Maya Banks - Colters’ Daughter

She took another step forward, her legs shaking so badly that it was a miracle she remained standing.

“You lied to me. You manipulated me. You abused your control over me. What were you going to do, Max, use my submission to get your way? Would you have commanded me to sign over my land? Or maybe when we got married you were going to take over everything. Little submissive Callie would never tell you no, right?”

“That’s a rotten thing to say,” Max snarled. “What we have is real, Callie. I’d never use my dominance to manipulate you.”

Behind her, the dads cursed. Her brothers stepped forward, but she held up her hand. There was nothing left for her to lose at this point. No secret left covered. Every little dirty detail of her life had been exposed. She’d never felt more betrayed in her life.

“Tell me you didn’t do this,” she said tearfully. “Tell me you didn’t set up our meeting in Europe. Tell me it was all one huge coincidence.”

“I can’t tell you that, dolcezza. I won’t lie to you. I did engineer the meeting. What I didn’t engineer was what happened afterward. The way I fell for you.”

“Oh God, stop. Just stop it.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks as her entire world shattered into tiny pieces and lay on the floor like jagged shards of glass.

Max moved swiftly to her and grasped her shoulders as he stared intently into her eyes. “Don’t do this, Callie. Listen to me. I love you.”

“Can you look me in the eye and tell me you never hoped to coerce me into giving you Callie’s Meadow? Can you do that?”

He was silent for a moment and in his eyes she saw the terrible truth. A sob welled in her throat and swelled outward until she physically couldn’t take a breath. The room blurred in front of her.

Around her, her family erupted into chaos. Her brothers were shouting. Her fathers pressed forward, angry accusations flying as they pushed in between her and Max.

She fell to her knees, her face in her hands as horrible, terrible sounds tore from her throat. Her mother knelt beside her and pulled her into her arms as she rocked back and forth.

But it was too much. Too painful. She couldn’t bear for her family to see her so utterly devastated.

She bolted to her feet and flew toward the door. Max’s anguished cry followed her.

“Callie!”

Covering her ears, she ran for her fathers’ Land Rover, praying the keys were in the ignition as they often were.

Ryan called after her. But she ignored her father and threw herself into the driver’s seat. She had to get away. Away from the pain. Away from Max and his betrayal. Away from the sympathy simmering in her family’s eyes.

She drove recklessly down the drive but when she reached the end, she slowed, determined not to add more stupidity to her list of crimes. She took in steadying breaths and then set off again down the winding switchbacks, no clear direction in mind.

Away. All she knew was that she had to be away.

Tears streamed silently down her cheeks, and then the glint of silver caught her eye and she stared numbly at the cuffs on her wrists.

She braked sharply and then buried her face against the steering wheel as she broke down and allowed the sobs to tear painfully from her chest.

“You were a bastard to do this to her,” Max snarled at her brother. “How could you have humiliated her like this? How could you have upset her so badly?”

Seth’s mouth gaped open and fury glinted in his eyes. “You’re the son of a bitch who used her, Wilder. And don’t give me that crap about how it started out that way but changed. You broke her heart once. You dumped her in Europe and then waited months before you came crawling back like a fucking cockroach.”

“You should have come to me!” Max roared as he jabbed a finger into his own chest. “You should have never hurt her by airing this in front of the people she loves the most. Do you have any idea how lucky you all are? All she ever talks about is how much she adores her family, how important you all are to her, how her dream is to build a home in her meadow so she can be close to you all. And yet you shit on her by dumping this on her without warning. This could have been handled so differently. You could have been man enough to approach me away from her. You could have talked to her privately if you felt you absolutely had to tell her yourself. I could have saved you a hell of a lot of trouble if you’d just come to me. I love that girl. I love her more than my promise to my family. I love her more than the legacy passed on to me by the man who raised me as his son. I love her enough that I was willing to move to this godforsaken town so she’d be happy. I would have done anything for her. Anything in the world but hurt her the way you’ve hurt her.”

Max felt like someone had knifed him right in the gut. He broke off from his impassioned speech just as Seth got into his face, his eyes shooting fire.

“The way I’ve hurt her? I didn’t lie to her, you son of a bitch. I’ve never lied to my sister. I didn’t use her. I didn’t manipulate her. I want to know what the fuck she’s talking about when she talks about your dominance and your control. Just what kind of hold do you have over her?”

“I’d like to know that myself,” Ethan spoke up in a deadly quiet voice.

“We all would,” Adam said menacingly.

Max swiped his hand over his face. “Fuck this. I’m not explaining my relationship with Callie to you. I don’t owe you any explanations. The only person I owe anything to is her.”

“If you think you’re walking out that door, you’ve lost your mind,” Dillon Colter said when Max started past Seth.

“Yeah? Try and stop me.”

So it hadn’t been the smartest thing to take on six very pissed-off men. Max lay on the bed in his motel room and winced when he tried to move his fist.

For old guys, Callie’s fathers could still move fast and they had fists like hammers. Dillon was a freaking mountain by himself and Seth and Michael were lean and muscled and they’d definitely gotten their shots in.

Max hadn’t gone down without a fight, though. He’d given as good as he’d gotten and the Colters would be feeling it just as much as he currently was.

He rolled to his side and sucked in his breath when a particularly tender area of his ribs pressed against the mattress. He stared out the window, just as he’d done for the past several hours, waiting for Callie to show up.

She’d at least come for her truck, wouldn’t she? She couldn’t stay away forever, and when she came, he’d be waiting. He wasn’t going to let her go without one hell of a fight. He’d sit on her if he had to.

He’d argue.

He’d fight.

He’d get on his hands and knees and beg.

Whatever it took to make her listen. To make her believe he loved her with everything he had.

He closed his eyes as the memory of her devastation flashed through his mind. She’d looked defeated. And so terribly hurt. He’d never forget that look. He’d live with it for the rest of his life.

“Come back to me, Callie,” he whispered. “Give me the chance to make it right.”

Callie didn’t react to the sound of a truck engine as it neared. She sat in the darkness, her knees drawn to her chest as she stared up into the star-filled sky. The moon cast a pale glow over the meadow and from a distance, the sound of bubbling water reached her ears.

This was her place. Her haven. Her refuge. The one place above all that brought her peace.

Now it was her hell.

An arm curled around her shoulders and she was pulled into a warm embrace.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Ryan Colter said.

She turned into his chest and buried her face. “Oh Dad.”

It was all she could say. All she had the strength for. She broke off in a sob when she didn’t think she had any more tears to shed.

He held her and rocked her back and forth, all the while smoothing a gentle hand over her hair.

“Your mother’s frantic. Adam and Ethan are pacing the floors. Your brothers want to mount a lynch party for Max and run him out of town. Seth seriously wants to arrest him for some trumped-up infraction and lock him in jail for several days.”

“But you’re here,” she choked out.

“I’m here.”

“How did you know?”

“This is where you’ve always come when you’re hurting, baby girl. From the time you were little this was your place. Remember when you were eight years old and you threatened to run away? You even packed a bag and left the house. Your mama nearly died. Adam about had a heart attack. None of them thought you’d actually do it. Me? I came here because I knew it’s where you’d be. It’s where you always run to.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest as she’d done so many times in her life. Her dads had always been there for her. The ups and downs. Good times and bad. Her family had always been the one constant in her life.

“I hurt so much,” she whispered.

He kissed the top of her head. “I know, baby. I know you do. I wish I could take it all away. I wish I could snap my fingers and the pain would disappear.”

“I was such an idiot. I feel so…stupid.”

“You should never feel stupid for loving someone, Callie girl. You gave him something wonderful, and he shit on it in return. That’s on him. Not you. Never you. One day he’ll look back and know he gave up the best thing that ever happened to him. He’ll have to live with that loss for the rest of his life.”

“I loved him so much, Dad. I trusted him. Even after what he did. He said all the right things. It was like he knew me, and I guess he did. He certainly studied up on me enough. I feel like such an idiot. I took him out here. I babbled on about my dream house and how much the land meant to me, and all the while he stood there hating me, resenting me and my family for taking his birthright, and he schemed to get it back.”