Page 145 of Muddy Messy Love

“There’s more,” she says, flickering her gaze to Ella again before sinking it to her lap. Oblivious to the dark storm suddenly circling her mum, Ella quietly babbles while rolling out a worm to join her growing pile. “I look like my mum,” Hannah says. “A carbon copy, most people say.”

Join the club.I smile. “I saw the portraits at Cole’s place. You sure do.”

“I always treasured that fact. It made me feel closer to her. But”—she gulps—“it also triggered a nightmare.”

If it were possible for a human body to spontaneously rot into a sticky black puddle, that’s what Hannah’s would do right now. Bleakness radiates from her.

“Hey,” I say. “You don’t need to tell me this.”

She swallows again, still hugging herself. “No, I want to. It’s time I confided in someone other than Cole or my therapist. But you can’t tell anyone ever. Promise me.”

I give her my sincerest expression. “I won’t. No matter what.”

Chewing her top lip, Hannah nods. “Like I said, our father never stopped drinking, but I was invisible mostly. He barely looked my way, which suited me just fine. He’d stumble through the front door blind drunk most nights, if he made it thatfar. Sometimes, we’d find him asleep on our fancy front porch covered in his own vomit.”

I wince. “I’m so sorry.”

Hannah shoots Ella another quick glance but then leans in and lowers her voice. “When I was eighteen, one night I woke up to him staggering into my room. He climbed into my bed, and I scooted back, asking him what the hell he was doing. But he was sobbing—shushing me—mumbling Mum’s name and trying to stroke my hair. The stench of vodka burnt my nostrils.” Hannah stares past my shoulder vacantly as tears bleed into her steel-blue T-shirt like splotches of ink. “He pinned me down, and I was so confused and terrified I froze. It all happened so fast, and I…” She takes a shaky breath. “Well, I couldn’t stop him.”

My stomach free-falls and splats to the timber floor. “Hannah,” I rasp. “Oh my God.”

Hannah’s chin meets her chest. “I fell pregnant. I didn’t know until I was four months along, and I didn’t tell anyone until it was impossible to hide.”

I shut my mouth the second I realise it’s hanging open and then snap my gaze to Ella.

Her eyes. She has her grandfather’s eyes.

Family resemblance. Nothing more.

When I look back at Hannah, she offers a soft nod. “Holy shit,” I whisper. I don’t know what else to say.What the fuck do I say?

“You don’t have to say anything,” Hannah says, as if reading my mind. “She’s healthy, happy, and the love of my life. How can I wish it never happened when it gave me my world? I grapple with that truth every day.”

Hannah stretches out a hand to touch mine. “Don’t,” she pleads. “Don’t picture it. I can sense when people do that, and it makes me want to disappear. And please don’t look at me like I’m irreparably broken, because I’m not.”

“Okay.” I give her hand a squeeze. A full minute’s silence stretches between us before I let her go. “Where’s your dad now?”

Where despicable creatures belong.Cole’s livid words smack into my awareness.Fuck. No wonder he reacted like that when I asked about Ella’s dad.

“Prison,” Hannah replies. “When I finally told Cole, he was going to kill him, but Uncle Ger stopped him. Cole had only moved out a few months earlier, but he blamed himself for not making me go with him. For not being there. He begged me to go to the police, but I couldn’t. Can you imagine having to relay every detail of that? The possibility of press coverage thanks to the Benedict name? The articles Ella or the kids at her school might one day read? At that point, mere whispers would have killed me.”

“I get it,” I say. And now I get why she goes by Beaufort instead of Benedict too.

“Uncle Ger came up with a plan to placate Cole, protect me, and ensure our father paid one way or another. Ger had connections he wasn’t afraid to use. He was a little shady like that. But, three weeks later, our father was caught with a car full of crack and firearms. He’s serving fifteen years.”

“Good,” I say.

“Yep.” Hannah forces a smile, but it’s empty. Dead. “After that, things did get better. Uncle Ger built Mini-Bees just for me. Bought my apartment and everything for Ella. Cole moved in and stayed until I found my feet as a mum. He helped with Ella at night and still worked all day. I don’t know how he did it, but I sure as hell couldn’t have without those two men. Like I said”—she hitches a shoulder—“we owe Uncle Ger a lot. Cole just took it to the nth degree.”

I ache for them both. That’s some big-Ttrauma right there. The kind that’s always made me feel like a weak and whiny bratfor daring to complain about Sheila, let alone be this screwed up. But I guess abuse inflicts damage even in its emotional forms, and at the end of the day, it’s not a competition. “That’s why you have PTSD?” I gently ask.

“Yeah,” she whispers. “But I’ve come a long way. EMDR has helped a stack. I rate it five stars. Can highly recommend.” Hannah winks, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’ve heard of that,” I say, and it’s true. EMDR therapy is advertised on the front window of the psychology rooms two shops down from me, along with a few other fancy-sounding acronyms.

We both fall quiet again—processing. No wonder Cole clammed up whenever I pried into his past. It’s now crystal clear why he’s so protective of Hannah and Ella too. He lost his mum. His little sister was raped. Bad things happen to the women he loves. And maybe, just maybe, rather than money or Thomas or Gerard’s sacred legacy, that’s why he protected me too.

“Hannah, if Cole’s not at Benedict’s anymore, where is he?” All this time, I’ve pictured him in his office. I knew what he was doing and where to find him, even if I had no intention of doing so. That brought me comfort. This feels icky and unsafe—like someone’s cut my string and I’m floating away.

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