satisfied to see that he is kind of nervous

‘Oh so you knowingly avoided my question?’ he starts to speak and I interrupt him, ‘don’t mind answering that.’

‘I just want you to eat, you just woke up.’

I put my fork down and his eyes follow the movement before they come back to mine

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘I really don’t know what to do when you are like this?’

‘Whose fault is it? You are the one—.’ I stop mid-sentence. I really can’t do this right now. My head ache starts to reemerge and I need to take care of my stomach. He is the reason I didn’t eat dinner and I am not skipping breakfast. Losing my appetite has never been one of my traits when I am overwhelmed with emotions.

I pick up my fork and I start to eat without looking at him.

If I can just figure out how all this happened I may just find a way out. Never have I wanted a way out of my situation so badly. And this is something that a part of me isn’t really fighting, which is weird—I am weird—

But this is all just a mess, like a wrong drama line that is just being patched up together with a bad ending. The one that ends with the main character either dead or meaningless. These are too heavy thoughts for the morning and yes I have said that a lot of time already because right now it’s the only thing that is making any form of sense.

‘Can you accompany me somewhere today?’ he breaks the silence again.

I lift my eyes to meet his, ‘where?’

‘A park!’

I really hate this evasiveness and no, it never bothered me to never really know what was going on before but right now I do. I don’t have the time or will to try to figure out exactly how it came to this point of me trying to understand the state of my environment. It’s also because of him. I regard him as if that is an epiphany.

‘Please say something Heather, your silence is creeping me out,’

An evil smile starts to form on my lips and I press them to stop it. Since my words didn’t seem to get to him maybe my silence will.

‘Fine!’ I mumble and put my fork inside the plate before lifting my plate from the table to the sink. I come back for my cup and I put it inside the plate. I wonder how early these two woke up and were able to have such a long conversation and make Celine of all people to act like that. Okay I haven’t really known her for so long to form an opinion but the small interaction I witnessed between her and Charles said tons about the woman. In conclusion, stay clear of her.

I am not surprised when strong arms circled around my waist and his chin rests on my head. I stare out the kitchen window before my traitorous eyes begin to close. And my hands grip strongly on the sink because my even more traitorous hands want to touch him. I can’t help myself, the man puts his hands on me every chance he gets, even when I am currently trying to ignore him. And it also doesn’t help the situation that I am like a big fat cat wanting to be patted in his embrace.

‘I am going to change, and then we leave!’ he murmurs, his soft voice sending vibrations all over me.

I manage a jerky nod and I feel his lips curl into a smile where he was just planting a kiss on the side of my temple. The man knows how I can’t stay nonchalant to his touch. But at least now I managed to not touch him. Wild appears with pouted lips as if saying—yeah let’s see how long that will last!—

I don’t turn around until he lets me go and I am sure that he has left the kitchen. My body sags as I exhale loudly. I take out my phone from my jeans pocket. When I look at it, it then occurs to me that I don’t have a stream of friends like normal people do who I can just randomly call and say

‘Hey guess what? I just got married to that guy I had a crush on and used to stalk around can you suggest how I can get out of this?’

No I don’t. Because I had established a life motto to stay invisible, for no one to look at me, no one to notice my existence. I didn’t want friends, I didn’t trust the word friend. The closest thing I had to a friend was Judith from Church, who doesn’t even know anything about me. If she did, she would run for the hills. The reason why Taylor didn’t run is the reason why I am afraid of all this.

I can’t have this kind of life. It’s not the life that I wanted. When I did recognize my infatuation with Taylor and blindly explored it I had not pictured all this. This is just more than I can handle.

‘Started over thinking yet?’ Celine’s smooth knowing voice snaps me out of my thoughts and my eyes land on her. She is now out of her pajamas and is dressed in a lovely maxi dress that make her equivalent to an African princess. Her hair is in a burn above her head and a few strand escape as she tilts her head to regard me with that icy stare. ‘Taylor tells me that you are married,’ pause and I have a lump in my throat that has disabled my speaking abilities, ‘he doesn’t say much, maybe you can tell me how that happened?’

I take a deep breath, so he didn’t elaborate it to Celine either, or why would she lie to me?

‘I don’t know either.’

Celine raises and eyebrow, ‘oh come on, it’s not like you flew to Vegas and got married overnight.’ She says testily, clearly displeased with the current situation. Well that makes two of us sister.

‘I don’t-

She waves her hand at me, ‘are you trying to tell me that you married a man and you don’t know how that happened?’

I just shrug

‘You are the epitome of innocence for such a conniving gold digging whore.’

My mouth drops open.

‘I know you are following Taylor because of his riches and his status—don’t you think you are overdoing it a little bit? Just take what you want and leave.’

A certain fog in my mind clears. I shouldn’t blame the woman, because to an outsider like her, this could be the only logical explanation to this whole thing. But in my defense I have no idea of Taylor’s status or wealth and even if I did I don’t care about that.

‘Say something, maybe I can get you out of this unscathed.’

My heart starts to race, my theory about Taylor being dangerous coming to reality.

‘I really don’t know.’ I find myself confessing, ‘I really don’t.’

She tsks shaking her head, ‘you are already in too deep, it will be hard to safely get you out but I do take pity for the lives of the girls that Taylor ruins and I try to save those that I can. And believe me when I tell you that you don’t want to know what I am saving you from, if you value your life beyond throwing yourself at men like Taylor, you would give heed to my warning and follow my lead.’ She winks and holds my gaze as we both hear the door closing and Taylor approaching the kitchen.

Taylor walks past Celine and comes to take my hand. I try hard to mask my shock and Celine discreetly smiles at me in approval.

‘Don’t talk to her.’ Taylor tells her coldly, which throws me into another confusion. He has such a mercurial attitude towards her.one time he is so fond and tender with her and another time he is harsh and cold. Like he is right now.

‘I was just getting to know your wife.’ She smiles innocently, ‘she is very pretty.’

‘I know that.’ He starts to pull me out of the kitchen, ‘stay away from her.’ He cast her a warning glance before we eventually walk out of the house to the garage.

I don’t look at him as he opens the door and I slide in the passenger seat.

Celine’s words are a mantra like echo in my mind. I don’t ask him any of the questions flooding my mind as the car turns into the road and we soon join the rest of the traffic. My one and only fear has only been magnified. I have married a stranger. No, to put it more honestly, the stranger has claimed me and I may as well be in deeper hell than I have ever experienced. Or maybe I have already jumped out of hell but I am still lurking around its premises. If my life is going to turn out like this.

Books in the worn series

Worn (part one)

Torn (part two)

Born (part three)

Sworn (part four)

Dawn (part five)