Page 53 of Handling Skylar
Anna Kate’s eyes shone with her triumph over me. I knew she had me, and so did she. I stared back at her, stunned and wide-eyed, my mind deadened by shock.
She smiled so smugly, I lost control. I slapped her hard across the face. She gasped and covered her cheek as I backed up and hit the wall. I needed the support as I leaned heavily into the hard surface. I’d never wanted my past to catch up to me. I had thought I’d outrun it, lost it behind me, made it all go away. Lived for the moment. Every day just being present.
Reality swept in, and I closed my eyes, a chilling comprehension washing through me. She was right. Jake would be affected by my secret. The scandal would be widespread in this small town. How could I go through all that again? The accusatory eyes, the shunning, the hostility. My home was being ripped away from me. Again. My business would suffer. And, Jake…oh God, it was better if he was as far away from me as he could get.
Anna Kate disappeared into the storage room, with a parting shot in a venomous voice, she hissed. “No one takes what’s mine. I might not have him, but you’re not going to have him either. Choke on that, shop girl.”
My legs suddenly too weak to hold me, I sank to the floor, my heart thumping wildly in my chest. I closed my eyes again and slipped my shaking hands over my face, trying to contain the panic and the loss.
The ax had finally fallen with a cold, severing thump, but the victim, the one who was going to be savaged the worst was Jake. One awful scenario after another unfolded in my mind—grim, wrenching scenes of Jake finding out. There would be a cold, stunned silence, a reactive kind of rage, and, what was worst of all, a devastating sense of betrayal. And it was betrayal—betrayal of everything that he believed about me, everything we thought we had. He would hate me for putting him in such a scandalous position just when he was coming out of his own emotional upheaval. This man, who was the only innocent in the whole terrible mess, would become the casualty in a horrible scandal, and the emotional pain, the sense of betrayal, the wrenching sense of loss, would be mine to carry.
A ragged sob tore loose, the pain from the image of Jake’s face so wrenching, so devastating, that the numbness broke beneath the pressure, and grief, sharp and rending, overwhelmed me. Jake—my Jake, the man who had given me so much joy—was going to pay the price for my mistakes. I would have ripped out my own heart to prevent that from happening. But it was out of my hands now.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, could equal the agony that sliced through me. And the devastation had only begun.
A thumping noise came from the storeroom and a low cry, but I only assumed it was Anna Kate having her own meltdown. Too numb to respond, I sat with my hands still jammed against my hot cheeks, so many painful emotions churning around in me that I couldn’t sort them all out. My vision blurring, I looked toward the storage room door, trying to swallow the awful ache in my throat.
I rose slowly to my feet. I would go to her. Tell her that I would leave town if she wouldn’t say anything to ruin Jake and this festival we’d worked so hard to put together. Even though Verity had made me the most beautiful princess dress I could ever have imagined, I’d wear the garment that Anna Kate tried to pass off as a dress. I rose and went to the door, trying to get my rage under control, or I’d punch her in her mouth.
The room was dim and it smelled faintly of…gasoline. My heart caught in my throat when I saw the ruined dress hanging in tatters from the hanger. What the hell? I rushed over to it and tripped on something white protruding from a pile of boxes. I caught myself against the dress, getting gasoline all over my hands. I turned to look to see what it was I had tripped over.
I reeled back, a cry of surprise and shock burst from me.
Anna Kate looked up at me, her head at an odd angle, her eyes wide and fixed. I stared at her as if she was pulling a horribly mean trick on me. But, reality swept through me with a decimating force. Shaking so badly, I almost felt faint, I stood there as my world came crashing down around me.
Chapter 15
JAKE
I remember exactly where I was when the news of Anna Kate’s death reached me, the moment when Jordan Summers, Sky’s manager said she’d been brought into the station for questioning. I was standing in front of Sky’s mirror in the room that smelled so deliciously of her tying my bow tie, thinking about taking her in my arms and showing her what my silver spoon upbringing had bought me. Sure, fluid and flawless dancing. My first thought was for Sky, and I marveled how little I cared how the scandal of this would impact our reputation. The fact that Sky had found the body, that someone had reported them fighting before she’d been discovered didn’t even factor into my mind that Sky could have killed her. It wasn’t possible.
My girl might have bold, sassy gumption, but she was no killer.
The first thing I did was call our family lawyer and the second was head out to the jail.
When I got there, reporters were clogging the front, and I had to press through them to get inside. My lawyer, Stuart Wellington was already there, a slick shark that was worth every dime we paid him.
“Stuart?”
“She hasn’t been charged with anything at this point,” he said, his voice low as he brought me away from the main desk.
“Don’t you need to be in there with her?”
“She asked me to leave.”
“What?”
“She said that she didn’t need a lawyer because she hadn’t done anything wrong and wasn’t being charged. I had no choice. But, let me know if you need me. I’m not sure this is going away. They tested her hands and it came up positive for gasoline. The dress, Anna Kate and the room had been doused with it.”
“All right. I’ll keep you posted. I just need to talk to her.”
He nodded and left. I sat down in one of the visitor’s chairs and waited. Finally, the door opened to the back, and Sky walked through. I rose and rushed to her, but she raised her arms. “I’m all right,” she said, holding me off, her demeanor stiff. “I don’t want to get your tux messed up. We can still finish out this weekend.”
She headed for the door. I went after her and caught her arm. “Let’s go out the side. I parked my car there. Reporters,” I said by way of explanation.
She nodded and we ducked out and right to my car without any problem. As I drove, I glanced at her several times.
“I didn’t kill her,” she said softly, almost too softly for me to hear her.
