Page 93 of Rook

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Tessa

I don’t know why I was still insisting on taking so many jobs. I genuinely didn’t need the money. Between what Rook was paying me and what I’d already stashed away, I had more than enough to run if I ever needed to again.

Even if the thought of that now created an unexpected stomachache. For reasons I was choosing not to let myself think about too much. Because I knew what conclusions I would come to. And they had a lot to do with something I couldn’t let myself acknowledge.

That I was falling for my supposed-to-be-fake husband.

So, yeah. Maybe work was just a way to keep my mind from going there. Or to limit my time with Rook, so those feelings didn’t continue to grow.

Though I could make a solid argument for all the working being because Icould.

I’d gone from a childhood where no one gave a damn about me enough to pay me any attention at all, let alone try to control what I did. To an adulthood where everything I did and said and where I went was strictly controlled.

I hadn’t been allowed to work.

At the beginning, I’d deluded myself into thinking it was because I was so loved, because I had a man who wanted to take care of me, because he didn’t want to ever see me have to trade my time for some paltry income when he had enough to provide for both of us.

It took an embarrassingly long time to realize it was never that way.

Sure, for some men,maybethat was the case. But I would wager for just as many, if not more, it was an assertion of control. It was a way to keep a woman under their thumb. It was a way of preventing her from ever being able to leave, no matter how much shit he piled on her, how much unhappiness she had to learn to bear.

That was certainly my experience. It felt wrong not to take advantage of the freedom that allowed me to trade my time for money. Because with that money came freedom. I would never again be forced to endure unhappiness or abuse simply because I had no means to escape with.

Even if an idealistic part of me I hadn’t been aware still existed didn’t believe Rook would ever do anything that would make me want to run for my life.

It was just important to me to have the money.

And that damn ambition was what would be my undoing.

I had no idea, of course, as the order came through on my app. It was just one of many.

Soda, chips, beef jerky. Typical guy stuff. Did the obscure strawberry frosted sugar cookies—with the sprinkles—give me a weird little flip in my stomach? Sure.

But I convinced myself that they were obviously popular enough that they were being sold in this tiny little town in California, that there was no reason to feel weird about getting them in an order.

Even if the smell of them in my car had me feeling like I needed to pull over and throw up.

I even rolled down the window to try to stop my mind from wandering back to endless nights with that scent on the breath of a man as he screamed at me, as he belittled me, as he told me what he expected me to do to him. Then having to do it.

The quicker I could get the order dropped off, the sooner I could get back to the apartment, strip, and wash the icky feeling off my skin. Then for good measure, I could get lost in Rook for an hour or two.

My memories of my life before were never further away than when I was in his arms.

And after a little trip down memory lane because of the cookies, I really needed the comfort I always felt when he was near.

That thought alone had me feeling a little more focused, a bit less anxious, as I took the turn into the mobile home community near the end of town.

Since I’d started doing deliveries, I’d actually only gotten two in the mobile home park. And both times to the same home right near the entrance.

It was odd to feel so lost in a small town I’d gotten to know so well.

“Who laid out this place?” I grumbled to myself when I accidentally pulled into a weird little alcove that I thought was a through street.

The GPS on my app was no help, telling me to turn into what was clearly people’s backyards and a little communal playground that people had set up.

Eventually, it started telling me I’d reached my destination when I hit a row of mature trees.

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