Abby watched Adam slump onto the sofa, burying his head in his hands and her stomach tensed. Part of her wanted to go to him and wrap her arms around him in the way he had done for her many times since they met. She wanted to cling to him until he looked at her the way he used to. Not with those agonizing, disdainful dark looks of earlier which had sliced through her heart, about dropping her to her knees.

But she remained rooted to where she stood. Everything hurt. Her skin. The inside of her bones hurt, so deep she couldn't grab a hold of it. There was so much more that needed to be exposed and if he was going to shove her aside, she would walk away with at least her head held up high and not groveling at his feet. No matter the pain it caused, dignity was the only thing keeping her together and all she had left to cling to. Any optimism she harbored about his reactions being positive, flew out the window when he started hinting she was crazy.

She had no hope of what she had to tell him would be accepted any better. Anger still tingled in her veins over his accusations. Though she supposed she should have expected it, it didn't exactly make the pain and resentment she felt go away. She took a deep breath and walked over to the fireplace, staring blankly at the empty grate devoid of flames. Getting mad at Adam didn't solve anything. She needed to keep her rage focused on the man who deserved it more than the one who had accidently stumbled into this fucked up mess which was her life. A life which felt like she always had one foot in reality and the other on a banana peel ready to send her slipping into her stepfather's demented one.

She snorted to herself. Maybe she was crazy. All these years of dealing with him might have finally pushed her over the damn edge. Wrapping her arms around herself, she rubbed them to try and stir a little warmth which seemed to have leeched out her. Dean Swanson. The name was the bane of her existence...which apparently, according to that paperwork...her very existence had been changed to his fucked up fantasy where they were married. She felt like Sandra Bullock in some twisted version of The Net. Dropping her arms, she clenched her fists at her sides, desperately wanting to punch something.

"I want to understand what is happening, Abigail. I need to."

Adam's somber voice brought her attention to him. He was sitting hunched forward with his legs slightly spread and his elbows resting on his knees. His dark mass of hair was scrambled in a mess on the top of his head from his hands having run through it too many times and her fingers itched to smooth it out. She desperately wanted to erase the lines of confusion and worry disfiguring his handsome features...to ease the pinch of his full lips with her own. But, instead of easing him, she knew she was about to only add to the burden.

"Talk to me. Tell me what is going on so I can help you."

The softness in his voice almost made her crumble. Despite everything, he was still offering to help her. This beautiful man who claimed to have loved her. She took him in, his whiskey colored eyes meeting hers, though soft, were full of strength and determination.

The knot which was her heart, tightened. Abby winced at the pain in her chest. Loved. Past tense...as in no longer. Had it really only been a few short minutes ago since he had introduced her as his girlfriend? A sentiment which had made her heart soar until Jillian had shot it down and crushed whatever chances they might have had with that paperwork she hadn't even known existed. Breaking away from his stare, she looked up at the ceiling for a moment, blinking back the burn of tears. She had to stop thinking about it, about what he said. Now was not the time to mourn what could have been. There would be plenty of time for that later. Right now, she had to concentrate on the here and now. In order to save him, she would have to confess and risk losing him forever.

"Okay...here it goes." Taking a deep, shaky breath to steady her racing heart, Abby tried to fight the nausea building in her stomach from her nervousness. "Elizabeth Swanson was my mother and she was married to Dean Swanson...not me. It was her name carved into your car, not mine."

"And Dean Swanson..."

"Is my stepdad," she muttered bitterly.

He frowned, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Go back to the beginning. Where is your real dad?"

Abby shrugged her shoulders. "Your guess is as good as mine. He disappeared when mom was pregnant with me. I don't know much about him. Mom never talked about it much." Turning, she ran a finger across the marbled mantle. "She used to say he was only a dream who left her the greatest gift one night...me." She smiled at the memory. "When I was little, it sounded like a fairytale, but now," she laughed drily, "I know it was just a really nice way of saying she had a one night stand and ended up pregnant." She turned and faced Adam. "But I admired her for that. She kept me, despite having been scared and alone."

"She was as brave as her daughter," Adam said tenderly, giving her a smile that made her heart flutter uncomfortably.

Rubbing her chest, she turned away from him again and faced the empty grate. "It would have been really easy for her to get rid of her mistake, but she didn't. She had me anyway and did the best she could raising me." Abby walked the length of the fireplace, her mind going back to happier days, when it was just her and her mom. "She was the best mom a kid could ask for. We didn't have much money, but she always made everything we did do seem so amazing."

"Tell me some of your memories." Adam's deep voice gently coaxed from the couch.

Closing her eyes, she smiled. "The one I remember most is the picnics in the gazebo at the abandoned park."

"Abandoned?"

"Yeah," Abby opened her eyes and laughed a little at his shocked expression. "There was an older park. Everyone had forgotten about it when the new one was built. But mom...she used to say the better memories were at the old park and if you listened, you could hear them." She smiled at Adam. Walking over to the couch, she curled up at the other end, tucking her legs underneath her. "There was this old fashioned gazebo there covered in these flowering vines. Morning glories, I think. Anyway, she would make us a lunch and tell me the most amazing stories while we ate."

"It sounds wonderful," he said, moving slowly towards her and pulling Abby closer to him. He draped one arm over the back of the sofa, brushing her hair off her shoulders and smiled down at her.

"It was," Abby sighed. "Until the day she met Dean." A shudder went through her and the arm Adam had lounging behind her, suddenly wrapped tightly around her shoulders. For a second, she stiffened, unsure if she really wanted the contact. But the warmth he provided was too tempting and she melted into him, allowing his long fingers to stroke through her hair as she gathered the strength to tell him the rest of the sordid tale.

"Tell me about him."

"I hated him from the moment I met him."

"How old were you?"

"Ten. I knew mom had met somebody when she started spending more time on her appearance and going out more. She was so happy and excited. I was happy for her, but when she finally brought Dean home for the first time...it just didn't feel right." Abby looked up at Adam to find him intently watching her, his full attention focused on her every word.

"Did he do something?" he asked quietly. "Did he touch you?" His face was unreadable, but his voice had taken a dark ominous tone.

Abby shook her head, reaching up to cup his tight jaw. "No. It was nothing like that. In fact, he treated me as if I wasn't even there." She blew out a breath and dropped her hand only to have it captured in his as soon as it hit her lap. "It's hard to explain. I mean...I know some of it was childish jealously because he was taking so much of my mom's time and attention, but it went further than that. When he was around, she acted so differently. As if I didn't matter to her either."

"I'm sorry, baby," he murmured, lifting her hand to his mouth and placing a warm kiss on her palm that made her stomach twist before tucking it to his chest. "That had to be extremely difficult for you, being so young and alone."

Their eyes met and something powerful and familiar passed between them. A heat filled her from the inside out, warming her and giving her the energy to tell him the rest.

"Eventually, I learned it was easier to avoid them. When he would show up, I would go over to a friend's house or to the gazebo. I would spend hours there, reading...wishing...dreaming. I wished so hard he would go away like my real dad had and then it would be just mom and me again." She smiled sadly. "But I didn't get my wish. Within a few months, they married and Dean moved us to his house. Taking us away from our crummy little apartment and away from everything I ever knew."

A tear fell down her cheek and he caught it with his thumb. "What happened after that?"

"I became a ghost. They only had eyes for each other. But, when he wasn't around...mom would find me again and it would be almost like before he came. I tried to talk to her about it, but she never listened. It was all about Dean...all the time." Leaning her head back into the crook of his arm, Abby closed her eyes against the pain. "One day though, I caught her crying in the bathroom. She was a mess. I tried to get her to tell me what it was about, but she wouldn't say anything."

"A mess how?" Adam's eyebrow quirked up.

Wrinkling her forehead, she tried to think back. "I'm not sure. All I remember is how upset she was and how she kept saying she had made a mistake. A terrible mistake." She opened her eyes and looked over at Adam. "I never got to find out what any of it meant. She died a week later."

"How did she die?" he asked, his fingers massaging the back of her neck making her tingle.

"Brain aneurism. She was walking up the stairs with an arm full of laundry." Abby took a shuddering breath. "She was dead before she even fell." Swallowing past a dry, tight throat she closed her eyes briefly. The memory of coming home to a house full of paramedics, cops and seeing the stretcher being loaded into the coroners van assaulted her. She saw a younger version of herself running after them, wanting to snatch off the blanket covering her mother. The echoes of her screams for her mom to wake up as the officers held her back, ricocheted through her mind.

"Fuck, baby." Adam crushed her against his solid body and she went to him gratefully. It felt so good. Running her palms down his shoulders, she pressed her face into his chest. Breathing him in deep, she let him take away some of the grief she carried from that horrible day.

"How old were you when she died." He stroked her back, rubbing little circles as he went.

"Fourteen," she mumbled into his shirt. Nuzzling, she let his familiar scent reassure her before pulling back as far as he would allow. "Dean went ballistic."

His fingers slid through her hair, tucking it behind her ear and she leaned into his touch. "How so?"

"He couldn't handle the thought of mom being gone and he started drinking more and more. At home...on duty...all the time." Her voice became hardly more than a whisper.

Adam hands stilled, his body stiffening beside her. "On duty?"

"He was a cop, LAPD."

"That explains your loathing of the police," he stated, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and pulling her away from him as comprehension dawned on his face.

Abby nodded. "I was fifteen the first time he..."

Adam stood so swiftly she almost fell off the couch. Barely catching herself on the arm of the sofa before face-planting onto the floor.

"I thought you said he didn't touch you," he bit out. Running an irritated hand through his hair as he started pacing the living room.

"He didn't...not sexually at least," she said quickly as she watched him stride over to the bar and pour himself a small drink. He narrowed his eyes and tossed it back, grimacing as he swallowed. Refilling the tumbler, he walked back to the front of the couch.

"But he did touch you?" His frame was rigid, his dark eyes flashing with rage as his chest heaved up and down.

The expression on his face, made her lean further back into the cushions of the couch. "Sometimes when he drank...," she stumbled, taking a conscious breath to try and calm down. Adam's looming anger was making her anxious and she wished he would sit back down. "When he drank, he would fly into rages. Scary ones." She knitted her fingers together in her lap, hesitant to tell him the rest.

"And...," he prompted. His lips were thinned out and jaw tense while his eyes crackled.

"And he would take his anger out on me. It was mostly verbal. Lots of yelling and throwing of things, but sometimes...he would blackout and not remember who I was. He...he kept thinking I was my mother. That I was Elizabeth."

Adam set his glass down on the coffee table with a loud clink and paced in front of her. Following him with her eyes, he looked like one of those caged majestic cats at the zoo. Sleek, beautiful, but if let loose...deadly.

"What did he do," he asked hoarsely, turning to look at her. "Tell me everything."

"At first it started out with him accidently calling me Elizabeth." Abby tucked her chin to her chest, the embarrassment and frustration making her flush hotly. Leaning forwards, she rested her arms on her legs. "Little slip ups here and there. I would correct him and he would laugh or make light of it. But then...it started to happen more and more frequently. I would catch him looking at me differently...and I knew...he wasn't seeing me anymore, but my mom. Then things got worse." Raising her head up, she met Adam's heated gaze. Abby grew silent, the look on his face making her stall.

"Tell me," he ground out.

She wanted to stop, not sure how much more she should tell him. He already looked like he wanted to commit murder. As much as she was relieved he was believing her, she didn't want him doing anything stupid and the thought he might made her physically sick.

"I don't know how much more I should say," she muttered, wrapping her arms around herself.

"All of it," he snapped.

She tilted her chin up and stared at him. Meeting his icy gaze head on without blinking, though it made her shiver inside. A few minutes slowly ticked by before he rubbed a hand over his face and said more gently, "Please, tell me all of it."

Watching him relax slightly, she decided he was calm enough for her to continue. "He started tracking my every move. If I was a minute late from school, he would hit me and punish me. He took away my cell phone, computer...everything. I wasn't allowed to have friends over or go over to their homes. The only time he would let me out of the house was to go to school and to babysit for our neighbors. But if it wasn't for keeping up pretenses, I don't think he would have even allowed me to do those things." She blew out an unsteady breath. "I never knew from one minute to the next if he was going to know I was Abby or think I was my mother."

"Jesus Christ!" Adam spat, sitting on the edge of the coffee table as if his legs would no longer support him. He ran both hands through his hair before he looked up at her. "Did you tell anyone? Wasn't there someone you could go to? Friends? Family...anyone?"

"No." Abby shook her head. "Mom was an only child and her parents had passed before I was even born. I tried to tell my teacher once...," her voice wavered, "but Dean turned it around on me. Told them I was a troubled teenager since my mom's death and I was making everything up. When I got home that night...he beat me and locked me in my room for days. He called the school and told them I was horribly ill. I was in there for so long, I lost count of the days. When he let me out, he told me it was only a taste of what he was prepared to do if I ever said anything again. He told me if I so much as whispered a word, he would have me locked up in a psych ward and I would spend the rest of my life locked in a room."

Adam dropped his head, cursing under his breath. "And since he was a cop he could have done it," he grated out.

"He showed me the paperwork." Abby twisted her hands in her lap. "All he had to do was sign it. I was just a kid, I didn't know what to do. He was everywhere...and knew everything. I...I couldn't do anything without him finding out."

"How did you get away?" he asked roughly.

"I spent a year living in hell." She sighed, drawing her knees up to her chest. "I was almost 16 the night I came home from babysitting. He was beyond drunk and flew into one of his tantrums, trashing the kitchen. I...I thought he had gone to bed and passed out." The words stuck in her throat. "But he hadn't. He came into the kitchen with a package and forced me to open it. It was my mother's wedding dress, the one she had worn to marry him." Her body trembled at the memory and she hugged her knees closer. "We fought, he hit me and carried me up the stairs. I knew...I knew if I did what he wanted me to do that it would lead to..." She stopped, tears sliding down her face. The words she needed to say, sticking in her throat, refusing to budge.

"You knew he would try to rape you," he said harshly. His tone flat and hard.

"Yes," she whispered. "I was standing at the top of the stairs with him and all I could think about was getting away," she said, hiding her face. Ashamed of what she was about to say. "So I pushed him. I pushed him down the stairs and he fell. I...I thought I had killed him, but I didn't stop to see. I grabbed a backpack with some things and the little money I had managed to save and I ran. I never looked back. I..." A sob racked her body. "I never checked to see if he was alive and I didn't call for help. I just left him there."

"Son of bitch," Adam whispered under his breah. In one swift movement, he was kneeling before her. Pulling her hands away from her face, he shouldered his way between her legs. Cupping her chin, he lifted her head, looking deep into her eyes. Instead of the condemnation she thought she would see, she only saw his sincerity mixed with something else she couldn't recognize burning bright. "I wish you had killed that insane bastard, baby," he said forcefully.

Smiling tightly, she pulled her chin out of the palm of his hand. "For weeks after I left, I lived with the guilt of thinking I had." She shook her head slightly. "When he found me the first time...I wish I really had killed him." Lifting her chin up, her lips quivered. "I still do."

"He deserves far worse than death for what he did to you," he snapped, his voice vibrating with rage. "You've been running from him all this time?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"For how long?"

"A little over seven years."

He dropped his head as a long stream of foul cussing hissed through his lips. When he raised his eyes to hers again, they were cold with an intense fury.

Abby shivered at his icy demeanor. It was not only his face and voice that made him dangerous, but the powerful strength exuding from his very essence. Adam was a man not to be taken lightly. He was a man who would destroy anything and anyone who stood in his path to get what he wanted and she was absolutely positive he would do whatever it took. Legal...or not.

Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself for what she needed to say next. "Adam, there's something else you need to know."

He frowned. "What?"

"Dean wants me back and he will stop at nothing to get me." Not able to resist, she skimmed his forehead with her fingers and brushed back a curl of dark hair. Allowing them to travel down around his ear and across the stubble of his cheek, she paused. "Even if that means killing somebody to do it."

Author's Note:

Hello my lovelies,

I hope you enjoyed this latest installment of Bending Steele and if you liked it, you will consider giving it a vote. I also love hearing from you and comments are always appreciated. If you don't see any updates here, check out my other stories When Roses Collide, FANGED and Steal You Away.

The next scheduled update for this book is May 12th...so keep your eyes peeled.

As always, thank you for reading!

Sincerely,

K