Fallen from Grace (13 page)

When Judas finally fell asleep, she quietly grabbed her things and paused next to the front door. Part of her hoped he would wake up, stop her from leaving and pull her beneath the covers with him.

But he didn’t.

G
RACE
PULLED
INTO
THE
DRIVEWAY
of her parent’s beach house and parked behind the Town Car. Ellis
’ 
driver, Robert must have come in from the city. She flipped down the visor, and wiped the tear stained mascara from beneath her eyes.

Grace was going to walk inside, tell Ellis she couldn’t marry him, then go back to Judas’s beach house and apologize profusely for leaving him sleeping and alone.

Grace knew what they had was rare, and she wouldn’t sacrifice her feelings for her parents. Judas wasn’t perfect, and Grace knew this, but he was
good
. She felt it deep in her bones. She was falling in love with Judas, and that was all that mattered.

She walked through the front door and laid her purse on the entry table. Ellis was on the back deck, Burke, his bodyguard, was standing next to the counter, and a man wearing a sweatshirt and blue baseball cap was sitting at her kitchen table with a camera and manila envelope in front of him.

Ellis’s turbulent green gaze met hers, and he ended his call. Burke took one look at her, then grabbed the guy sitting at the table by the arm and pulled him out of his chair. As the guy passed her, he pushed his thin black rimmed glasses up on his nose.
Creepy.
She watched them walk out the front door and then slowly she walked to the balcony.

Sliding the screen door, Grace stepped outside. For some reason, Ellis glanced at her legs and smirked, then met her gaze. She shoved her hands into her jacket and shivered. The breeze coming off the ocean was chilly, and small gusts of wind swept past them.

“We need to-”

“I already know where you’ve been,” he snapped.

Grace’s heart slammed into her chest. She had never seen Ellis angry—upset about not getting his way or work going bad, yes, but this was different.

“Don’t look at me like that, Grace. I’m angry, and I have every right to be.”

It took Grace a minute to find her voice. “I don’t understand…how did you find out?” He looked at her, with a disgusted look on his face. “I’m in love with him.” The words were out of her mouth before she could think.

“Well, if he’s the man you love, you might as well know everything about him.”

Ellis stalked toward her, threw the screen door open, and waited for her to walk inside.

“Have a seat.”

“I think I’ll stand.”

“Have it your way.”

Ellis snatched the envelope off the table and handed it to her. When Grace didn’t take it, he opened it and threw a stack of pictures onto the table.

“Would you like to know where he was right before he was with you?”

There was a woman straddling a man, and when she looked closer, Grace realized it was a picture of Judas and Rebecca. She felt sick to her stomach when she saw a picture of her and Judas next. He was removing her stocking and kissing the inside of her leg.

“I—” Grace’s hand went her mouth as bile rose in her throat. “You photographed me?” Her shocked expression turned to him.

“How the fuck was I supposed to know he was going to meet you?” He closed his eyes as if trying to reign in his anger.

“I don’t understand. Why do you have these pictures?”

His jaw tightened, and his expression hardened as he opened his eyes and looked at her. “I’m not supposed to discuss this with anyone, but I love you, Grace, and I don’t want to lose you. I’ve been working with an ADA to build a case against Judas’s father. It’s the biggest extortion case this city has ever seen. There are judges, government officials, and cops on his payroll. I’ve had someone following, Judas and Jack for a while now.”

Ellis knelt beside her chair. “It’s not your fault, Grace. This is what he does. He lures women in, earns their trust, and when he finds their weakness he exploits it. What do you think he was going to do once he found yours?”

“Oh my God, my mother…these pictures. No one can see them.” Tears blurred her vision.

“Of course not, I’ll protect you.”

Removing the photos from her hands, he sat them on the table. “It’s going to be alright. You didn’t know he was manipulating you, Grace.” The tension in his brow softened as his gaze shifted from her hand to her eyes. “Where is your ring?”

She shook her head as the tears fell. “I betrayed you, Ellis. You can’t marry me, not after what I’ve done to you. I’ve betrayed your trust.”

“He
made
you betray me. Grace, that’s not who you are.” He kissed her index finger. “The ring?” Ellis repeated.

In a daze, she retrieved it from a tiny side pocket inside her purse. He placed it on her finger.

“There all is forgiven.”

“Judas, it’s incredible” his mother said, gazing at the snow-covered mountains, their reflection floating in the river beside the orange and pink hues of the sunset. “Just beautiful.”

The smile on her face was magical, and her bright eyes shimmered as the warm laugh lines formed around them. “I love you. Thank you for bringing me here.”

He wiped the tears from his eyes. “I knew you would like it.” He laughed, embarrassed he was acting like a girl. “This is why I wanted you to come here. I wanted you to see this place.”

Judas grabbed the paddles and turned the front of the boat upstream. “We better be getting back.” They had plenty of time to make it back to camp before dark, but he’d rather be safe than sorry. She situated herself to face him as a breeze blew through the calm air. His mother hugged her arms to her chest; the jacket she was wearing would keep her warm, but if she got cold he would give her his.

He recognized the halfway point when he saw the beaver dam up ahead, but then something hit the boat. The next gust of wind was stronger than the first, and this time it didn’t let up. The raft tipped, and then they rolled as the boat was pulled into the middle of the rapid. His head hit something hard as he was immersed under the freezing water, and he couldn’t breathe.

Judas woke, gasping for air. His body was drenched in a cold sweat, and his heart pounded in his chest. He hadn’t had that dream in a long time, and knew it was because he was
here
. Grace wasn’t next to him, and he panicked as he looked around and didn’t see her clothes. When he realized the ring wasn’t on the mantle, he knew she was gone.

He glanced at the clock as he grabbed his pants and pulled them on before running to the front door, and saw her car was gone. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he found he had only one message. It was an apology text from Rebecca, but nothing from Grace.
She just left.
His chest ached in her absence.

He walked over to his jacket and slid her business card from his wallet, and looked at his phone. Hesitating, he glanced around the kitchen and dining room, but was disappointed to discover she hadn’t even left a note. Had she decided she wanted to be with Ellis? Judas sank into a wooden chair at the dining table, then leaned forward and braced his elbows against his knees as he laid his head in his hands.

Why hadn’t he just told her the truth?

Last night was the best night of his life. He wanted every day to end and begin with her in his arms. Hoping she would return, he showered upstairs in his bedroom, then changed into a pair of clean jeans and a t-shirt. Even after ten years, his Levi’s still fit.

He’d bought coffee at the store the night before, and as he brewed a pot he thought about where his mind was when he picked the flavor out—v
anilla
. After ten minutes of staring at the fur rug in the living room, he finally said fuck it and locked up the house.

She wasn’t coming back.

He drove to the other side of the island, and parked a few houses down the road across from her beach house just in time to watch a large man with a military cut and sunglasses walk from the house. He was followed by a guy wearing a blue baseball cap and Ellis who had his hand on Grace’s elbow as he led her to the car. He was talking on a cell phone as the man Judas assumed to be Ellis’s bodyguard opened the back door of the Lincoln, and Grace climbed inside the car followed by Ellis.

As the cars pulled out of the drive, and disappeared from view, Judas stared at her house—the house he’d passed by hundreds of times, and never knowing the girl inside would claim his heart and mark his soul so many years later.

When he felt they were a safe distance ahead, Judas headed back to the city.

Heartbroken and alone.

J
UDAS
HADN
’
T
LEFT
HIS
APARTMENT
in over a week. He’d unhooked the answering machine, and refused to answer the door—leading to a disabled intercom system ripped to shreds. He had successfully separated himself from the outside world.

His rejection from Grace was more than he could handle. He looked at his tormented reflection in the mirror and punched it. The pain seared his fist and ricocheted through his body as blood marred the white sink.

Judas was a fool. Grace didn’t love him; she had been suffering from cold feet and scared to get married. He should have listened to his gut—Grace was out of his league.

Judas was heading for a bad place. He felt it, and that was why he wouldn’t have one drink because if he did, he’d never come back. After staring at the bottle of Crown Royal on his counter for an unaccounted amount of wasted time, he’d collapsed on his bed. When he fell asleep, nightmares of his mother’s face right before she died tormented him, and the look on Grace’s face when she saw his tattoos, haunted him.