I'm back with another chapter! Uh, it's a ride for sure. That's all I'm gonna say...Hope you like it!
-VIVKELLER23
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Rain

Strange that despite living on the wealthier side of Granite Woods, she'd only been to the scenic park a total of three times in her life. The last time she'd walked through the soft grass and just enjoyed being outdoors, her mother had been beside her. Rain could recall her mother's pretty singing, the song choice an old church hymn that had attracted a docile flock of geese.

The geese weren't feeling very friendly today.

"That does it!" Teagan exclaimed as he snatched his paper bag away from one sneaky bird. "I paid for this, Birdzilla, and no one gets to take my fries!" The fry snatching goose flapped its wide wings, looking fierce. "Don't you rile your feathers up at me. You aren't a graceful swan."

Was it bad that she found this version of Teagan Miller equally funny and attractive? She'd never imagined he could look so menacing while staring down a large bird.

The goose cackled, and it wasn't an altogether lovely sound.

"Well, that's not a nice thing to say in the presence of a lady." Rain couldn't stop the bubble of laughter that escaped as Teagan chided the hungry fowl. "Tell you what, if I give you the rest of my fries, you have to share it with the others in your flock, got it?"

Strange as it was, it seemed the goose understood the deal Teagan was offering.

Teagan grinned. "Smart one, aren't you?" He stood slowly, his eyes level on the bird who'd been stealing his fries since they'd settled down on the grass. Teagan reached a hand behind him and motioned for Rain to take it. "Right, now, nice and slow. You get to keep these, but you stay away from us so we can enjoy what's left of our food, good?"

Miraculously, the goose and the rest of the geese that had grazed nearby watched as Teagan helped Rain up from the ground. It wasn't until Teagan retreated a couple of steps back that the birds approached the bag with the fries. The miracle though stopped there.

Birds didn't share anymore than humans did.

"You handled that well," Rain observed as Teagan led her to a wooden bench just beneath a shading tree. "Have you had much practice with that?"

"You mean handling Birdzilla back there?" Teagan asked with a confident smirk. "The bird was just the avian version of a hangry Gavin."

Oh. There was a comparison she couldn't unsee.

"All that aside, I did have a gift for you," Teagan explained. It was endearing to see how that smirk slipped just the slightest bit while he struggled over what else to say. In the end, he decided that words were overrated and instead yanked a white envelope from the pocket of his jeans.

Teagan Miller is an undercover romantic. Rain smiled as she remembered the sentence she had wanted to include in her final draft of her analysis paper for Tilden's class. She'd only scrapped it because she thought the observation was a little too personal.

That didn't make the statement less true.

Standing before her was the same man who'd once made it clear that women only served one purpose for him, and she hadn't made the cut for him. He'd made no secret about his sexual past, though his personal past hadn't been a topic he shared with anyone. He'd known to call her Ice Queen long before he'd known the name her mother gave her. He'd had a never ending supply of flirtatious one liners, but there had been a few, tender instances in which he'd said the sweetest words she'd ever heard.

That same man looked at her with warmth in his green-grey gaze while he confirmed something she'd already suspected. In his hand, tucked safely within a crumpled envelope, were a pair of tickets to a Dimitri Hale concert.

"You don't like him," Rain whispered as she took the tickets.

Teagan shrugged. "Yeah, but apparently you do." He glanced down at the red Converse on his feet. "Besides, I wanted to get you Daughtry tickets, but he's not on tour at the moment, and I can't really impress you with-"

He was a rambling mess. "Tee."

He ignored her. "Daughtry tickets cause I can't say he's my brother."

Rain blinked, sure she'd missed something. "You can't say he's your brother? I don't understand why you'd want to say that in the first place." I don't understand, period.

"You know how I said I still had one secret I wanted to share with you?" Teagan questioned. Her nod seemed to be answer enough, so he continued. "It wasn't just a line. While I can't claim Daughtry is my brother, I can use the word to describe my relation with Dimitri Hale."

"You what?" Dear Lord, was that her voice?

Teagan gave a nervous bark of laughter. "I'm not a fan of Dimitri Hale, but thanks to my father's love affair with a lady named Mary, I am his brother."

Oh, skittles.

"Are you alright?"

That would be a negative. Rain rose to her feet slowly, her hand nearly crushing the tickets in her hand. "You mean to tell me all this time that I was spilling my heart's deepest trials, you were pretending to be a normal, cocky ladies' man?"

Teagan winced. "I am a normal, cocky ladies' man," he admitted. "I just happen to have the same birth mother as a popular pop star."

"And you didn't think that was an important piece of information to share?" she asked him.

"Not really." He gave her a sheepish look. "Come on, Rainy, is it really that important that you're even mad at me?"

In reality, she wasn't angry. Shocked, confused, even a little hurt that he hadn't trusted her with the information before, yeah. She felt all of that. "I wish you'd trusted me enough to tell me before," she told him, honestly. But she couldn't stay upset with him when he had obviously put so much effort into making this day special for her. "But I appreciate you telling me now, and giving me the tickets. Don't think I'll start treating you any different just cause you're related to someone so talented."

Teagan pouted. "I'm talented, too, you know."

Rain laughed. "I'm sure. While I'm impressed with Dimitri's singing ability, he wasn't the one who threatened my heart." That's right. Rain Sullivan was reserved and hid herself well beneath a bunch of ice. Yet, she wasn't very good at lying. So when something big changed her life, she was honest. And brave. "I'm in love with you, Teagan."

What followed was a storm of emotions that flashed upon his features. First she saw shock and some spark of happiness. The happiness stole her breath because she'd very rarely seen it on his face, the moments few and far between. But it was gone too fast. In its place, she saw pain, uncertainty. The shadows that transformed his face completely eclipsed the fleeting moment of hope she'd witnessed.

"Rain..." His voice trailed off and she didn't know why that sent a chill down her spine.

She didn't want this. Didn't want him to feel obligated to return her sentiments if they weren't yet there. Didn't want him to try to make it easy for her by whispering sweet promises she couldn't be sure would ever come true.

"It's okay, Tee," Rain reassured. A smile, she pasted on her face to lessen the sudden weight she felt around them. "You don't have to say it back. And I'm sure this can't be the first time you've heard those words from a girl."

An uncomfortable silence might have followed that statement. But Mr. Steal-your-fries had finished his meal and wanted more...

The sudden yapping and flapping of wings was all the warning they had before they were racing across the park to the safety of Teagan's truck.

As Teagan helped her into the passenger seat, she could almost believe she heard him whisper under his breath. "But your words are the only ones I've wanted to hear."

Surely, she was hearing the stuff she wanted to hear.

xXx

Rain parted ways with Teagan at Gray's parking lot. Teagan had wanted to drop her off at home, but she'd told him that would be silly since her car was at the college. He'd relented and waited until she got into her Corolla before he drove off.

It was with a tender smile that Rain pulled out of the parking space and headed home. Ignoring the fact that she'd just bared her heart to the most infuriating, kind-hearted, and mysteriously sweet guy in her life, she had to admit it had been a pretty great day. Well, besides the disappointment from earlier in the day when Teagan had failed to show up to class.

Had she really expected him to show up though? Yes.

She'd even wanted to let him see her final paper. Perhaps she should have expected that he wouldn't care as much about the finished product. After all, Teagan didn't strike her as someone who could sit down long enough to carve out an entire answer to Tilden's prompt.

Rain shook her head, refusing to dwell too long on something she couldn't change. Instead, she rolled down the window and allowed the slight breeze outside to clear her mind. The roads were sparsely filled, the streetlights few and quick to change. She hadn't had the urge to just drive and take in the scenes in a long time. That was something that had changed since she'd met Teagan Miller, but it was a change she appreciated.

There was so much she'd given up since the night Jeffers took her innocence and her carefree joy. How unfair that while all the wrong had been done to her, he hadn't lost any sleep over the harm he did her. All the shadows had been cast on her, and foolishly, she'd accepted it like it was what she deserved.

No more.

Rain smiled as she pulled into the driveway to her father's empire. Two years ago, this house ceased to be her home. It was time she showed Randolf Sullivan she was finally fighting back.

With a wave of strength, Rain straightened her shoulders and let herself into the house. The first sounds to greet her made the butterflies in her stomach settle. Isa was humming along to Carrie Underwood's Something in the Water while she shuffled about in the kitchen. Rain was quiet as she tiptoed down the hall to her father's Den.

The door was ajar, but a quick peek inside showed that the businessman she lived with had decided to work from home for once.

"You have a minute you can spare, Father?" Rain asked. No introduction, no prelude. She pushed inside and shut the heavy, recently repaired oak door behind her.

Twin brows shot up on his wrinkled forehead as he forced his attention from the papers on his desk. "Rain, don't you have courses to study for? What about that women's shelter you love so much? I'm a little busy right now."

"That's new."

"Excuse me?" he asked in a voice she was sure was supposed to convey his disapproval.

Rain shrugged. Good, cause she had things she disapproved of, too. "Gia isn't here to keep you company?" Rain made a show of looking around the room. The vase she'd used to put a dent in Jeffers' thick skull had been replaced by a framed picture of the Sullivan Estate.

Randolf cleared his throat before he placed his clasped hands over the papers he thought were so important. "Gia stopped coming by the day your mother died."

Oh, sure. "She stopped coming by as my friend. Seems she took on the role of your personal friend instead."

"Rain-"

"I know all about the money you gave her when her mother kicked her out of her home. So caring, aren't you? But there were terms attached, right?" Rain noticed the rising color on his face, saw the way his clasped hand shook on the desk. At least she had his attention. "How long were you seeing Gia before my mother- sorry, your wife- died?"

The man she'd yearned to gain back glared at her. "Young lady, you have gone far enough!"

"You think so?" Rain questioned, feigning shock. "As far as you have gone with just about everything that has ever mattered to me?"

"Here we go again," he huffed. "Always playing the victim, aren't you, Rain?"

He'd taken advantage of Gia's vulnerability. Gia admitted she'd hooked up with Randolf the night of Rain's rape, but it had been an act of desperation. Her mother's boyfriend had tried to drug her, and when Gia tried to expose him, her mother had thrown her out. She'd come to the Sullivans for help, and found Rain's father instead. He comforted her, assured her he'd find her a place to stay, and Gia gave into a steamy embrace that never should have taken place. The affair began after Randolf started showering Gia with gifts, the pricier the items, the heavier the gift he expected in return. He'd used his wealth to get a young girl, a friend, into his bed, but all he looked down on was Rain's refusal to let go of the past?

"I'm not playing anything!" Rain hissed, the pain easier to deal with in her anger. "Your friend raped me, and in doing so, he ruined a part of who I was. It's not something you can cover with a band-aid and thousands of dollars, and it'll go away. For years, I've felt broken, but you don't even care."

Randolf pushed himself up from his cushioned chair. "What would you have me do? Stop everything because you don't feel okay?"

No. That was the problem. It wasn't something she should have to make him do. A father should want to help his daughter because that's what caring fathers did.

"What you did with Gia was wrong." Rain was certain of that now that she knew the story. "You took advantage of someone I cared for and didn't think twice about it. The way you allowed Jeffers to walk free after what he did to me was wrong, too. The sad thing is I made excuses for you, thinking that grief was clouding your judgement. I was wrong."

Money in the wrong hands made monsters.

Randolf watched her with a curve on his lips. His transformation had taken place long ago. Nothing she said now would reach him.

"I have finally realized I don't need my stranger of a father to fight my battles for me," Rain told him. "You might have bought the silence of every person in any position to help me, but you forgot the one person who's silence mattered most."

"Jeffers? That fool wouldn't-"

Rain shook her head. "Me."

The silence that followed the one exhaled word was deafening. His eyelids flickered, the smile fell off his face. "You don't know what you're starting."

"Scared, Father?" Rain spun in a circle, taking in the fully furnished bookshelves. So much wisdom offered in the pages of many of those books, and still her father thought he could control her. "I'm just the girl who got what was coming to her. Or isn't that what you said?"

"Timothy Jeffers-"

"Is a rapist."

He slammed his hands down on the wood desk. "He's not going to lose any sleep over being accused by a silly woman." Randolf swiped his arm, scattering the papers from the desk onto the floor. "You've never had any trouble painting me as the villain, Rain, but I've done everything in my power to keep your name from being dragged through the dirt."

"Paying people to drop the charges against him was sparing me?" She couldn't believe he thought there was any logic there.

"Has anyone looked at you differently since that night? Have they dared to question you? Any looks and gossip you've heard has been a result of the person you became after that night."

The Ice Queen. "The fact that I closed myself off, that I became ice, should have told you I wasn't alright. It was how I coped."

Randolf laughed, the rasp resembling the sound of nails on a chalkboard. "And now you're free!" He clapped his hands. "It was the best investment I ever made."

Had she missed something? "Investment?"

"You didn't know?" He waved a hand in the air, dismissing her confusion. "No matter. The good thing is you've been able to move on. Word spreads fast when it's about you, sweetheart. Heard from a bud of mine that you've been hanging out with the Miller boy. Seems you've finally gotten over your trauma."

"What has Teagan got to do with any of this?"

"Oh, excuse me, I skipped that part." Randolf pulled at the desk's drawer and pulled a slim black book out to turn in his hands. A checkbook. "You see, Teagan Miller was my way of ensuring you got over your aversion to all things men. Physical therapy, if you know what I mean."

The anger that had fueled Rain to confront her father was quickly ebbing. "You what?"

"I paid Teagan Miller 25 thousand dollars to give you a good time." The wink he gave her was like a shot to her heart.

She felt blessedly numb. Nothing moved. There was no ringing in her ears. If her heart was pounding, she couldn't hear it. "He wouldn't take money from you."

"He's a Miller, Rain, not a saint."

Rain tore the checkbook from Randolf's hands and flipped through the pages until she found the copy she was looking for. The fancy script with which her father had signed the check should have been a crime.

True enough. Teagan Miller had accepted money, a lot of it.

And she, fool that she was, had given him everything.

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Whoa. Okay.

Are you all okay after that? 🙊