Vengeful Heart: Fighting Heart Erotic Bad Boy Romance Series Book 3 (2 page)

Brandon didn’t show at college, but Luke was all over me like a rash, making up for the absence of his friend. He walked me to my lecture and stood at the door watching as I settled into a seat at the back of the lecture theatre. He’d used the same lame bullshit excuse as he’d used all week. He was
making sure I was happy, or fine, or well
– the word changed but it was always the same lie. Luke was on surveillance duty for Brandon, making sure I didn’t jump into the nearest sack with Cody or anyone else who took my fancy. It was paranoid to the max, it was causing me suffering too, but I needed to comply until the time was right. When the time was right Brandon, Luke, Amanda – nor anyone else would ever be able to hold me back any more. I gave Luke a sarcastic wave and he sent an awkward nod my way as the last of the students walked in. Cody was among them, fashionably and deliberately late. Presumably to avoid contact with me. From his stiff demeanour I knew he had noticed me, he just didn’t look up. He walked to the farthest end of the room and took a seat. My
friend
, huh? Avoidance was definitely not the action of a friend, but on the other hand I knew why he was avoiding me. Feelings were involved. Intense feelings. Just over a week ago, those feelings had been a mutual burning desire and the sweet pleasure of each other’s bodies. Now hurt had overridden all that. I only hoped this stage was only temporary – but there was no way I could approach him directly, not now. He would run a mile. So I needed an intermediary, and just as I was about to give up any hope in came Penny, the very last late student to arrive. I waved and Penny gave me a subdued smile - self-conscious of her lateness, I guessed. She climbed a few rows and sat down a row ahead of me. Today Ridgley was talking about the French novel and on Balzac in particular. If anyone was going to do justice to the romance of the Parisian novel, it was going to be ladies’ favourite Professor Ridgley. As I looked around the room, I felt self-conscious without knowing why. Then I caught a couple of glances coming my way from students I barely knew. They looked away whenever I met their eyes. From someone behind me I heard a whisper mentioning Brandon Lynes. I looked back and couldn’t locate the source. Suddenly I’d gotten tense, unable to enjoy the respite my study gave me from the rest of my life. Even Ridgley’s fine bone structure and smooth voice couldn’t compensate for this unwelcome anxiety. Maybe I was finally beginning to crack. Brandon was getting to me. I tried my best to put all thoughts out of him out of my mind, and blocked my paranoia.
Focus
, I told myself.
Focus, then talk to Penny
.

Ridgley had managed to calm my nerves some with his suave delivery and his vivid description of old Paris, but as soon as the lecture finished I was champing at the bit. I had to evade Luke who would come for me, and sneak some time with Penny. I texted her five minutes before the end. She looked back at me and nodded, pointing to the right hand exit. I waited for the stream of students leaving to reach its maximum view blocking flow, then I strolled down past the front of the lecture room towards the other door. Ridgley was shuffling his papers and packing them away. He saw where I was headed. He looked at me, and smiled. “That door’s usually locked, I’m afraid.”

“You mind if I try it?”

He was still smiling when he shrugged. I liked that smile.

“Great lecture by the way,” I said and moved to the door. It wasn’t locked, just stubborn, but I was more stubborn and it came open. Penny raced across the room and followed me out. Thirty feet away Luke was standing behind a gaggle of students who were blocking him from going into the room to find me.

“Quick,” I said. We were going to walk the long way round to sneak a Coke from a vending machine. I was sure Luke would look in the canteen and I wouldn’t be able to talk in front of him.

“
Great lecture by the way
,” said Penny, mimicking my voice and making it sound
so
sycophantic. She was smiling at me. I paid for two diet cokes at the vending machine near the ladies toilets at the end of the corridor and handed her one of the cans.

“Shut up,” I said. “Besides, it
was
a great lecture.”

“Are you trying to steal every college stud around?” Penny sipped her coke.

Yet again, Penny was determined to get me wrong, but I guessed she was joking. I ignore the comment and changed tack. Luke would need to find me soon or he would get seriously grilled by Brandon.

“Penny, I’m in a real bind, and I need your help.”

Penny didn’t flinch. She was strangely hesitant and it bothered me. “How so?” she said, with her arms half folded.
How so? What the hell did that mean?

“Like I told you before, Brandon is dangerously obsessed with me… you know I mentioned the trouble in York? Well, what actually went down was completely terrifying – I went up there to find Cody at his book festival, and we hit it off…”

“Very well, from what I hear,” said Penny.

“Better than very well,” Penny’s strange vibes were confusing me but I carried on regardless. “Amazingly well, but then Brandon shows up and he ruined it all. He threatened me, he beat the hell out of Cody and forced me to come back home with him. Now I’m living like a prisoner in his flat…” I looked at Penny. She was dumb. She just looked at me.

“I’m serious, Penny. You saw how it was. Luke is keeping tabs on me for Brandon. I’m sleeping on the sofa in their front room. I’m trapped. Brandon doesn’t let me out of his sight… Penny?”

Penny’s eyes were cold.

“I can’t believe you, Ashley. I really can’t. You’re blaming Brandon for what
you
did to Cody? Can you blame Brandon for wanting to ensure you don’t run out on him again? That guy fell for you big time, the hottest guy in the whole place and you treated him like shit in public. You even dumped the great job he got you, bad mouthed your employers, then Brandon helped you settle your debt to the college, he provided you with a place to stay, and then you run off and sleep with Cody Barnes up in York… but you leave Cody too! What kind of a girl are you, Ashley?! I haven’t known you too long, but I thought I knew you well enough to think you weren’t a totally cold heart-breaking bitch.” Her vitriol blindsided me and knocked me cold. I had Penny so wrong. I saw her as she really was right then, but it was too late. She was poison, one of those school gossips who wanted to hate you and believe the worst about you because it excused all of the terrible things she had been saying behind my back. I went into shock, but looking back I wish I had just punched her lights out.

“I told you, Penny. Brandon paid that debt to buy
me
, to control me. He got me sacked, he lied to Purdy’s, not me. Have you forgotten everything I ever told you?”

“No, I remember, but recently I’ve seen the light.”

“And is that light six foot tall and called Brandon Lynes by any chance?”

That threw her. She’d gone for a pre-emptive strike to leave me reeling and didn’t expect any riposte but I was hurting, and I was sick of taking punches without sending any back. I’d had weeks of it by then.

“You lady, are a selfish, neurotic bitch hurting everyone around you,” was all she could come up with.

“Wow, you are so
not
the person I thought you were, Penny…  Gossip really is so very important to you. Even when it’s not true.”

“Hah. It’s not just me, Ashley. Everyone is saying what a class A bitch you are.”

I put on the brave face and pretended to suck it up with a casual shrug. That explained all the whispers in the lecture.

“And you made that happen, didn’t you Penny? Do want to know my response to those people who judge me without knowing the facts?”

Penny shifted her bag on her shoulder and throw her hair back. She was getting ready to dash off.

“They can go and screw themselves. Every single one of them. And that includes you.”

“Charmed,” said Penny, turning away down the corridor.

I waited until she was out of earshot and then I howled in frustration. Just one quick violent howl while no one was around. It came from the depths of my body straight up and out of my mouth. I was shaking when I finished, shaking with rage at the injustice of it all. I was totally lost and so alone I almost felt in pain. Penny and Brandon had done a job on me before I could even get started on getting my freedom. I was no nearer getting Cody to hear my true feelings. I was trapped and there was no way out. What the hell could I ever do to turn this around? No one believed me.

They wanted to crush me. They wanted me to feel so bad that I would implode and do Brandon’s bidding. No matter how bad I felt, no matter what he tried on me I was determined not to bow or lose my head.  What could I do? I could work to find a way to get away from Brandon, I could find some way to reach Cody, and find a way to give Brandon a taste of what he’d given me…  I had no choice but to try.

Luke didn’t see me the rest of that afternoon, because I went straight to the one place he wouldn’t have looked – my prison, Brandon’s home. I dreaded Brandon being there. I was ready for the fight of my life. It was coming, I knew it was, but Brandon was still away from home and college. Whatever was keeping him had to be good. I stormed in with the spare key Brandon had forced on me. I passed Amanda who was sitting studying at the kitchen table. She saw me but I didn’t give her enough time for a wise-arse comment. I went to Brandon’s room and snatched up my holdall and unzipped it. I grabbed everything I owned. Because of my sleeping arrangements most of it was already packed. I snatched up my perfume, my make-up bag and a half stack of books I’d left during the first sweet days of the affair. The reminder of those days made me feel bad and embarrassed. How could I have believed that Brandon was the man he seemed back then? Yet people like Penny still did…

There was a knock at Brandon’s door and I froze. It took me a second to remember that Brandon would never knock on his own door.

“Yeah?” I looked up from my holdall and swallowed my heart back down my throat.

The door swung inwards and Amanda stood in the doorway, watching me. She was dressed in her home clothes today - joggers and a vest, the way I’d seen her dress on Sundays. She looked grim, with serious eyes, but because I usually got the worst of all her bad moods, so it was nothing new to me. I waited a little while for the shot across my bows and then I just carried on packing. I didn’t have time for Amanda’s histrionics.

“You’re leaving. Again.”

“Looks like it. Only this time I’m not broadcasting my destination. I don’t need my two biggest fans doing a repeat performance of York. Having said that, I think you can only ruin a girl’s life once like that. You’ll have to think of some new tricks.”

Amanda sighed.

“You want some help packing?” said Amanda.

“Why not? For the first time ever we have something in common, right? We both want me out of here.”

“That’s a part of it,” said Amanda, with a flat sounding voice.

“Fine. You can fill me in on the rest as we pack…”

“Where’s all your other stuff?” asked Amanda, looking around.

“I left most of it at my old place… but who knows? Bess has probably Ebayed it all by now.”

“But you must have more than this?”

“Try the bathroom. You’ll know what’s mine.”

She walked away with her arms folded like she was in a sulk, but strangely I felt the sulking wasn’t directed at me. I was entirely packed. I did a once over of Brandon’s room and briefly considered trashing the place, but lately he’d been pretty good at trashing it himself. His room had degraded from a sophisticated male boudoir for deflowering pretty female students to a fifteen year old boy’s bedroom. I shook my head at the unmade bed, the clothes tossed across the floor and walked out of his room for the final time. By already playing all his devastating aces, by ruining my reputation and taking away Cody for good, Brandon had ensured that I had nothing left. Now the only way was up. I was burning with anger, but I was also free. I dumped my holdall by the front door and went to find Amanda.

Amanda was gathering all my little bottles, my moisturiser, my fake Bare Minerals, the works, and bagging them far more neatly than I ever would. Her mind was elsewhere for sure.

“What’s up, Amanda? You’re bagging my kit like it belongs to royalty. It doesn’t, I assure you. Come on. I need to get out of here.”

“Yeah… Sorry.” She looked at me and her voice changed. “You know, I actually admire you, really.”

“Is that so? Do you always lie to, and generally betray, all the people you admire in your life…?”

“Ashley, I’ve made some very bad choices…”

“Correction, Amanda, and forgive me rubbing this in, but you are still making them. What you did to me last week- that was just unbelievable…”

Amanda stopped packing and looked at me, her eyes big and sparkly like a kid in a movie about to cry. I didn’t need this, not now…

“I know, Ashley. I’m in a mess. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Sorry didn’t even put a one penny down-payment on the horrific injustice she’d caused me, but I didn’t say that. She was teetering on the brink. “Yeah, so you should be, Amanda. When I first saw you I had your crew down as the college cool kids, the ones everybody else wanted to be like or be with. If only everyone knew what life was really like in your crew…”

“I think that too, sometimes. The people, the girls, they just see his face and his physique, don’t they…? They never actually see what he’s capable of.”

I looked at Amanda and I was so very glad I was leaving. My self-respect was still mostly intact. Mostly. Amanda’s was all shot to pieces.

“Listen to me, Amanda. You’ve still got a choice. You’ve got a brain. You made it to university, and that takes hard work, guts and determination. I know that. So listen up. You can use all those same traits that got you here to get out of this rut and leave that man for dust. Brandon is a prick, an outrageous prick. And I don’t even care if this is some kind of loony double-think trap and you intend to tell him what I said, because it’s all true. He’s done a good job on you, but don’t let him finish it. Don’t let Brandon make you believe that you’re a nothing. Not ever.”

She stood in the hail of my tirade and looked shell-shocked when I’d finished. I took the carrier bag out of her hand, grabbed my electric toothbrush, dropped it in and turned away.

“I’m done here, Amanda. I hope you make the same decision yourself someday soon.”

I got to the bottom of the steps. When I’d made it to the front door I heard her call my name. I turned round.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t deserve any of this… did you, Ashley?” she said.

“I know I didn’t. That’s the difference between you and me, Amanda,” I said. I opened the door and walked out into the street welcoming the cold polluted air into my nostrils. I was happy with relief. But it was a temporary high. I walked along the street enjoying it, but I didn’t realise just how temporary it was until I saw Brandon and Luke step out of a parked car just in front of me.

“Busted!” said Luke.

“No!” I shouted. “Leave me alone. We are done. Through! We were done a long time ago, only you were too psycho to realise it!” Brandon was wearing sunglasses again. He looked pale, vampire-like with his silent moodiness and pale skin.

“We knew you’d try something, Ashley. Luke was sure you’d run today,” said Brandon. “Here, let me help you with that.” He snatched the holdall out of my hand and threw it on his back. Luke locked his car. I looked at Luke with the same level of hatred I’d previously reserved for Brandon.

“Keep my stuff. Keep it, I’ll just go without it,” I said.

“You’re not thinking clearly, honey,” said Brandon.

“Don’t call me, honey, not ever again. Since when did
you
think clearly?”

“You’re forgetting everything I said. Come on. Come home and I’ll remind you.”

“You mean your threats? They don’t mean anything now. You’ve used them all up.”

Brandon grinned. “I wouldn’t ever threaten you, Ashley. I care about you too much. But I mean it, you need to hear me out before you leave, okay?”

They blocked my way. I could have screamed, but this was South East London. People would have seen what they needed to see, a domestic, something personal, something not to get involved in. When people see anger and violence in public, they make excuses, they see what they want to. With a bitterly sad feeling and burning resentment I turned back towards the flat.

“That’s my girl,” said Brandon.

We got back to the flat and Brandon gave Luke my bag. “Put that in my room, will you Luke?”

Brandon stood guarding the door with his arms folded. Right then he would have made a good actor in a Terminator movie. Amanda stood up from the kitchen table, her mouth dropping open as she looked at Brandon and then me.

Brandon turned on her and jabbed a finger in the air. “Did you help her do this?”

Amanda said nothing, her lips moved but said nothing. “Well, did you? Come on, tell me?” he said.

“Leave it, Brandon. Stop throwing your weight around. She didn’t help me. Of course she didn’t. She tried to stop me again. She always tries to stop me.” I made a scowling face as I looked at her, but softened my eyes the moment they connected. She was fragile and I saw her gratitude behind a glossy wall of tears which were waiting to fall at any time.

“So you forgot something, Ashley. Can you remember what it is?” he said, dripping with arrogance.

I wasn’t going to engage him in any kind of conversation.

“I’ll give you a clue then. Now, that you’re back home with me again, I won’t have to go and visit your family, will I? Remember?” There it was. The final threat. He was right, in my haste I’d forgotten the lousiest threat of them all. I narrowed my eyes at him and bustled into the kitchen to fetch myself a drink. This situation was hell on earth. I was a modern day prisoner, yet in the final analysis no damage had yet been done. My family was still safe. I had to stay put. Yet I knew I had to fight Brandon, fight him with all my heart, and find some help… because if it turned out I wasn’t strong enough to beat him, I would need someone else to step in to protect my family…