Taste (Take It Off #9)(10)
Author: Cambria Hebert

Okay, I saw his reasoning. It did make sense. “I’m single,” I murmured, sipping the coffee, getting ready to lay it all out there.

Spencer’s body tensed and he stepped close. So close I could feel the rise and fall of his chest when he breathed. “Elle. Did someone attack you?” He said the words low like the mere thought of them sickened him.

“Yes,” I choked out.

He groaned and his hand tightened into a fist at his side. “Fucking fucker,” he said.

Clearly, he liked the F-word.

“Did you go to the hospital?” he asked.

“No! I can’t go to the hospital.”

“They’ll need to… uh, examine you. Make sure…”

Oh God. He thought I got raped.

“Spencer.” I stopped him, placing a hand on his chest. “I wasn’t raped.”

His hand covered mine and wrapped around it, squeezing my fingers. “Thank fucking God,” he said. “I thought I was going to go to jail for murder.”

“Murder!” I said, trying to draw my hand back, but he wouldn’t allow it. He kept hold of it with ease.

“I’d hunt him down and kill him.” He said the words with a deadly calm tone. It was the kind of tone that made me shiver.

“I wasn’t raped,” I said. “But I was attacked. Last night.” The tremor of fear in my voice was something I couldn’t hide.

Slipping his fingers through mine, he kept hold of my hand and led me over to an isolated grassy area beneath a tree. He sat, putting his back to the tree, and through his lenses I could see his eyes sweep the area surrounding us. It made me feel safe.

I settled close to him, setting my coffee and the bag with the muffin beside us.

“Talk,” he said.

I told him everything. How I couldn’t sleep so I went downstairs to make some tea. I told him about the noises I heard and how they came in through my bedroom window. I shuddered to think what would have happened if they caught me sleeping.

I told him how I was dragged down the stairs, and he winced when I told him I stabbed one of them with a pen.

“What?” I said defensively. “It was better than doing nothing at all!”

“You pissed him off and he hit you in the face,” he growled.

I gave him a dirty look. I wasn’t letting him take away the satisfaction I got out of the one injury I was able to inflict on the guy.

I saw him open his mouth, likely to tell me what else I did that was stupid, so I spoke first to shut him up. “There’s more.”

The look on his face grew darker and darker as I whispered about the president, the poison, and the threats to make me do it.

“You didn’t call the cops?” he asked, tossing his sunglasses on the ground beside us and running a hand over his face and head.

“They told me I couldn’t. They said they had connections there.”

“They were lying,” he spat.

“They threatened my son,” I said quietly.

A change came over him. He sat up a little bit straighter, and the rage he was emitting seemed to flat line. “You have a son?”

It didn’t surprise me that Spencer knew nothing about Jack. I didn’t get personal at work. I left that stuff for at home. My colleagues at the White House were just that. I went to work to do a job, not talk about why my son didn’t have a father.

“You said you weren’t seeing anyone,” he said. “Are you married?”

“No. I’m single.”

He just gazed at me.

I sighed. “Jack’s father left me when I was pregnant. He barely wanted a girlfriend, let alone a surprise baby.”

“How old are you?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Twenty-four. Jack just turned two. He’s just a baby.” I got emotional just thinking about the threats being made against him.

“He just left you?” His words were hollow. I understood. It was a lot to take in. Most guys didn’t see women the same way once they knew they had kids or, as many like to say, “baggage.” Right about now, Spencer was probably regretting all those times he’d come into the kitchen to sneak cookies and make small talk with me.

I told myself it was better this way, that at least now he knew. At least now he wouldn’t come downstairs to flirt with me, leaving me to think about him when the hour was late and I was feeling lonely.

I told myself the pain I was feeling was the bruises on my body and the cut on my head.

Basically, I did the worst thing a person could do.

I lied to myself.

“I was with him for about a year. It was pretty casual, but as far as I knew, we weren’t seeing other people. The pregnancy was an accident. We’d been careful, but sometimes things happen. I didn’t realize I was even pregnant ‘til three months in. I told the father and he pretty much accused me of trying to trap him.” I glanced away, gazing off across the grass. “His family was well off. He thought I was trying to get money or something.” I shook my head, the memory of that conversation replaying in my mind.

I glanced up at Spencer and looked him right in the eye. “He walked out on me that day, and I never talked to him again. I never so much as asked for anything. I don’t want anything. Jack doesn’t even carry his name.”

“You’ve been raising him alone?” Spencer asked. The look on his face was indiscernible.

“My mom helps me. She watches him during the day while I’m at work. I pay her what I can, though she never wants to take it.”

“What about your dad?”

“He died before I had Jack.”

He just stared at me for long moments. It made me sort of uncomfortable because I had no idea what he was thinking. Usually, when people got quiet like that, it was because they were silently judging someone else. I didn’t like when people judged me. Being a single mother wasn’t some curse. Even though this was the “modern” day and age, there were still a ton of judgy people out there who had no respect for a woman raising a child on her own.

“All this time you’ve been working all these hours at the White House and then you go home and—” He began, but I cut him off.

“Be a mom.”

“I don’t understand,” he said, his voice growing hard.

I sighed. Clearly, confiding in Spence was the wrong thing to do. I got up to leave. I’d just call a cab. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.” I began. “I shouldn’t—”