The Rake (Boston Belles #4) by L.J. Shen

He wasn’t going to let me leave.

I knew that much for a fact.

For all his niceness—and Devon Whitehall was a good and true gentleman—he didn’t react well to bullshit, and he and I both knew that I was serving him a healthy dose of messiness neither of us deserved.

So I took the coward’s way out. I wrote him a note.

I told myself that it was fine. I would sit and talk to him face-to-face. I just needed some time to digest everything. Besides, it was better if I didn’t stay in Boston, now that I suspected two different forces of trying to drive me away.

Devon would be fine. He always was. Strong and sun-washed and golden. With his title, sharp intellect, and lazy, surly drawl, he’d be fine.

Shit, I was making the biggest mistake of my life, and I was doing it for my daughter. Keeping her safe was most important.

So this was what it felt like to love a person.

Even before I knew her. Even before she was out there in the world.

I decided to handwrite Devon a letter. I wanted something personal and not too brief to break the news to him.

After all, he’d been nothing but good to me.

It took me four hours to write something I didn’t completely detest.



Dear Devon,



Thank you for your hospitality and for dealing with my brand of bullshit, which, let’s admit it, is too much for 99.99% of the human race.

The thing is, I don’t think living together is doing either of us any good.

I make you miserable, and you make me uncomfortable.

The feelings you stir in me leave me raw and scared.

As for you, I know last night you were on the verge of punching a hole through your bedroom wall, all because of me.

I know things are kind of rocky, but please know that I filed a complaint today and that the police are working on it. I promise to carry my weapon at all times, and to stay safe, but I can’t do this anymore.

I’m afraid if we keep having a relationship, the stress is going to get to the baby, and I have to put her before anything else. Before you. Before me.

I’m so happy to do this journey with you and request that we remain friends.

With that being said, I’ll be taking a step back and will try to look inside myself to find the grace and trust you deserve to be treated with.

Lots of love,



Belle.



P.S.

You should marry Louisa. She loves you.





Fifteen Years Old.



Tenth grade starts with bangs.

Not to be confused with a bang.

Ross, of course, is behind the idea.

“Bangs really suit you. I just love your hair. It’s fantastic to work with. I need to straighten my own bangs every morning,” Ross moans.

We made a deal—I’ll give both of us bangs if he agrees to go to Krav Maga classes with me. We go three times a week. The instructors are tired of our faces. But I no longer leave my fate in the hands of men I don’t know.

I watch for Coach Locken in the hallways, in my classes, in the cafeteria. I’m never going to let him do that to me again, and revenge will come.

I’ve seen enough documentaries and watched enough news cycles to know that handing him over to the authorities won’t do any good. I need to take the law into my own hands. Because whether he gets away with what he’s done or not, my life will still be fucked forever.

I refuse to be that girl who messed with her coach. Who let him eat her out for months, and then oops, got scared and told Mommy and Daddy when he took her virginity. No. Screw that. I’m a girl with a plan.

Coach Locken stays away from me.

One month follows the other, and I almost start breathing again.

Then one Saturday morning, bright and early, when Mom’s making pancakes downstairs, Dad reads the paper and Persephone is on the phone with Sailor, something happens.

It’s weird that it happens, because everything else about this Saturday is so ordinary. So mundane. The scent of pancakes wafts under the cracks of the bathroom. So does Persephone’s laughter as she and Sailor discuss how obnoxiously romantic both our parents are (Sailor is, unfortunately, also the spawn of two people who really need to stop pawing one another in public).

I get a text from Locken.

I’m going to do it again if you tell.

Be warned.

Consider me warned.

I’m about to throw up.

But I think I know why he feels confident in telling me this—he knows the authorities are a piece of crap. The school board would never believe me. The local police station is full of his schoolmates—people he drinks beer with—and Southie is just not a place where you go to the police. You take care of shit on your own.

I pee in the toilet. Feel like I stopped peeing—my bladder is empty, I know, because I’ve been peeing fifteen years straight, every day, multiple times a day, without fail—but for some reason, I keep dripping. The cramping in my stomach is bad. Like my gut is constricting against something it wants to purge out.

I look down, between my legs, and frown. A gush of blood comes out. I blink into the toilet bowl, spreading my thighs apart, and I see a clump of … something.

Oh God.

Oh God.

Oh God.

I bend over forward and throw up right there on the tiles. I’m shaking. No. It can’t be. I reach above my head for a towel hanging on a rack and stuff it into my mouth to muffle my cries. I squirm on the floor and scream into the towel.