“Don’t!” As Aiyana started toward her, Emery stood to search for the closest trash can. God, look what she’d done! The mess on the floor mirrored the mess of her life. Everything she’d suffered was coming to a head in that moment, tearing her apart, ruining all her hopes and dreams as well as tarnishing everything she’d accomplished in the past. And there was nothing she could do about it, not without inviting even more humiliation by trying to pursue justice.
She didn’t hear Dallas come up the stairs behind her, so she didn’t have any idea when he joined them—not until she found herself caught in his arms and held so tightly she couldn’t move.
Then all she could do was drop the glass she’d been trying to clean up, watch the blood drip off her fingers and sob.
“I’m sorry,” Emery cried. “I’ll leave now. Let me go. I’ll pay for the lamp and then I’ll be gone.”
Dallas could feel her body trembling against his. He could also see streaks of tears as he turned her around and she gulped for the breath to speak. When he’d been awakened by the screaming and cursing, he’d jumped out of bed and jammed his legs into a pair of jeans, but he hadn’t even taken the time to button them, let alone don a shirt before climbing the stairs two at a time to reach the living room.
“It’s okay.” Aiyana came around the couch to reach them. “Calm down. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not okay.” She turned her face into his chest rather than look at Aiyana. “It’s not right that I would take what’s happening out on you. You’ve been nothing but kind to me. I’ll replace the lamp.”
Aiyana stroked her hair. “I’m not worried about the lamp. I don’t care about things—I care about people. I care about you, and you’re in a safe place here with us. You can stay as long as you’d like. Maybe you needed to let out all that emotion. But with time, you’ll heal. You have to trust me on that. I’ve seen plenty of broken people put themselves back together again. Dallas is one of them.”
Emery seemed to have regained control, but Dallas still wasn’t sure whether it was safe to let her go. When he’d grabbed her, she was trying to pick up shards of glass without a care for getting cut, and he’d seen what he thought might be blood on her pink yoga pants. He didn’t want her to hurt herself any worse.
“Bring her over here, to the couch,” Aiyana told him.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
At the intrusion of another voice, Dallas glanced over to find that his two younger brothers had also reacted to the noise. They were standing on the stairs and were, like him, wearing only jeans. Their hair was sleep tousled, and Liam had the waffle imprint of his comforter on his cheek.
“Nothing. We’ve got it,” Aiyana said. “You can go back to bed. You have another hour or so before you have to get up for school.”
“Is Emery okay?” Bentley sounded concerned. At the same time, Liam said, “What happened?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Aiyana responded. “Let us deal with this, okay?”
They were tired enough that they accepted her response without any resistance and shuffled back up the stairs.
Aiyana got a cloth for Emery’s bleeding hand and Dallas guided her to the couch.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled to him when he finally let go of her and helped her to sit down.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “What happened?”
Tears continued to stream down her cheeks as she gestured at the TV. “That’s him,” she said dully, holding her stinging hand to her T-shirt to staunch the blood. “That’s Ethan Grimes. They’ve given him his job back.”
Dallas studied the guy who’d been so vindictive to her. He was thin and certainly not unhandsome, with brown eyes, thick slashes of eyebrows and equally dark hair that he wore slicked back off his forehead. But as far as Dallas was concerned, he was also filled with self-importance and came off sort of...smarmy. Dallas wanted to say, “You fell in love with that asshole?” but bit his tongue.
“Here. Let me see that cut,” Aiyana said.
Emery held out her hand.
“Fortunately, it doesn’t look too deep.” Aiyana peered even closer at it. “I can’t imagine it will require stitches. For now, just hold this cloth on it until the bleeding stops and I can see it more clearly. I’m going to make some tea. That should be warm and soothing.”
“How can they do that?” she asked Dallas, referring to the station, as Aiyana went into the kitchen. “After the Me Too movement and all that lip service about correcting sexism? He signed the same agreement I did. And he’s the one who pursued me. He also caused the scandal, made it public.”
“I don’t know.” Dallas sat down beside her in case she freaked out again. He was waiting for an opportunity to check the blood on her legs, but it was too soon. He was afraid if he drew her attention to the fact that she was hurt in more than one place, she might only get worked up again. “They must know he was the one who put up that video, right?”
She shook her head. “He lied about it. Said his roommate must’ve put up a camera and posted that video online.”
“Why would his roommate do something like that?”
“Ethan claims he must’ve got off on watching us. And he said Tommy posted the video online because he was being pressured to move out, and he wasn’t happy about it.”
Dallas dipped his head to catch her eye. “Could that be true? Could it have been this Tommy person?”
“No,” she replied immediately. “Tommy would never do anything
