Page 164 of The Pucking Wrong Man

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Camden’s face snapped toward me. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“What?” I whispered, confused. “But you’re…furious.”

Camden growled, beating on the steering wheel with one of his palms. “Of course, I’m furious! I just found out that a disgusting monster has been torturing you for your entire life. He was taking intimate pictures of you. He was violating you! And no one fucking did anything about it! I’m trying not to turn the truck around and kill him.”

I started crying harder as his eyes softened, the look in them turning tender and loving as he focused on me.

How could he look at me like that after what I’d just admitted?

“It’s okay, baby girl,” he soothed. I blinked, my hands shaking as I brought them to my face in disbelief. Was he serious? He couldn’t be? Could he?

A thread of hope…and relief began to twist its way along my insides.

“I wish you had trusted me. But I understand. I do. You’re fucking terrified of that motherfucker, that’s obvious. I realized it that day when I saw him standing on the street corner outside of Charlie’s. But you’re not going to have to deal with him anymore. I’m going to take care of him. I told you the other night that I’m going to take care of everything.” He sounded so confident, like all of this was easy.

“You don’t understand, Camden. He’s...he’s not normal. The pictures are only one of his things. He used to torture me after I moved in, crazy stuff—things I can’t even talk about because it’s so freaking traumatic to even say them out loud. And embarrassing too…” My last words came out in a whisper.

“Why is it embarrassing?” Camden asked, his voice careful, like he could sense I was falling apart.

“Because I...I just let it all happen. I told his parents the first few times, and they called me a liar, so I never brought it up again. I never told anyone—not my teachers or my caseworker...no one. I was too afraid of them not believing me...or of being placed somewhere even worse.” I swiped at my eyes, furious that any of my tears were attached to Michael.

Camden abruptly pulled to the side of the road, threw the truck in park, and then faced me fully. “You were a young girl, recovering from a horrific injury, who was all by herself. I think you’re the bravest, most incredible person I’ve ever met, Anastasia.”

I scoffed. “You don’t have to say that.”

He reached across the seat, cradling my face with both hands as he pulled me closer to him. “I’m fucking serious. Anastasia Lennox, I am in complete awe of you, and that only grows with every passing day.”

I closed my eyes as he placed the most heartbreakingly sweet kiss on my lips.

Every time I thought it would be too much, that this would be when we broke, he fixed us.

Or maybe the better way to say it was...he fixed me.

A thought hit me as he let me go and pulled the truck back on the road.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“When you weren’t there when I came to pick you up, and you weren't answering your phone—” he added, casting me an exasperated look. “I went into the studio and asked if anyone had seen you. Some front office lady said that your brother...Michael...had come to get you.”

His hands tensed on the steering wheel before he took a deep breath and relaxed them. “I had the address of your foster parents already...it had come up when I had done some research on you when I was trying to figure you out.”

“Some research?” I asked, my cheeks flushed because I was guessing that meant he knew a lot more about me than I’d thought. I was more embarrassed than upset. He was technically famous...sometimes I forgot about that. I would think someone, his agent, his publicist...someone was looking at who these guys dated.

Camden reached over and squeezed my hand. “I’m glad I knew what I did. What exactly was your plan tonight? What happened?”

I told him how I’d been cornered after practice and basically forced to the house.

We pulled into the parking garage, and Camden turned off the truck, sitting so silently that I began to fidget in my seat with nervousness.

Finally, he looked at me, and I got lost in the fire in his gaze, twin flames of warning. “You are not going to worry about Michael Carver anymore, do you understand, baby girl?” he vowed. “I’m going to destroy him if he ever comes close to you again. He doesn’t exist in your world. The monster is dead, okay?”

I nodded, a touch of hope filling my chest. I wanted to believe him. I wanted it desperately.

Maybe it should have scared me what he was promising, but it didn’t, not at all.

Because like he’d said, the only way to truly get rid of a cockroach...was complete extermination.

CHAPTER 32

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