Chapter 4

Danika couldn't believe her luck running into James. He may have been from her past, but he wasn't from her recent past, so he didn't know how much she'd fucked up. She'd cut ties and burned bridges for Ezra. Her friends had abandoned her. People she thought she could trust had turned their backs on her, but she didn't blame them. James had no clue about any of the stuff she'd done.

A shiver snaked through her, and James reached out, touching her elbow, sending a wave of warmth to her core. The things Ezra had talked her into had nearly ruined her. She hadn't done too much illegal shit but enough to destroy friendships, and all of it had been for Ezra. But he'd turned on her, and she was in danger of losing everything, maybe even her life.

James was impressive, and for some crazy reason, she felt he was the only person who could keep Ezra away from her. If her ex found her, she was sure she would end up being locked away until she died. Why had she agreed to move to London with Ezra? She'd known he had a temper. The questionable things he did hadn't seemed so bad at first. She hadn't known everything, but she had ignored common sense and chased after the excitement Ezra offered. He'd sold moving to England as seeing the world, but she hadn't been allowed to see much.

"Tell me more." James's deep voice slid over her like melted butter. Back when they dated, she'd seen hints of the man he would become. He was better than she'd ever suspected he would be.

"I'm embarrassed to say I stayed with him for too long."

"How long?"

She closed her eyes, wishing she could skip the details and just have James accept that she'd screwed up and needed help hiding. "I hate telling you this. I don't want you to think less of me."

He leaned in, his beautiful brown eyes looking so earnest and full of caring that she melted a little. "I won't think less of you. I know you've changed from the girl I knew in high school. We're both different people. We're people who've lived, which means we've done things we may not be proud of."

Harsh laughter escaped her lips, and she automatically felt bad. She reached out and grabbed his hand, which may have been a mistake. The jolt of touching him skin on skin went right through her and made her want to pull him closer.

"Sorry, you don't look like the type of man who does stupid stuff."

His chuckle shot straight to her core. "Oh, honey, you have no idea. What happened with you and this guy?"

She shook her head as thoughts of how dumb she'd been filled her. "Ezra swept me off my feet. I moved here with him because I thought he was a good guy—that's a lie. I knew he was trouble, kind of. But I felt like I was losing my life back in the States, and I thought he would save me. He offered excitement and family, which I didn't have. I thought I had a future with him. When we first got together, I ignored my better judgment and let things slide. Like he was doing some weird stuff, and I let it go. I didn't know how bad it was."

James's lips thinned, and he took a swig of his drink. "What kind of stuff?"

She shook her head. "I feel terrible."

"Don't. Just tell me so I know what we're dealing with."

She let go of the breath she'd been holding and put her elbows on the table, leaning in closer so she didn't have to speak too loudly. There were few people downstairs, and they were at a table far away from the nearest customer. No one was out on the streets now, so there were no new people checking into the hotel. After a moment, she met James's gaze and began telling him what had happened.

"He was into money—like a stock trader or financing. I don't know exactly, but he had a lot of money. At first, I just thought he was maybe a little loose on regulations. Then I figured out that I was doing illegal stuff at one point."

"How illegal?"

She glanced around, making sure no one was paying attention to them. "Getting people's information. Not stuff like social security numbers or passwords that I knew of, but he had me talking to people at parties and reporting back what they said. The first year, I had no idea he was using that information to blackmail people. I just thought he needed me to be the social one, the fun one. I would chat with people for hours, not realizing I was gathering information so Ezra could steal from them."

James took a sip of his drink and then set the glass down before leaning in. "So you didn't know. "

She shook her head. "No. Not for the first year. Then I realized…" She blew out a breath. "Anyway, I knew after a few people lost their homes. One guy ended up killing himself. Ezra had taken everything from him, and I helped." Danika couldn't stop the sob that escaped her lips. "Sorry," she said as she wiped her eyes. "I feel responsible for that man's death."

James touched her hand and wove their fingers together. She stared at the way their fingers were connected, and another sob surfaced. If James had never left town…but that was another lifetime. She wouldn't have appreciated him back then.

"No, you didn't cause the man to die," James said. "You aren't responsible for a guy killing himself. This Ezra guy, how much power does he have?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. He has money, but most of it is stuff he took from other people. Once I figured that part out, I wanted to leave him. He got mean. He broke my arm when I threatened to tell someone about what he was doing."

"Fuck." James leaned in closer, and she wanted to close the distance between them, but she held back. He wasn't here for her, at least not in that way. Plus, she couldn't hop from one man to another, not that she'd really been with Ezra in the last year. But she needed time to be herself and make it on her own, even if it was just to prove to herself that she could.

"He did other stuff." A shiver slid through her. "It took months—really years—to plan my escape, but I didn't plan on the snow. I should have known something would happen. When I quit my job in New York and moved here with him, I thought life was only going to get better. But I swear he changed after I moved. Luckily, I never married him, so I don't have to ever contact him again. "

James's eyes stayed on her as he took a swig from his drink. He was her only hope of escaping. She couldn't use her credit card here in London, or he would find her. She hated how he'd cut her off from her friends and forced her to become someone she didn't like.

"I'm glad you don't have to deal with divorcing him."

She shrugged. "Yeah. It was enough dealing with the abuse."

James's lips thinned. "What did he do to you?"

Danika blew out a breath and shook her head. "Do you really want to hear about it?"

He nodded. "I do."

She held out her arm and pushed her sleeve up. "That scar is from surgery after he broke my arm. There are burns on my back." She showed her right wrist. "When he chained me to the floor and kept me in a closet, I tried to pull my hand out of the shackle. It didn't work. These are the scars from that."

James narrowed his gaze. "How were you able to get away?"

Panic swept through her. Did he know Ezra? She'd just assumed she could trust him. What if he'd been working with her ex to find out how she'd escaped so he could lock her up again?

She shook her head, not wanting to consider that James was a bad guy. In her mind, James was the one person who would have been perfect for her, even though she'd broken up with him before he left town.

James took her hand. "Hey, you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. I can help you if you let me. I like information. Something that may seem inconsequential to you might be something big. I'm just trying to sort through everything."

She nodded, and her mind seemed to drift. Talking about Ezra and everything he'd done to her made her feel disassociated from life. It was like she was looking at someone else through her own eyes.

"I never wanted life to be this way. I swore I was going to be different from my mom."

James's eyes widened. "Your dad beat your mom?"

She shrugged. "What can I say? It wasn't something I ever wanted anyone else to know."

"Shit. I wish I'd known. Then again, I ran after what my dad did."

She grabbed his hand again and squeezed. "I wish I would have known how to contact you. I missed you so much. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and then you were gone."

He shook his head. "I was fucked up back then. I'm sorry that I had to leave, but you did break up with me, so I thought you didn't want to know what happened."

"Biggest mistake ever." Danika took a swig of her drink and then shook her head. "We were both screwed up. What your dad did was wrong. Just plain wrong in so many ways."

James's lips thinned. "Tell me more about this guy. How did you get away?"

She shrugged. "I started obeying his every command. I earned his trust over the last nine months. I had this thing where I kept every extra penny I could get my hands on. I stole money from him, well, money he couldn't keep track of. Eventually, I saved enough to buy a plane ticket with cash. Because I used cash, I have to wait to fly. I picked the date to be four days from today. I thought I could go to the coast and hide. Maybe blend in with tourists. I picked a town where I didn't think anyone would be watching me. But then the storm happened, and now I'm stuck in London. "

James nodded and got a faraway look in his eyes. He said nothing, and she worried that sharing the information with him would end up being detrimental. She wouldn't survive if Ezra found her.

"With the snow, we won't be going out and walking around the city. Is the phone the same one you had while with him, or did you get rid of it? Also, did you check your bags for tracking devices?"

She nodded. "I got rid of the phone. And I checked everything. He can't find me."

"Good. We should watch how much time we spend down here in the lobby. The snow should keep people away, but you never know."

She leaned in, worry filling her. "Do you think I'll be safe?"

He held her gaze, and something passed between them. She felt like she really could trust him. There was just something shining in his eyes that made her feel good. Then James gave a sharp nod before he started speaking.

"As long as I'm here, I know you'll be safe. Let me ask around and find somewhere for you to go if I end up having to leave early."

"Why would you have to leave?" She blinked, not understanding why he'd said he might have to go. She'd suspected that something was going on with him, but she had no clue what it could be.

"My work."

There was no way she had any idea what he did for a job, but his expression left no room for questions. He'd handled that woman rather expertly and knocked the pepper spray from her hand. She'd been immobilized so fast it had been hard to keep up with what had happened.

Danika leaned in and narrowed her gaze. "I don't really know you—I mean, I did when we were kids, but that was years ago. But I trust you."

"Good. Let's finish our drinks and go upstairs. If you're trying to lie low and not be seen by your ex, we shouldn't stay here by the window for too long."

Danika drank the last of her drink and stood. "You're right."

The thing with James was he'd always been right. He'd been right about her friends who weren't really friends. He'd been right about old Mr. Kirk. The man had been doing illegal things, and no one had known until the cops came and arrested him four years after she graduated high school. James had known that Robert Naples had been sexually assaulting girls at their school. When he'd been arrested his freshman year at college, so many stories came out describing the way he'd taken advantage of girls she knew.

If James said he would keep her safe, she believed him. She just didn't know if he was safe from her because now that they'd spent some time together, all the old attractions she'd felt for the one guy who got away were coming back tenfold.