An Improper Deal(66)

“Everyone left.”

“Why? They shouldn’t have.”

“Hard to pretend everything’s fine when something like this happens.” His voice is calm, and I can’t quite figure out what he’s trying to say really. Does he blame me for ruining the event?

I make sure Nonny is fine, then stand up and gesture for him to leave the room with me. I don’t stop until we reach the master suite.

Elliot follows me in and closes the door behind him. “I’m sorry about Tiffany, but you went overboard. Nothing would’ve happened to Nonny. I would’ve made sure.”

“That’s not the point,” I tell him. “I don’t want Nonny to feel comfortable or safe about drinking, ever.”

“Why not? Everyone does it.”

“So if everyone jumps off a bridge, she should too?”

He cants his head. “You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“No. You just don’t get it because you’re a man. Who’s going to hurt you even if you pass out? Worst case, somebody robs you, but it’s just money.”

“Gigi—”

I raise a hand. I don’t want to hear him call me by another woman’s name. Maybe that woman would’ve been more understanding, but I’m not her. He doesn’t know anything about me. “I can’t stay here if this kind of thing happens again.”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re being unreasonable.”

That only pisses me off more. “She could’ve been hurt! When a young woman gets drunk like that she is a victim waiting to happen because there’s no guarantee that the people she thought were on her side won’t take advantage of her. Don’t you know anything? Fine, it’s okay now. I get it. But what about next time? What if she gets careless or somebody spikes her drink again? She could be raped or get pregnant or ruin her life or experience hundreds of horrible scenarios!” My chest rises and falls rapidly as I slash the air with my arm.

Elliot pulls back, but his brilliant eyes never leave my face. “Did something like this happen to you?” he asks, his voice quiet.

I swallow a hot lump in my throat. Panic and anger have made me careless. “No,” I say. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Elliot just looks at me.

“It’s common sense.” Wrapping my arms around myself, I tear my gaze away. “Every young woman knows this.”

“No. Elizabeth ‘knows’, but not the way you seem to.”

I flinch, my eyes flying up to meet his. “Did something happen to her?”

“No. I’m saying something happened to you. She can quote statistics and studies. She raises money to help women and children, and she has to be able to throw numbers and anecdotes at potential donors to get them to fork over some money. But she doesn’t react the way you do.”

Dizziness comes suddenly, and I grip the vanity behind me. “I see.”

“So.” He folds his arms. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” I’m not going to talk about the sordid story. It’s so cliché, it’s painful.

“Were you raped?” he asks quietly.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know or you don’t remember?”

I just shake my head. Coldness seeps all the way to my bones, and I clench my teeth. Breaths hiss through them.

“Did you get pregnant?”

I shake my head. I don’t even want to think about that period of my life. If I deny it, it doesn’t exist. Nobody knows anyway, not even Traci. Whoever got me pregnant never stepped forward, and if the universe has even a modicum of kindness, the boy was too drunk to remember anything.

“Look at me.” Elliot steps up, grips my upper arms and shakes me. “Look at me when you deny it.”

My eyes clash with his. They’re thunderous, a stormy sea of seething emotions.

“Tell me again you weren’t.”

I swallow. I want to tell him he’s wrong, that nothing happened to me, and I’m just a girl who had your typical upper middle class childhood, nothing more, nothing less. But I can’t. The lie sticks in my throat, and the hot ugly truth, the one I’ve kept buried deep inside all these years, finally comes out.

“I drank,” I begin, my voice low. “And I passed out. Seven weeks later, I found out I was pregnant. Couldn’t tell anyone. No doctors.”

I couldn’t have the baby. I was only fifteen at the time. My parents would’ve been so disappointed, devastated in fact, that I put myself in that position. Mom in particular told me to be smart because girls have to be smarter than boys—we’re weaker and more fragile…and we have something they want badly enough they’ll sometimes resort to violence to get it.