Chapter 74

The One With Normalcy

A R I E L L E

When I wake, there’s a blissful ache between my thighs and Nate is spooning me. His skin is warm against mine, his chest rising and falling as he’s deep in sleep. I attempt to slightly roll to see him, but in his sleepy state, he tightens his grip on my body, pulling it closer to his.

I feel him tuck his face into the space at the base of my neck and he exhales, which causes me to relax in his arms. It feels so fucking good to wake up here, with him, with the chaotic world around us finally at a sense of calm.

The last day has been probably the best of my life. Nate showered me—fucking showered—me with gifts. Small presents that hold so much meaning to me. That tiny car which represents the first moment we ever properly met, especially.

To think of that seems like so long ago. I had so many preconceived notions of who Nate Carter was before I ever met him. He has such a reputation among our racing peers that makes him seem so different than he actually is. It makes him seem arrogant, like an asshole who jumps from woman to woman without care, selfish. I remember thinking he was basically probably an egotistical jerk.

But he’s none of those things. He’s creative, and smart, kind, generous, humble, genuine, funny, playful, and he loves me in such a way that he makes me feel like in his eyes, I can do no wrong. He loves me for everything I am—from my foul mouth to the times I’m irrationally angry. He loves me despite the fucking baggage that I come with. Despite Ezra and Vivien.

Despite having a basically adoptive brother as astoundingly annoying as Chase.

The party he threw for me last night was amazing. There was one point during the night when he was off chatting with Chase and I had a moment to talk with Zara. She was the one who told me about how Nate spent a large portion of the money he earned working with Ezra. He used it on the gifts for me and on the party itself.

Speaking of Ezra, Nate told me about how my lovely step-father was planning to frame me for something to send me away to prison again. It’s why Nate did what he did. He ultimately put his life at risk to ensure that I wouldn’t fall victim to Ezra’s trap and even thinking about it now makes my throat swell and my eyes well up with tears.

I try to shove the feeling down. I don’t want to cry, I just want to be happy he’s here with me and he’s safe. And that Ezra is gone.

I realize we still have Vivien and Langley to deal with, but I’m in a blissful state of ignorance. I feel like a woman on her honeymoon, I’m just going to ignore everything else. Everything else can fuck right off.

Let me enjoy my moment of blissful ignorance.

My mind can’t help but be curious about what Ezra had planned for me. What exactly was he setting me up on? And why? In the last few months since Nate was inside, I’ve relatively been out of his hair. In fact, I haven’t even seen him since the event when I was first reunited with Nate and I barely made a scene, so what’s his beef?

If I was constantly showing up on his doorstep and being an annoyance, I could see why he’d want to get rid of me. However, it’s the opposite. Even when shit hits the fan for Nate and I, I don’t visit him often. I really don’t. I don’t go running to him for money, for favours, for anything. Except when he meddles in my life and I’m forced to visit him so I can put him back in his place.

So why does he even have beef with me to begin with? My mother birthed me and then fucked right off. Is he mad that she decided—for whatever fucking reason—to not abort me? Because I’m sure if she could go back, she’d be at that clinic so fucking fast that the pee wouldn’t have even had a chance to dry on the stick.

She’s never wanted me, but I don’t entirely see how that connects to Ezra. Him and Vivien didn’t start the affair until after I was born so it’s not like he would’ve ever had any sort of control or say over what happened with me. Unless the affair was before I was born, then I could see him being upset about her birthing a baby that wasn’t his.

Although, that could also open up more confusion because if the affair started before I was conceived, then there’s always that chance that he could actually be my father...

I highly doubt it, though. I’m a mini me of my father. He had the same freckles and same eyes as me.

Also, if I happened to be his daughter, it would be even more fucking confusing why he’s continually tried fucking up my life. It wouldn’t make any sense, because who would purposefully try to make their daughter’s life a living hell?

Like, I get that for some fathers, no person would ever be good enough for their daughter—as fucked up as that thought is, I’ve heard it’s a frequent occurrence—but he’s not my father so? What’s his fucking angle?

I wonder what crime he was going to attempt to send me in for. Nate mentioned something about a decade long sentence, if I remember correctly. That means it must’ve been something serious.

Maybe I should ask Nate exactly what the jobs he did with Langley were. Perhaps there’s some connection there.

It would be poetic if I went to prison a la Nate ‘s handiwork with Langley.

I’m sure that was Ezra’s intention. It would inflict an amount of guilt on Nate that he’d never be able to handle. It would’ve crushed him and that makes me sure that was his plan.

Nate also told me that Ezra is the reason I originally went to jail—for the time I was sexually assaulted in a bar. I’ll admit, that one shocked me. Granted, the incident seems so long ago now and I tend not to think about it. The whole thing was fucking traumatizing for me and it’s hard to relive all that shit, but it’s never occurred to me—not even as a mere passing thought—that Ezra did it on purpose.

That Ezra was even involved in it.

I always figured it was one of those unfortunate and disgusting truths of being a woman. A creep who didn’t understand what the word no meant.

It makes sense. It makes a lot of damn sense, but I guess I’ve tried so hard to forget about the entire thing that I’ve never delved into the logistics of it.

It’s completely fucked up that he paid someone to sexually assault me, but I don’t put it above him. He’s a piece of shit and he’s always given me creepy vibes. The way he’s always called me Ella instead of my actual name, has always rubbed me the wrong way.

It’s too intimate for a step-father that doesn’t have a close relationship with his step-child. I think he likes it for that exact reason. It’s a nickname that only he calls me. It’s just another way he can flex his power over me, to purposefully make me uncomfortable whenever I’m around him.

The thought that he has that much control over me terrifies the fuck out of me. To think that he has control over things that I don’t see—that I’m not aware of—rattles me more than I let on. I’d never tell Nate because he already worries about Ezra enough as it is, but the man unsettles me so much that it becomes hard to breathe sometimes.