Page 17 of Elevating Eve

Exhaustion had seeped deep into Eve’s bones by the time she pulled into the parking lot behind her hotel. How was it that a difficult conversation drained her as much as a full day of labor on a jobsite, if not more?

Sighing, she climbed out of her car and headed around the side ofthe inn. As she rounded the final corner onto Main Street, she froze, her heart pounding like she was a rabbit caught in a fox’s gaze.

Frank leaned against the brick wall between her and the door, looking down at his phone.

Shitshitshitshitshit.

Options ran through her mind in a rapid-fire procession.

One: confront him. Yeah, fuck no. She tried that already. The still-healing gash on her face proved she shouldn’t try it again, at least not on her own.

Two: call Jonathan. She dismissed that idea even faster than the first one. It would take him twenty minutes to get here—maybe ten if he drove like a maniac. And the last thing she wanted was for him to get into an accident, especially when his arrival would be too late no matter what.

That left option three: turn around and run. And do what, exactly? Move to another hotel?

Go back to the Manor,her panicked brain insisted, and the thought calmed her ever so slightly. Jonathan wanted her to stay at the Manor anyway. He wouldn’t object if she had to spend a night or two there.

Mind made up, she started to creep backward into the alley between the inn and the boutique clothing shop next door. That’s when Frank finally decided to look up.

Their gazes locked, and she was back to being the goddamned rabbit. Every muscle in her body locked in place as her mind screamed impotently for her to turn tail and flee.

“Eve.” He used that ultra calm, I’m-the-one-being-reasonable-while-you’re-overreacting voice he always did after he screwed up big time. “Don’t you think this has gone on long enough? It’s time to come home.”

Fuck. You.

She was so fucking sick of all the gaslighting. It had to stop.

Now.

Forcing herself to breathe in and out, she waited for her heart to slow, for some of the feeling to return to her limbs. Not trusting herself to make it to her car before he caught up with her—not when her legs felt like jelly beneath her—she moved toward Frank with slow,deliberate steps. If this had to happen, she wanted it to be on a public street, not in an alleyway or secluded parking lot.

“Frank,” she acknowledged, trying for that same frustrating-ass tone he used. It sort of worked. “I know you already heard from my lawyer. I have nothing else to say to you.”

Jonathan’s lawyer had offered to represent her pro bono, and promised to be present during any future interviews with the police. So far, she’d only spoken to Tabitha via Zoom, but Eve liked the woman already. She somehow managed to have a no-nonsense attitude, getting straight to the facts, while also exuding a gentle kindness that set her at ease immediately.

In fact, Tabitha reminded her of that badass lady cop—the one who made the two male cops looming over her and barking questions fuck off and give her some space.

Lifting her chin into the air, Eve tried to walk past Frank and head inside. She expected him to reach out and stop her, but her skin still crawled when he did it.

With another deep breath, she forced herself to meet her ex’s eyes. “Let go of me, Frank.”

“Not until you talk to me. You’ve taken this too far, sweetie, and I think you know it.”

Stay calm.Frank had to know he’d be even more fucked if he hurt her again. Especially with a street full of witnesses this time.

“Don’t call me sweetie,” she said in the coldest voice she could muster. “I broke up with you, remember?”

His condescending smile made her want to scream. “We both know you didn’t mean that.”

She wanted to punch him in the mouth. To claw at his eyes. To scream every enraged thought she’d ever had about him at the top of her lungs.

But Tabitha had made it abundantly clear that she couldn’t give in to any of those desires. Right now, she had all the power. In a legal sense anyway. The dumbest thing she could possibly do would be to give it up.

With a calmness she didn’t remotely feel, she gave the hand gripping her upper arm a pointed look, and then glanced at the credit unionacross the street. “That bank’s security cameras are recording us right now. And as I understand it, it was a condition of your bail that you’re not allowed to contact me in any way. So I’m going to say it one more time, Frank. Let go of me.”

The smug confidence drained from his eyes more and more with each word. By the time she finished speaking, it had been replaced by something else—something she’d never seen in all her years with him.

Fear.

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