Heartless. Diana Palmer

to her own home while her mother screamed and begged from the yard next door.

      Blue lights flashing. Sirens. Men in a van, dressed like soldiers, but all in black. Big guns. Gracie trapped in her father’s arms, being dragged to the door, the pistol held at her head, her father laughing. Her mother might leave him, but Gracie would die, and she’d have to live with it. Taunting, refusing to speak with a negotiator. He wanted the news media to know it was the fault of Gracie’s faithless, whoring mother. Gracie would die now, in time for the six o’clock news! He yelled it to the policemen who were standing with their weapons drawn in the street. And he started to pull the trigger.

      A shot. One shot. A crack like thunder. Wetness on Gracie’s face, in her mouth, metallic and thick; a searing pain in her head as she and her father both fell to the wet ground…

      She jerked her mind back to the present. Jason had kissed her. His mouth had pressed down hard on her breast. Had he meant to grind his teeth into her flesh, the way her father had done to her poor mother? She’d told Gracie never to marry, that a man lured a woman in, and then he beat her and tortured her in the bedroom, because it was the only way he felt any pleasure or release. Gracie understood. Sex was only for a man’s pleasure, and a woman paid for it with pain. Blood and screams and pain…

      Gracie gripped the edge of her dresser and felt sick. She’d run from Jason. He must think she found him disgusting. She wished she could apologize, but that would involve admitting the truth about her father and mother, and she couldn’t do that. If she did, Jason would probably throw her out of the house. It would be a terrible scandal if anyone ever found out about Gracie’s past. But it had been a long time ago, and people had short memories these days. Nobody would connect the newspaper article about the bloody little girl crying in a policeman’s arms beside her father’s body outside the dilapidated little house, with the grown woman who lived in a mansion. Especially when her own mother had told everyone that Gracie was only her stepchild. Nobody knew that her last name had been legally changed in the days just after her father’s death, to Marsh—her mother’s maiden name. She was safe.

      She dabbed at her eyes as she stared at the puffy-eyed woman in the mirror. Her mother had been beautiful. Gracie favored her father, whose face had been ordinary. She had a nice mouth and her figure was well-proportioned, if a little small-breasted. Her long hair, twisted into a tight bun, would have been her best feature if she’d let it stay loose. But it was like Gracie, tied up tightly so that it couldn’t ever escape. Inside, Gracie was tied up in horrible memories.

      Jason would hate her now. Maybe that was best. He wouldn’t be tempted to touch her again, to make her so weak that she wanted to do anything he liked. She felt a sense of profound loss. She would have loved being a normal woman. Jason was a kind, gentle, very masculine sort of man, for whom women held no mystery. He would make a wonderful husband and father.

      But Gracie was certain that she could never submit her body to a man’s physical dominance. She had men friends—mostly gay ones—but she’d never had what they called a “hot date.” Word got around early in the circles she frequented that Gracie was ice-cold. It suited her that people thought that. It saved her the humiliation of refusing any man who saw her as dessert after a nice dinner. It protected her from amorous advances. Especially now. Jason would think she was frigid, that she didn’t want him to touch her. It hurt to let him think that. But it was the only way she could escape her mother’s fate. Even Jason, in passion, would be the same as her father. Hadn’t she felt his mouth grinding into her soft breast? He hadn’t used his teeth—but then, she’d pushed him away just in time. Just in time. She turned away from the mirror. She felt dead inside.