Page 62 of Searching for Hope

I sink to my knees off the sofa to be closer to him. Reaching out I lay my hand on his. It’s all I can offer.

“She used a knife but that wasn’t how he died. When he fell, he hit his head. That was the pool of blood. I don’t know if she stabbed him before he fell or after. I never asked her. But there were five puncture wounds in his torso.” His eyes flick to mine and there’s so much pain in them I want to cry. “Five,” he repeats.

“And the police, they believed it was you?”

“I told them it was me. I said that I’d lunged at him, he fell and hit his head, and then I added the detail about the blood. It seemed better than telling them I stabbed him after he fell, and their evidence wasn’t conclusive either way.” He sighs deeply. “I knew I’d be out within a couple of years, maybe fewer since most people knew about the abuse, but Mum, if she’d gone away, it would have killed her.”

“And she was okay with that? With you taking the blame for her actions?”

“I didn’t give her the choice. As soon as my brain figured out what I was seeing, I yelled out to Hope to go grab Gideon and keep him away. She got him ice cream. Mum was out of it. She was hysterical and sobbing and… I called the police and then I just held her. I knew enough to make sure there was blood on the both of us, my fingerprints on the weapon. The evidence wasn’t conclusive either way. I said I’d arrived home early from school to find my mother unconscious on the floor and my father towering over her. I grabbed the knife, lunged at him in a fit of rage, and they accepted it.”

“Your mother never once tried to stop you?”

“She wasn’t even there. They put her in hospital for months afterward. Gideon went into foster care. Hope looked out for him where she could, but his foster parents didn’t see the need for him to keep in touch with his old crowd. I got him back when I got out, but it was too late then. He hated me. He thought I killed his father and drove away our mother. She walked out of hospital one day while I was still inside and never came back.”

“Jericho,” I reach out to cradle his cheek in my hand. I don’t say anything but his name. I don’t know what to say. The details are so different from what he’s told me before. He pulls away, moving back to sit on the sofa. So I pull myself back up, turning to huddle against the arm and watch him.

“I was never in love with her,” he says quietly. “I loved her but I wasn’t in love. I did something I thought would help. There was no way I could have known what would happen next. I thought we’d come home, she’d be married to a man with a shit-ton of money in the bank, the court would rule in her favor and that would be the end of it. Once the court’s eyes weren’t on us, we’d go off and live our own lives. We’d get divorced. It seemed so simple at the time. She was there for me through everything. She hid under the bed with me when my father went on one of his rages. She looked out for Gideon when I couldn’t. She stood outside his foster home bedroom when there were thunderstorms. She stayed by me through everything. She was the only family I felt like I had left. I just wanted to be there for her too and it was the only way that seemed to make sense at the time.”

I move along the sofa, needing to be closer to him.

“Then I was left with Ette and no Hope. So I hid her. I bought this place and at the same time managed to play a few more games, make a bit more money and start up the clubs. Now I sit in this castle and I dress in these suits and I pretend to be someone I’m not. I never thought I’d be here. I never thought I’d spend my life looking for Hope and hiding her daughter.”

Reaching over the side of the sofa, he pours another glass of whiskey and throws it down his throat in one mouthful. He pours another and another and does the same. “I’ve kidnapped. I’ve lied to the police. I’ve beaten the shit out of people just so they’ll do what I want or tell me what I want to hear.” He snorts. “I’ve fucked people I never wanted to fuck.” He leans toward me, talking low, the whiskey sinking him back into drunkenness. “I’ve done things that I will never ever tell you because if I did, you wouldn’t ever want to see me again. I’m a bad man, Berkley. But at least I had a purpose. A reason for all the fucked-up shit I was doing.” His eyes drift over me lazily. “And then you came along and ruined it all. I had everything planned. Everything sorted. Your father was in the palm of my hand. You were fucking in the palm of my hand and then somehow, I looked at myself and realized I was becoming the very thing I despised. Typical, isn’t it? Tale as old as fucking time.”

He scoots across the sofa, suddenly too close, too intense. He grabs my chin, forcing my gaze toward his. “You are too much, Everly Atterton,” he spits my old name. “I’ve risked it all. Everything. The whole fucking lot. And it’s all because I would do anything just to have you. How sick is that? Everything I’ve been working toward, the chance of finding Hope, just for a taste of you.”

His mouth hovers closer to mine. The scent of whiskey washes over me.

“You’re drunk,” I say, twisting my head away from him and risking the wrath of his fingers.

He drops his hand and leans back against the sofa. A cold smirk passes over his face and he reaches down to grab the bottle of whiskey again. “That I am.” He pours the liquid into the glass, not caring when some of it sloshes and spills to the floor. “But it doesn’t change one word of what I’ve said. You’ve made me question everything. I don’t even know if I want to find her again if it means losing you, and that makes me one very fucked man.” He holds the glass out in salute. “Because I want both. I want Hope back and I want you.” He downs his drink, his arm flinging to the side of the sofa, glass held lazily in his grasp. “But if I had to choose, I want you more.”

He shifts position, relaxing back further into the sofa, stretching his legs toward me. The glass falls from his hand, ringing loudly when it hits the floor.

His eyes darken as he fixes his gaze firmly on me. My heart does this heavy flop before starting to beat rapidly. “So now that you know everything, know the truth.” He nods down. “Now that you’ve seen me at my worst, the question is, do you still want me?”

chapter twenty-one

BERKLEY

He just lies there and waits. So many thoughts crash through my head. Every physical aspect of me wants him, is screaming out for me to climb over the sofa and onto him. But there’s so much clutter in the way. So many unknowns and what ifs.

My stomach twists violently. I barely have time to prepare when a flash rips across my mind.

My hands are pushed to his chest. I’m planted over him, riding him. The noises that fall from my mouth are guttural and unrestrained. He’s deep inside me and the hardness of him, the sensation of sinking onto him has me on the precipice. His nails dig into the flesh of my hips painfully. But it’s the way he’s looking at me, the raw need, as if he’s been split open, that’s what takes me over the edge.

It leaves me breathless and panting. My cheeks are licked with arousal. My heart is beating rapidly. I drag my eyes away from Jericho, scared of what he’ll see reflected in them. A spark ignites in the darkness.

“You had a flash, didn’t you?”

I nod, still trying to calm my racing heart.

He leans toward me. “I shouldn’t have pushed—”

Clambering over, I straddle his waist and press my finger to his lips. Those dark eyes jump between mine. I remove my finger slowly.

“Was it me?” he asks.

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