Crash (A Billionaire Contract Romance)

Knots

I’m worried.

Jude and Sean haven’t been to the soup kitchen in days, I asked Paul if he knew anything unfortunately he doesn’t but he tried to reassure me that Sean probably got a job. He thinks he’s busy getting on with his life.

A flicker of hope forms that he’s right and their life is getting a little easier like they deserve. But the bitter part of me that personally knows just how ugly and cruel this world knows that it’s unlikely.

I’m worried that Sean is sick or hurt somewhere and pour Jude is stranded somewhere trying to help but not having the knowledge or skill to help where it counts. They could be anywhere stranded and hungry, so I’ve been driving around Boston since I left the Soup Kitchen around 11.

I asked around tried to find out if anyone knew where Sean parked their car at night. I got a few suggestions, but after driving to each and finding nothing more than dirt and garbage littering the spots they should be I just start driving frantically around the city. Turning down random side streets and one way.

Little Jude’s face is haunting me, imagining his eyes filled with tears as he watches his dad fade away to nothing. What if Sean hit his head and hasn’t woken up, or someone snuck upon them in the night and hurt Sean and took Jude?

I drive until it's dark and my gas light turns on. My stomach is in knots, I’ve sent thought after thought to Grandma to please watch over Jude and Sean and help them through whatever they are going through right now. I’m just hoping she heard me and she has enough power up there to pull something off.

Walking towards the steps to get into my apartment building I stop in my tracks when I see the outline of a man and child throwing a Frisbee around on the lawn to the side of the building. They look an awful lot like Sean and Jude, maybe they park in this parking lot? But you have to have a parking pass and Eddie has everyone’s licenses plate numbers. I rush over there wondering if I’m going crazy and seeing things, maybe I wanted them so bad I projected them to me.

“Jude? Sean?” I call into the dark, suspicious of my own eyes.

“Miss Aria!” A screech and dark bolting object are my only warnings to steady myself before I have a five-year-old taking out my legs again.

“Jude!” this time I say his name with excitement and relief. They’re okay, nothing is wrong with them.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“It’s our new home.”

“It is? Since when?”

“Hey Aria, I didn’t know you lived here!” Sean reaches us, a smile on his face. He looks younger and more carefree than I’ve ever seen him.

“I could say the same! How are you? When did this happen?”

“Mr. Maverick had an opening here. He got me a job at Dixie Super Center as a Manager, full benefits!” Mason? Mason gave them a home, employment, brought them back some peace and security? Why?

It was just yesterday that I shared the best day of my life with him, even if there was an embarrassing orgasm involved.

“Congratulations guys! That’s incredible! I’m relieved you guys are okay! I was nervous when you didn’t come to the Soup Kitchen.”

“Our apartment came fully stocked, don’t want to take any food away from anyone that needs it more than us, so we’ve been eating here.”

“That’s awesome, I’m so happy for you! And now we get to be neighbors, how cool is that Jude?”

“I love it! I can help you cook now!” The light from the corner of our building shines on our faces. Jude is smiling from ear to ear, his cheeks rosy, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Baking with Jude would be a lot of fun, I’m sure Sean can use some help now that he’s got a job to get to.

“That sounds like so much fun. Sean, if you need anyone to watch Jude here let me know.”

“Thank you Aria, we appreciate that! You should come over for dinner tomorrow, I can repay you for all the food you’ve given us this whole time.”

“Yay, yay, yay!” Jude jumps up and down, over the moon.

“Okay, 6 good?”

“Perfect.” Parting ways they stay on the first floor and I go to the third. I’m happy and relieved for them, but now that I don’t have to worry about them my mind is free to wander back to yesterday.

Mason is so unexpected, my reactions more so. Even my under reactions while kissing him blows my mind to this moment. How I was able to get so fully get lost in Mason, in a date that felt magical.

Our day a fairy tale in the minds of little girls everywhere. All the emotions and moments you dream of while watching Disney movies where the girl down on her luck being treated poorly by those that should love her, she finally finds her happily ever after in a perfect man that was made just for her. He comes in just when she needs him the most, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her off into the sunset.

Yesterday was all of that, and more, because this was real. It wasn’t happening to an animated girl behind a glass screen, with talking animals and magic. No, Mason felt like he was made just for me, like he’s my Prince Charming, here to sweep me off of my feet. I was able to lose myself in the moment, in him.

Something only baking allows me to do, any other time I’m perfectly aware of everything wrong and lacking about myself.

I’ve never once even before Brian felt so carefree, so happy and in the moment, than I did yesterday. It wasn’t just the epic kiss, the chemistry he keeps throwing in my face is off this charts. When were close to each other we’re rushing water pressing against a poorly made dam, the pressure increasing, until the wood breaks, snapping in half, obliterating anything in the way.

The chemistry is something in its own, but Mason, he’s been in my corner since the moment I’ve meet him. Helping me, even when I insist he does the opposite. He got his hands dirty, helping me make hundreds of cookies. He’s helped at the Soup Kitchen willingly and happily.

Paul seemed to have respect and appreciation for him, more so than you would think for a mere donor. He held me when I cried, sat me down when I was hurt, washed away my blood when it ran down my legs.

He sent me flowers, something that’s never happened.

That was something I loved about grandpa, he bought grandma a fresh Bouquet of flowers every week, to keep in a vase on the kitchen table. She loved them, my heart always yearned for that. Mason made it happen.

He could have bought me anything but he gave me a box of baking ingredients. He’s kind, compassionate, thoughtful, bossy, and overwhelming. He’s everything I always wanted and can’t have.

Fitting actually, to finally get someone that will clean my wounds instead of inflicting them, someone, that will cover me in complements instead of tearing me down with insults. Someone that will hold me tighter when I’m hurting instead of pushing me away.

Of course, he would come into my life when I can’t have him. Won’t have him.

When Brian r***d me he left me with nothing else to ever give to anyone. It took me months just to be able to touch myself again.

Getting aroused was difficult.

I meet Brian when I was sixteen, a naive virgin. I fell in love with him easily, he was the first boy to show me romantic interest.

My best friends in school were Mia and Alec. Alec was a popular hockey player, but he was friends with us since elementary school, so even though Mia and I kept our heads down and traveled in different circles he made sure he walked us home every night and invited us to all the parties with him. In junior year Mia and Alec fell in love, I saw it coming, you only had to be in the same room with them to feel how right they were for each other. Things change though when they became romantically involved, they didn’t want me around like they used to.

Senior year when Brian paid attention to me I ate it up. Someone finally saw me and I loved it. He told me he loved me that he wanted forever. He took my virginity before the end of the year, it was lackluster and hurt, he came fast and told me to clean myself up, that he needed me to leave before his parents got home.

I should have seen the signs, I should have demanded better, I was lonely and desperate to have someone love me, someone beyond Grandma. As he went off to college we did the long-distance thing. His school was only a 45 minute drive away but still, I couldn’t see him often, between my work, his, and school. I suspected him of cheating but he always denied it.

His junior year he moved into his own apartment, it was twenty minutes away from his school, twenty minutes away from my work, so he demanded I move in. That’s when things really started getting bad. He would slap me around sometimes when I said something he didn’t like or say disgusting things to me when I wore something he deemed inappropriate before I moved in, but after. I shudder thinking about it.

Hospital trips were normal from then on. Years went by, I grew distant from everyone Mia and Alec had already left us behind. About a month before she passed Brian put me in the hospital for a week, I had an internal bleed, a concussion, my arm was broken, my ribs too. It hurt to take a breath, hurt to open my eyes. When the doctors sent the police in I told them the truth, Brian was abusing me and had been for years.

Brian’s a faster thinker and wasn’t willing to take the blame. He’d been with the Buffalo Police department for a year and a half at this point, so when I wouldn’t wake up after his beating he had already told them that he was nervous when I wouldn’t answer my phone.

He went searching found me outside my dad’s, passed out on the side of the house. Told them that he’s an alcoholic and had abused me since I was a baby. They arrested my Dad, so when I told them it was Brian they laughed in my face, told me I didn’t have to protect my dad anymore.

I knew then they wouldn’t be listening to me, I told Brian I never wanted to see him again, refused to press charges or give them anything they needed to prosecute my Dad, and moved back in with him.

Grandma was beyond upset, she wanted to know what happened, who did this to me. She could barely look at me, my face black and blue, swollen. I broke down and told her about Brian. She held me and told me I’ll be okay now, I did the right thing walking away, she wished I would have said something a long time ago, wished I would have come to her.

She passed two weeks later from a stroke. Two months later I was healed enough to finally go through her house, sell what I could, kept what I really wanted. She left me half her life insurance policy, the other half went to Dad. But she left me her entire estate. I put it on the market and it sold in three and a half weeks. It went into escrow, and the life insurance took a while to come through as well so when I finally got the money from both about four months ago I opened a savings account, worked my ass off at work, went home to sleep, eat shower and avoided being around Dad beyond that.

Seven months ago I came home late, Brian was hiding in the garage, hidden in the corner protected from view by the shadows. He waited till I had the door to get into the kitchen unlocked before he attacked.

I screamed, over and over I screamed. Praying that Dad was sober, for once. Please let him be sober, I kept thinking but he never came to help.

Brian shoved a hand towel from the kitchen into my mouth shutting me up but not stopping the sobs, I tried to use my tongue and teeth to get it out, and nothing worked. I was gagging on fabric, suffocating in fear. He used his cuffs to pin my arms around my back, closing them too tight, the metal cutting into my wrists. He was going on and on about me thinking I could ever get away from him, how stupid was I to think I could. He told me this was my punishment for everything I’ve denied him for months now.

I’d suffered his beatings, heard his voice as he told me how disgusting I was. I’d let him f**k me after because he was my boyfriend and I was choosing to be with him. But this time, this time he took my dignity. His hand holding my face down, smashed into the cold, dirty tile, my clothes in shreds around me. I looked at my torn orange shirt, using it to focus, shift my mind away from what he was doing.

I shut my mind off for the rest, he left me on the floor naked, bloody, hand and fingerprints all over my body. He didn’t even need to tell me not to go to the police before he left. He knew as much as I did nothing would happen.

As soon as the door shut behind him I removed the gag, grabbed my clothes throwing them into the trash. On my way to the bathroom, I notice my dad passed out face down on the couch. Right there, in the very next room the whole time, the person that should have protected me.

I spent the rest of the night in the shower long after it ran cold. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to the kitchen to get lost in baking. I never felt as degraded, shameful, and depressed. I was sore, I hurt all over, my face took the impact of his body slamming into mine, my cheek was raw. My throat was raw from sobbing, my eyes bloodshot, my v****a, my ass, they were bleeding for days. I avoided going to the bathroom for as long as I could, being in too much pain.

I was in shock, disbelieving it actually happened. I was tired all the time after that, numb. I always walked with someone to my car, I always had my Taser ready when I walked into my house. Eventually, I was able to stand in the kitchen and bake, burning away a little of the numbness I still felt, but I knew I couldn’t stay here, I needed to figure something out.

Brian took all my money while we were living together, it had only been 5 months since I left him at that point. So, I didn’t have much saved yet and I need to wait for grandma’s life insurance and estate to clear. Three months later when the checks were in my account already had a plan, now I had the funds. A few weeks after I was moving in, a month and a half later here I am, not numb enough.