Page 34 of Ryder

She glances at the door to the kitchen. “I don’t want my parents to know.”

“Fine. Know what?”

She glances at the door that leads to the stairwell. “They’ll think I’m a slut if I take you upstairs. Please, Ryder. Later. I’ll come and see you after work if you insist.”

“Claire, you’re going to see me after work no matter what. We’re a couple. I’m not eating dinner alone. You can take your time making your way to my bed, but my heart is already yours. I won’t let you keep things from me, and whatever this is seems serious.”

“If I show you, will you promise to stay calm and not make a scene?”

I shake my head. “No.”

She sighs. “Ryder…”

I close the space between us and tip her head back with a finger under her chin. “I’m one second from not being calm already, Claire. You’re scaring the fuck out of me.”

She lowers her gaze and reaches up to ease one side of the sweater down her arm.

I gasp and gently grasp her elbow to angle her arm to see it better. “What the fuck, Claire. Those are fingerprints. Who did this to you, and when?”

At that moment, the kitchen door swings open, and Claire’s mother enters.

It’s too late for me to cover Claire’s arm; besides, I have no interest in doing so. Why is she hiding it from her parents? She’s sure as fuck not hiding it any longer. I want answers. Now.

Joyce gasps, her eyes going wide, a hand reaching up to cover her mouth. She shoots daggers at me with her gaze.

Claire quickly yanks the sweater back up and steps between me and her mom. Her voice rises. “Mom, it’s not what you think.”

Joyce is trembling, and she looks like she might vomit. She looks at me as she lowers her hand. “Did you do that?”

“No,” I say definitively. “I’m trying to get Claire to tell me who did.”

“Mom, he didn’t do it. He didn’t know about it.”

“But…”

Her father enters. “What’s going on?” His brows are furrowed. “Why are you all shouting?”

I’m done with keeping this a secret. I grab the edge of Claire’s sweater, yank it down to her wrist, and point at her arm. “Someone hurt her, and she’s apparently reluctant to tell me or either of you about it.”

“Claire!” Roy rushes forward to get a better look.

I pull the rest of her sweater off and toss it onto the chair as flames come out of my head. Her other arm is worse. “You did not have these bruises when you left my house last night. How did you get them?”

Tears are running down Claire’s face, and her bottom lip trembles as she meets my gaze before glancing at her parents. “Smith was waiting for me behind the bakery when I got home last night.”

“Smith?” I run the name through my brain and come up with nothing.

“Smith!” her father shouts. If there are customers in the shop, they’re getting an earful. I don’t care. “That fucking slimeball touched you? I knew I didn’t like him, but I didn’t know he was abusive. Has he touched you before?”

Claire shakes her head. “No. It was the first time.”

Her mother is crying also. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

I pull Claire gently into my arms. I’m fit to kill, but she needs me to be calm for her right now. She needs someone to hold her, not shout at her.

Claire sobs. “I didn’t want anyone to know,” she says between hiccups.

Her father seems to get taller, and I feel the same rage I see on his red face. “He was waiting for you out back and ambushed you?” Roy shouts.

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