Diego’s face was soft, and he patted Damon on the shoulder. “Hand her the phone, son.”
Damon shook his head. “I should protect her.”
My heart pulsed with pain, with hope, with love, and any remaining armor I’d been clinging to disappeared.
It clanged against that tile floor and for the first time in more than a decade, I felt as though I were able to take a deep breath. Without pain, without straining, with nothing but a simple inhale and exhale.
I could do this.
I had to do this.
Because I wanted my happy future, and I wanted it with Damon.
And his family.
He handed me the cell. I called Maggie, then my agent, then the studio, and the next few days were a blurred flurry of events.
Only when everything calmed and the dust had settled, I couldn’t believe who was at the center of it.
The cameras found us on the second day, descending on Diego and Belle’s driveway like black-lensed locusts, reporters knocking on the door, shouting my name.
Diego had called off work, Belle was holed up in the kitchen cooking, and I was trying to figure out what to do. Or rather my team was, since the story only seemed to grow larger.
The media had gone to my hometown and found out about the pregnancy, since it was still apparently local gossip.
The judge’s name who’d signed off on the marriage had been released along with photos of a young me from the hospital, arm casted, bruises blooming on my side, a fat lip.
That had been after I’d lost the baby.
But before I’d lost Tim . . . or been freed from him anyway. Which was probably not a charitable thing to be thinking about someone who passed away, but I didn’t have enough charity in me to wish him anything but the end he’d met.
My phone rang. I set down the tortilla dough I was rolling—because at least I’d gotten better at the first part of the exercise—and glanced down at the screen. It was a number I didn’t recognize, and I’d learned enough over the last forty-eight hours to immediately reject any caller I didn’t know.
It began ringing again. Just like it had for that entire morning. Just like it had since my number had somehow gotten out the previous evening.
Damon noticed, snagging it from the counter next to me and powering it off.
“I—”
He shook his head, shoved it in his pocket.
“Maggie might need to get ahold of me.”
“She has my number, remember?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, going to work on the next ball, hating that Damon was involved.
He pushed the dough away, leaned back against the counter next to me. “What’s this?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. It’s—”
Chocolate eyes met mine, held mine in place when I wanted to look away.
But I wasn’t going to look away.
“Baby.”
I sighed. “I’m struggling,” I murmured. “This would be so much easier for you, for your family, if we just weren’t together.”
His hand dropped to my arm. “Don’t say that.”
I spun away. “How can I not?” I reached for the dough again but stopped when Damon shifted to the side, blocking me. I threw up my hands. “Your dad couldn’t go to work this morning. Your mom had to unplug the phone. They can’t go in their front yard. Because of me!”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“I know!” I snapped, pacing away. “And I love you for saying that, for being so calm and patient when you wouldn’t have even been involved in this if it weren’t for me, but—”
He stepped in front of me mid-pace, snagging my shoulders, and halting my progress. “I’m here because I love you.”
I sniffed. “But your parents, this was just supposed to be a quick, fun visit, and I’ve ruined it.” Another sniff. “They’re prisoners in their own house!”
“They’re fine,” Damon said. “Maggie promised your phone with the new number would be here today. You two will get an uninterrupted conversation and can figure out your next step—”
“That’s just it,” I said. “I don’t know my next step. The studio has delayed filming for a few weeks, offered another PR firm to help, but I don’t know what to do.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“What Damon?” I asked, pulling out of his hold. “My next move is what? Should I become some sort of ambassador for marriage laws? I want them to be changed, absolutely,” I said. “No one should be married off at thirteen or fourteen or at any age before they can rationally consent. But my marriage wasn’t the worst of it. There were so many issues intertwined that made it complicated.” I went over to the tortilla-maker, shoving a ball of dough inside, and pulling down harshly on the handle. I yanked it back open to reveal a perfect tortilla inside.
So, that was the key to smoothly round circles of dough.
A proper dose of rage about the past.
“What makes it complicated?”
I grabbed another ball, put it inside. “I was preyed upon by a predator, not protected by my parents,” I said and closed it. “I was failed by a legal system that allowed for one judge to sign off on a thirteen-year-old getting married.” Open . . . to reveal another perfect tortilla.
Great. I was on a roll. Finally.
“And,” I said, powering my way through more dough. “My experience wasn’t a one-off. Two hundred thousand minors are married a year. Just in the US.” Another tortilla, another ball of dough. “Not all of those were thirteen or fourteen or even all female, of course, but too many were too young, too naïve, and forced, coaxed, or threatened into marriage.” I sniffed, blinking back tears. “And those numbers don’t begin to speak about the twelve million girls around the world who marry before they’re eighteen. Many are preyed upon like I was. They miss out on school, aren’t safe and protected, don’t have access to birth control, have high-risk pregnancies because they can’t seek good health
