She sucked in a breath when I pressed a glass into her hand, my hot breath fanning her neck.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” I still had her pinned against the counter, and a little voice in my head warned me not to make her uncomfortable. I couldn’t resist inhaling deeply, taking in her scent, before I stepped away. I watched her open the wine bottle and pour some into a glass. Lifting my beer bottle, I asked, “Toast?”
She looked as if she was considering it before lifting one shoulder. “Sure. What shall we drink to?”
“Finding the truth.”
She tapped her glass to my bottle. “To finding the truth.” She took a sip while looking me in the eye. “That’s all I ever wanted, you know? The truth. I wanted someone to pay for what happened to me, but I sure as hell didn’t want the wrong person go down for it. Especially if…”
“What?” I asked, tipping back my beer bottle. “What were you going to say?”
“I never wanted you to be a victim in all this, Ma—” She stopped herself and looked at her feet. “Sorry. It’s weird, calling you by another name now that I know the truth.”
“I understand.” Truth be told, I wouldn’t mind hearing her call me by my real name again, but if she got too comfortable with it, she could slip in front of someone else. That would invite a host of questions we couldn’t answer. “It was weird for me too in the beginning.” I smiled. “People would call me Blaise, and I’d look around to see who they were talking to.”
“If this works out the way you hope it will and you’re able to clear your name, will you take your old life back?” She took another sip of wine. “I mean, will you tell everyone your story, reclaim your old name and identity?”
“I think it’s a little too late to go back.” I smirked as I gestured to my face. “This isn’t going to change. It’s who I am now, like it or not. Besides, I’m not the same guy I was back then. Matt was young and immature. He didn’t know what he wanted out of life or how to make his situation better. He felt like he had no options. That’s so far removed from the way I think now, I can’t even tell you.”
“Yeah, I guess it is.” She tipped her head from one side to the other as her eyes traced my body. “I have to admit, the change is remarkable. You’re so… refined and classy now.”
I laughed as I held up my beer bottle. “I don’t know about that. Sure, I can afford a thousand-dollar-bottle of wine now, but given the choice, I’ll still take a cold beer any day.”
“I never imagined you would turn out this way.” Her voice was soft, almost reverent. “The Matt I knew, he was… a simple guy. You never really talked about your plans for the future or seemed all that ambitious.”
I knew she didn’t mean to offend me, and she was right. “Spending years behind bars makes you realize that every day counts. I always felt I was wasting my life working as a laborer. Don’t get me wrong, some people do that kind of work and really enjoy it. They like making something from nothing. But I wasn’t one of those guys. I was just doing it to keep a roof over my head. Fighting was always my passion. If my time in prison taught me one thing, it was how to fight—not physically, but mentally. By the time I got out of there, I felt unstoppable. Failure wasn’t an option.”
“Well, I can’t deny what you’ve accomplished is beyond impressive. It must seem surreal to you, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does.” I laughed. “I can walk into a dealership and pay cash for a Ferrari on a whim.” I shook my head. “I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be able to do something like that.”
“Congratulations on your success,” she said, raising her glass. “I mean that. You’ve clearly worked hard for it, and you deserve it.”
I was stunned by the compliment. I expected the evening to be awkward, laced with the anger she’d been exhibiting since she found out the truth about my identity. But Maura seemed willing to talk and listen and consider the possibility she may have been wrong about me.
“Thank you,” I said, touching my bottle to her glass. “You have no idea how much that means to me. All I ever wanted was to impress you, to be good enough to deserve someone like you.”
She reached for the wine bottle to top up her glass. “Why didn’t you ever get married?”
“I never met anyone who inspired that kind of commitment, not since you anyway.”
Maura looked at me, her eyes soft and glistening. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if I’d accepted your proposal that night, how different our lives would have been?”
“All the time. But honestly, you were right to turn me down. It hurt like hell, but I think it also lit a fire in me. I had to face facts. I wasn’t good enough for you then… but I am now.”
Her grip on the wine glass tightened. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Why not?” This was the conversation I’d wanted to have with her for years. I wanted to speak my truth and let her know that her love inspired me to be the man I am today.
“It just feels… wrong.” She rubbed her temple. “I’m still so conflicted. I don’t know what to think or how to feel, and I can’t talk to anyone about it except you.”
“The best advice I can give you is to follow your heart. You know the truth. You know whether or not you believe I’m capable of doing the things they accused me of.”
“That’s just it,” she said, turning away from me. “My heart always told me you could never do that to me, but when I was faced with the evidence, I told myself I was a fool to believe you could be innocent.”
“You were right to question me,” I said gently. “I would have done the same thing in your position.”
“Really?” She turned to face me. “If our situations were reversed, would you have stood by me?”
Air seeped through my teeth as I struggled to find the right answer. “Yes, I would have.”
“That’s what I thought.” Her eyes drifted to the ground.
“But that doesn’t mean I blame you for not standing by me,” I said quickly. “You had plenty of reasons to believe I was responsible for what happened to you. You were right to protect yourself.” She looked surprised by my admission, so I said, “I didn’t always feel that way. I was mad as hell for a long time.”
“You were?”
“Yeah. In fact, I think the anger stayed with me until you and I reconnected. That’s when I began to understand what that attack did to you, how it changed you.”
“I can’t deny that.” She pressed her glass against her cheek. “I don’t know that I’ll ever be the same.”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t.” I couldn’t pretend to know what she’d been through or how she was feeling, but I wanted to support her in any way I could. “I think everyone reacts differently in these situations.”
“That’s what my therapist said, that everyone is different. Every survivor of a violent crime has to forge their own path and decide whether or not their attack will define them. I don’t want that night to define me.”
Her eyes locked on mine, and I could barely breathe. I wanted to find the words to set her free, but I knew only a judge could deliver those. “I don’t think it has to. You can decide whether you want to give him that kind of power over you. You can be as free as you choose to be, once you make the commitment to uncover the truth.”
“That’s why I’m here,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’m ready to get to the truth.”
***
Throughout dinner, we talked about her work and mine, places we’d visited, people we’d met, our plans for the future. It felt good, like connecting with an old friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. That sexual chemistry was still there, simmering beneath the surface, but I also sensed an underlying wariness. She wasn’t able to trust me completely yet.
“I guess we’ve put it off long enough,” she said as she reached for her coffee. “We came here to talk about what happened that night, so let’s talk about it.”
“Okay.” I wrapped my hands around my mug. “Do you want to start by telling me what happened when you left my place?”
She sighed. “You know the story. I ran outside to get away from you. I was looking up and down the street, hoping to find a taxi, when someone covered my mouth with a gloved hand and whispered that they would cut my throat if I didn’t get into the back of their van.”
“The van that looked just like my work van?”
“It looked exactly like yours.”
“What happened next?”
“I told this story in court.” She sighed. “It happened just the way I said it did. Honestly, I don’t know if rehashing this will get us anywhere.”
“I think it might.” I wished I could touch her, try to comfort her in some small way. “I wouldn’t put you through this if I didn’t think it might help us figure out who really did this.”
“Fine,” she said, setting her cup down carefully. “What do you want to know?”
“Did he say anything to you on the way there?”
“No.”
“Was there anything specific about the van that you remember?”
“It was dark,” she said slowly. “I couldn’t see much, but no, I don’t remember anything about it.”
“Were there tools inside? Something with a company logo, maybe?”
“I don’t think so.” She released a shaky breath. “There may have been, but I was too terrified to notice. My mind was racing, wondering what he was going to do to me, whether he was going to kill me. I was just trying to figure out how to get away.”
“I understand, angel.” The soft endearment caught her attention, and when she lifted her head, I smiled, letting her know that I didn’t want this to hurt any more than it had to. “Was there music playing?”
“No, it was quiet.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “The only thing I remember was the sound of his breathing. It was ragged, like he’d been running or something.”
“Hmm.” I painted a picture in my mind with the words she offered. “You said he was dressed in black, with a ski mask and leather gloves?”
“I think he may have been wearing dark jeans,” she said. “But he was wearing a black leather jacket, and a black T-shirt maybe?”
“Not what I was wearing that night,” I mumbled.
Her eyes snapped up. “What?”
“Do you think I would have had time to put on that get-up before you reached the street? I was naked when you left me, remember?”
She sucked in a breath. “I… guess I never thought of that.”
“How long do you think it would have taken me to get dressed like that? And how would I have made it downstairs before you did? You would have seen me come out of the building, right? There was only one entrance.”
She jumped out of the iron chair so fast she upended it. The sound of metal hitting stone reverberated through the quiet.
“I’m sorry,” I said, standing slowly. “I didn’t mean to come at you like that.”
She was pacing across the patio, breathing hard, her eyes wide and frantic. “I guess I didn’t think about the logistics. Why didn’t I?” She laced her fingers through her hair at the back of her neck. “Why didn’t I ask myself all the questions you’re asking me now?”
My lawyer had presented the same argument in his closing statement, but Maura had left right after her testimony. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be there any longer than she had to. She was a wreck, often sobbing and shaking, unable to make eye contact with anyone.
“Why would you?” I asked. “The police thought they had their man. So did your parents. It wasn’t your job to defend me.”
“But I knew you,” she cried. “They didn’t. I loved you!” She was crying, and she turned her back on me.
I was desperate to go to her, but I couldn’t. Her emotional state was too tenuous, and I knew there was still a lot of distrust beneath her anguish. “You weren’t to blame. You were the victim.”
Maura struggled to draw deep breaths as she bent over at the waist. Before long, she was crouching on the ground as her whole body trembled. “God, I can’t trust anyone or anything. I don’t know what to believe anymore. The people I think are trying to help me only hurt me. The ones I think I can trust betray me, and the guy I thought I hated is trying to help me, but is he or is he just trying to help himself?”
She sounded as though she was talking to herself, working through her feelings, so I offered nothing until she looked at me, her heartbreak streaking her face.
“I’m trying to help you first and foremost, but of course it’ll help me too if we find the person responsible for this.” I offered her my hand. “Do you feel like continuing with this, or have you had enough for tonight?”
“I have to continue.” She took my hand and stood. Rolling her shoulders back, she looked me in the eye before drawing a deep breath. “I can’t rest until I know for sure.”
“Okay.” I led her to the table, righted her chair, and held it out for her.
She swiped her hands across her face. “What else do you need to know?”
“You said you weren’t sure where he took you?”
“No. Of course, I found out where after the fact.”
“Right.” I knew exactly where he’d taken her. I’d often woke up in a cold sweat imagining her lying there in the tall grass, bleeding, crying, and pleading for her life. “Can you tell me what happened inside the van? Not about the rape necessarily, unless you think there’s something about that I need to know?” I hated asking her to relive that. I didn’t know if I had the intestinal fortitude to stomach it when she was sitting across from me, looking so broken and alone.
“God, I’m sorry,” she said, standing. “I just need a minute alone. Please.”
I watched her walk down the path to the pool. The lights illuminating the path showed me she was crying. I watched her sit on a lounger, her head falling into her hands as her shoulders shook. Pain ripped through me, fiercer than anything I’d felt before. I watched her trying so hard to be strong, and I fell in love with her all over again. She’d been my world once, and I wanted her to be again, but that wouldn’t be possible unless I could rebuild the trust I’d shattered with lies and deception. It didn’t matter that I’d lied to her to protect myself. I should have put her first, made her safety my top priority.
She looked at me and lifted a hand to beckon me closer. I got up without hesitation, grateful to close the distance between us.
Standing above her with my hands on my hips, I asked, “What do you need, angel? How can I help?”