Back to the Top (Ross Records) (3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

with suspicion. “Which one did you sleep with?”
    “What?” I asked, head pounding.
    “Which would did you take into your bed?” he asked, his tone low and eerily polite. It frightened me all the more.
    “None of them,” I lied. “Now stop. You’re scaring me.”
    He continued to glare, looking for proof of my lies on my face. “You’re about to be my wife yet you hold back on me. You hold back information on your past. You hold back everything else. You won’t let me touch you yet you slept with one of those disgusting drug addicts.”
    Anger coursed through my blood. How dare he speak that way about my friends! “Maybe I don’t want to be your wife. Maybe I don’t want to be engaged any longer.”
    He was on me again in a flash, moving quicker than I’d ever guess he was capable. He wrapped his fingers around my throat, forcing me against the wall. Tears burned my eyes.
    “You’ll stay engaged to me, Isabella,” he growled. “We will be married. You don’t have a choice, do you?”
    Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. His lips crushed mine in a bruising kiss. Once he finished, he released me and I had to brace my hands against the wall to stay on my feet.
    “You should get to bed, darling. It’s quite late,” he said as he opened the door. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
    As soon as the door closed behind him, I locked it and slid to the floor, massaging my throat. Tears spilled from my eyes as my body trembled, trying to shake off the images of Brad’s livid face.
    I sat for at least ten minutes until I felt my legs might be strong enough to support me. Once I was on my feet, I stumbled to the bedroom. Digging everything out of my pockets, I came across the card Nick had given me. On the front was Greta Johnson’s name and phone number. Flipping it over, I squinted at the familiar scrawl, making out four sets of initials with phone numbers after them: MW, RS, NC, JJ.
    Grinning, I placed the card in my underwear drawer, right on top of the Rock Weekly magazine. My hand brushed a box that I carefully lifted from the pile of panties and bras. I took it to my bed and sat.
    Why not? I’d already taken a trip down Memory Lane.
    Pinching open the box, I smiled through my tears at the silver bracelet with matching necklace and earrings I’d received from Jake during my senior year. Under them was a beautiful ring – a promise that we’d always be together.
    I shut the box, fighting the misery that howled inside of me, and shoved it into my purse. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t feel that the trinkets were safe inside my home.
    And I just sort of wanted them with me.
    Quickly changing, I slipped into the sheets, moist eyes and aching body, praying for a long, deep sleep.
    ***
    True to his word, Brad called me early that Sunday morning to tell me that he’d be golfing with George and Kevin Tharpe. There was no hint in his voice that anything out of the ordinary had happened the evening before and I didn’t remind him. I wished him well, claiming to have household chores to do, and ended the call.
    As I dusted the living room furniture, my mind wandered to Jake and how exhausted he’d looked. He’d had a hard time, I knew, but many of the details were still unknown to me. The cocaine addiction was something that none of us who knew him best had saw coming. By the time anyone had realized that he was using, it had been too late.
    Sighing, I sat on the carpet near the coffee table, dust rag limp in my hands. Closing my eyes, memories flooded my mind.
    “I need to talk to you, Iz,” Nick said, taking me by the arm and leading me to the sofa.
    My swollen eyes remained on the kitchen doorway where Jake had disappeared, presumably for his basement hideaway. Once again, he’d been out and came home only to start an argument with me. Luckily, Nick had stopped by and kept me company while Jake was out doing whatever it was he was doing.
    “What?” I asked, fatigue lacing my voice. The summer