"Who owns the company?" I mumbled, wondering if it was someone I'd met before.
"Me." Oliver smiled and helped me to one of the front seats with great care, and buckled me in. He went to a minibar, wrapped a few pieces of ice in a cloth, and gave it to me. "For your face. Rest now. I'm gonna talk to the pilot for a minute and then you'll be on your way."
"Thanks," I whispered, holding the shifting icy weight of the bag against my jaw. I settled deeper into the seat, gingerly molding the ice bag to the swollen side of my face.
The flight was miserable but mercifully short, landing in southeast Houston at Hobby Airport. I was slow to react when the plane stopped on the tarmac, my fingers fumbling over and over with the seat belt fastener. After the Jetway stairs were brought to the plane, the copilot emerged from the cockpit and opened the entrance door. In a matter of seconds, my brother was on the plane.
Gage's eyes were an unusual pale gray, not like fog or ice, but lightning. His black lashes and brows stood out strongly on his worry-bleached face. He froze for a millisecond as he saw me, then swallowed hard and came forward.
"Haven," he said, sounding hoarse. He lowered to his knees and braced his hands on either chair arm, his gaze raking over me. I managed to free myself from the seat belt, and I leaned forward into his familiar smell. His arms closed around me tentatively, unlike his usual firm grip, and I realized he was trying to keep from hurting me. I felt the trembling beneath his stillness.
Overwhelmed with relief I laid my good cheek on his shoulder.
"Gage," I whispered. "Love you more than anybody."
He had to clear his throat before he could speak. "Love you too, baby girl."
"Don' take me to River Oaks."
He understood at once. "No, darlin'. You're coming home with me. I haven't told Dad you're here."
He helped me out to his car, a sleek silver Maybach. "Don't go to sleep," he said sharply as I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest.
"I'm tired."
"There's a lump on the back of your head. You probably have a concussion, which means you shouldn't sleep."
"I slept on the plane," I said. "I'm fine, see? Jus' let me — "
"You're not fine," Gage said with a savagery that made me flinch. "You're — " He broke off and modulated his tone at once as he saw the effect it had on me. "Hell, I'm sorry. Don't be afraid. I won't yell. It's just . . . not easy . . . to stay calm when I see what he's done to you." He took a long, uneven breath. "Stay awake until we get to the hospital. It'll only be a few minutes."
"No hospital," I said, pulling out of my torpor. "They'll want to know how it happened." The police would be told, and they might file assault charges against Nick, and I wasn't nearly ready to deal with all of that.
"I'll handle it," Gage said.
He would too. He had the power and money to circumvent all the usual processes. Palms would be greased, favors would be exchanged. People would look the other way at precisely the right moment. In Houston the Travis name was a key to open all doors — or close them, if that was preferable.
"I want to go somewhere and rest." I tried to sound resolute. But my voice came out blurred and plaintive, and my head throbbed too much for me to keep up an argument.
"Your jaw might be broken," Gage said quietly. "And hell knows what he did to the rest of you." He let out an explosive sigh. "Can you tell me what happened?"
I shook my head. Sometimes a simple question could have a complicated answer. I wasn't really sure how or why it had happened, what it was about Nick or me or both of us together that had resulted in such damage. I wondered if he realized I was gone yet, if he'd gone out to the front doorstep and found it empty. Or if he was sleeping comfortably in our bed.
Gage was silent during the rest of the drive to the Houston Medical Center, the biggest medical district in the world. It consisted of many different hospitals, academic and research institutions. I had no doubt my family had donated new wings or equipment to at least a couple of them.
"Was this the first time?" Gage asked as we pulled up to the emergency room parking lot.
"No."
He muttered a few choice words. "If I'd ever thought the bastard would raise a hand to you, I'd never have let you go with him."
"You couldn' have stopped me," I said thickly. "I was determined. Stupid."
"Don't say that." Gage looked at me, his eyes filled with anguished fury. "You weren't stupid. You took a chance on someone, and he turned out to be . . . Shit, there's no word for it. A monster."
His tone was grim. "A walking dead man. Because when I get to him — "
"Please." I'd had enough of angry voices and violence for one night. "I don't know if Nick realized how much he hurt me."
"One small bruise is enough to warrant me killing him." He got me out of the car, picking me up and carrying me as if I were a child.
"I can walk," I protested.
"You're not walking through the parking lot in your socks. Damn it, Haven, give it a rest." He carried me to the emergency room waiting area, which was occupied by at least a dozen people, and set me gently beside the reception desk.
"Gage Travis," my brother said, handing a card to the woman behind the glass partition. "I need someone to see my sister right away."
I saw her eyes widen briefly, and she nodded to the door on the left of the reception desk. "I'll meet you at the door, Mr. Travis. Come right in."
"No," I whispered to my brother. "I don' want to cut in from of everyone. I want to wait with the other people."
"You don't have a choice." The door opened, and I found myself being pushed and pulled into the pale beige hallway. A wave of anger rushed over me at the manhandling from my brother. I didn't give a shit how well intentioned it was.
"It's not fair," I said fiercely, while a nurse approached. "I won't do it. I'm no more important than anyone else here — "
"You are to me."
I was outraged on behalf of the people in the waiting room, all taking their turn while I was whisked right on through. And I was mortified at playing the role of privileged heiress. "There were a couple of children out there," I said, pushing at Gage's restraining arm. "They need to see a doctor as much as I do."
"Haven," Gage said in a low, inexorable tone, "everyone in that waiting room is in better shape than you. Shut up, settle down, and follow the nurse."
With a strength fed on adrenaline, I jerked away from him and bumped against the wall. Pain, too much of it, too fast, came at me from various sources. My mouth watered, my eyes began to stream, and I felt a rising pressure of bile. "I'm going to throw up," I whispered.
With miraculous speed, a kidney-shaped plastic bowl was produced as if by sleight of hand, and I bent over it, moaning. Since I hadn't eaten dinner, there wasn't much to disgorge. I vomited painfully, finishing with a few dry heaves.
"I think she's got a concussion," I heard Gage tell the nurse. "She has a lump on the head, and slurred speech. And now nausea."
"We'll take good care of her, Mr. Travis." The nurse led me to a wheelchair. From that point on, there was nothing to do but surrender to the process. I was X-rayed, run through an MRI, checked for fractures and hematomas, then disinfected and bandaged and medicated. There were long periods of waiting between each procedure. It took most of the night.
As it turned out I had a middle rib fracture, but my jaw was only bruised, not broken. I had a slight concussion, but not enough to warrant a stay in the hospital. And I was dosed with enough Vicodin to make an elephant high.
I was too annoyed with Gage, and too exhausted, to say much of anything after I'd been checked out. I slept during the fifteen-minute ride to Gage's condo at 1800 Main, a Travis-owned building made of glass and steel. It was a mixed-use structure with multimillion-dollar condos at the top and offices and retail space at the base. The distinctive glass segmented-pyramid surmounting the building had earned 1800 Main a semi-iconic status in the city.
I had been inside 1800 Main a couple of times to eat at one of the downstairs restaurants, but I had never actually seen Gage's place.
He had always been intensely private.
We rode a swift elevator to the eighteenth floor. The condo door was open before we even made it to the end of the hallway. Liberty was standing there in a fuzzy peach-colored robe, her hair in a ponytail.
I wished she weren't there, my gorgeous, perfect sister-in-law who'd made all the right choices, the woman everybody in my family adored. She was one of the last people I would want to see me like this. I felt humiliated and troll-like as I lurched down the hallway toward her.
Liberty drew us both into the condo, which was ultramodern and starkly furnished, and closed the door. I saw her stand on her toes to kiss Gage. She turned to me.
"Hope you don' mind — " I began, and fell silent as she put her arms around me. She was so soft, smelling like scented powder and toothpaste, and her neck was warm and tender. I tried to pull back, but she didn't let go. It had been a long time since I'd been held this long by an adult woman, not since my mother. It was what I needed.
"I'm so glad you're here," she murmured. I felt myself relaxing, understanding there was going to be no judgment from Liberty, nothing but kindness.
She took me to the guest bedroom and helped me change into a nightshirt, and tucked me in as if I were no older than Carrington.
The room was pristine, decorated in shades of pale aqua and gray. "Sleep as long as you want," Liberty whispered, and closed the door.
I lay there dizzy and dazed. My cramped muscles released their tension, unraveling like braided cord. Somewhere in the condo a baby began to cry and was swiftly quieted. I heard Carrington's voice, asking where her purple sneakers were. She must have been getting ready for school. A few clanks of dishes and pans . . . breakfast being prepared. They were comforting sounds. Family sounds.
And I drifted gratefully to sleep, part of me wishing I would never wake up.
After you’ve been systematically abused, your judgment erodes to the point where it's nearly impossible to make decisions. Small decisions are as tough as big ones. Even choosing a breakfast cereal seems filled with peril. You are so scared about doing the wrong thing, being blamed and punished for it, you'd rather have someone else take the responsibility.
For me there was no relief in having left Nick. Whether or not I was still with him, I was buried in feelings of worthlessness. He had blamed me for causing the abuse, and his conviction had spread through me like a virus. Maybe I had caused it. Maybe I had deserved it.
Another side effect of having lived with Nick was that reality had acquired all the substance and stability of a jellyfish. I questioned myself and my reactions to everything. I didn't know what was true anymore. I couldn't tell if any of my feelings about anything were appropriate.
After sleeping about twenty-four hours, with Liberty checking on me occasionally, I finally got out of bed. I went to the bathroom and inspected my face in the mirror. I had a black eye, but the swelling had gone down. My jaw was still puffy and weird on one side, and I looked like I'd been in a car wreck. But I was hungry, which I thought was probably a good thing, and I was definitely feeling more human and less like roadkill.
As I shuffled into the main living area, groggy and hurting, I saw Gage sitting at a glass table.
Usually he was impeccably dressed, but at that moment he was wearing an old T-shirt and sweatpants, and his eyes were underpinned by dark circles.
"Wow," I said, going to sit by him, "you look terrible."
He didn't smile at my attempt at humor, just watched me with concern.
Liberty came in carrying a baby. "Here he is," she said cheerfully. My nephew, Matthew, was a chubby, adorable one-year-old with a gummy grin, big gray eyes, and a thatch of thick black hair.
"You gave the baby a Mohawk?" I asked as Liberty sat beside me with Matthew in her lap.
She grinned and nuzzled his head. "No, it just sort of fell off the sides and stayed on the top. I've been told it'll grow back in eventually."
"I like it. The family's Comanche streak is coming through." I wanted to reach for the baby, but I didn't think my cracked rib could take it, even with the support of the elastic rib belt around my midsection. So I settled for playing with his feet, while he giggled and crowed.
Liberty looked at me appraisingly. "It's time for your medicine again. Do you think you could eat some toast and eggs first?"
"Yes, please." I watched as she settled Matthew in a high chair and scattered some Cheerios on the surface. The baby began to rake the cereal bits with his fist, transferring them to his mouth.
"Coffee?" Liberty asked. "Hot tea?"
I usually preferred coffee, but I thought it might be tough on my stomach. "Tea would be great."
Gage drank his own coffee, set the cup down, and reached over to cover my hand with his. "How are you?" he asked.
As soon as he touched me, a nasty threatened feeling came over me. I couldn't stop myself from jerking my hand away. My brother, who had never done violence to a woman, looked at me with open-mouthed amazement.
"Sorry," I said, abashed as I saw his reaction.
He tore his gaze away, seeming occupied with a fierce inner struggle, and I saw that his color was high. "You're not the one who should be sorry," he muttered.
After Liberty had brought me tea and my prescription pills, Gage cleared his throat and asked gruffly, "Haven, how did you get away from Nick last night? How did you end up with no purse and no shoes?"
"Well, he . . . he sort of . . . threw me out. I think he expected me to wait on the doorstep until he let me back in."
I saw Liberty pause temporarily as she came to pour more coffee for him. I was surprised by how shocked she looked.
Gage reached for a glass of water, nearly knocking it over. He took a few deliberate gulps. "He beat you up and threw you out," he repeated. It wasn't a question, more a statement he was trying to make himself believe. I nodded yes and reached over to nudge one of Matthew's Cheerios more closely within reach.
"I'm not sure what Nick's going to do when he sees I'm gone," I heard myself say. "I'm afraid he might file a missing persons report. I guess I should call him. Although I'd rather not tell him where I am."