Chapter 43

**Blue**


The next two days go by in a flash. Although I figured Artemis’s mom would handle everything, Rhea convinced me to join them for a few to her appointments. I was there in body but not in mind. Especially since Artemis would text me throughout the day. He has become a very persistent communicator and even though I’m not used to it, it’s kind of nice.

I haven’t been brave enough to show up at Monica’s yet even with the new agreement Artemis and I have. The whole thing with Liam has left me confused and I’m not great with confrontation so I’m doing the healthy thing and avoiding the situation.

Today is Saturday and I’m waiting for Artemis to come home so I can tell him of all the crazy shit I’ve been through today with wedding stuff. Since we signed our new contracts, he has been doing a good job of keeping his end and being home every night. Of course, it’s only been a couple of days, but it’s sweet he’s trying.

Her also has Bryant and Dane escort me to his office whenever I have a free moment, and I sit next to him while he…attempts to work. We either end up talking and eating or making out. I haven’t had another episode yet, and Artemis has been really great at taking things slow. He 0of course has snuck in a little bit of feeling me up but I haven’t needed to push him away, so I allow it. There was one occasion that Abigail walked in, and Artemis basically threw me off his lap. That was fun.

She got a good scolding from Artemis and ran out as fast as she could. I spent the hour after explaining to him that it was a simple mistake and he needs to be nicer to her.

To which he replied, “I’m nice to you, everyone else doesn’t matter.”

So, he isn’t completely reformed from being an asshole, but it’s still early.

I finally hear a car pulling up to the house and I am up on my feet before Artemis makes it to the door. Instead, I throw it open and watch my fiancé climb out of his insanely expensive car. I also tried to convince him that it was bad for the environment and worth enough to feed a farm of cows for a year but he gave me an unimpressed look and said nothing.

Artemis slams the door closed and gives me a stern look. “Why are you outside?”

I smile innocently at him. He hates it when I even step outside the house with out an escort which is why I do it.

“You’re late.”

“I have an important job remember?”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, a top secret project to save the world. I got it.”

He stops in front of me, and I lean my head back to look up at him.

“It isn’t to save the world. I already explained all of this to you.”

“I know. Can we please eat? I’m starving.”

“Fine but I’m going to explain the basics of coding to you again as punishment for coming outside.” He raises a brow at me as if to ask me to challenge him.

And I hate to disappoint.

“No! Come on I won’t do it again I swear.”

He grabs my hand and pulls me inside. I’m barley able to get the door closed with my foot before he drags me to his office. I already have a chair set up next to his and he doesn’t waste time starting up the computer.

When he hinted at punishing me before this was not what I was expecting.

“Sit.” He says pointing to my big comfy chair.

He was sweet enough to give up the nice office chair to me, so that was nice.

“I’m going to have Bryant bring us food and until it get’s here you are going to show me how much you’ve picked up on.”

He sounds like a stern professor, and it makes me glad I never went to college. This shit is hard!

I take my seat and awkwardly shuffle my feet to pull my chair closer to the desk. He pulls up the program he’s been having me work on and walks away to call Bryant. Don’t tell anyone but I definitely check him out as he goes. Once he’s out of the room I blow out a breath and read over the code I’d been working on before. He told me it’s a program he had started and wants me to continue to its completion. From the little I remember when he talks there is something off about one of the lines but I don’t know exactly what it is.

When he comes back into the room I’m still looking at it and trying to work out what’s bothering me about it.

“What is it?” he asks, moving around the desk to look over my shoulder.

“This line looks off, but I don’t know why.” I point to the section and point out the bits that don’t look right. “Here and here. Those two next to each other don’t make sense, right? Wouldn’t they cancel each other out?”

He leans closer and deletes the section I showed him and adjusts the line. “Holy shit. Holy shit! Blue! That’s it!”

I’ve never seen him so animated before, and I’m further shocked when he leans down and kisses me hard.

“I have to go back to the office and run this through the full program. This is the pieces that’s been screwing shit up for months!” He is still talking as he walks out of the room.
I scrabble to follow him, and I can hear him on his phone telling Alan to get everyone back to the office. He makes it to the door when I grab his arm and stop him.

“Hello where are you going? We’re getting married tomorrow, Artemis. You can fall deep in your nerd hole right now!”

“I’ll be there I promise.” He leans down and kisses the top of my head and walks fast to his car.

“You better be! If you’re late and your mother goes on a rampage, I’m throwing you under the bus Artemis I mean it!” I yell after him.

“I promise!”

Words, words…

I watch him drive off and spot a familiar SUV coming down the street. Bryant parks in front of the house and climbs out of the car with a big bag of food in hand.

“I’m glad to see you brought a butt load of food. You two are my dates for the night. Your boss just ditched me!”

“He was speeding out of here, what’d you say to him?” Dane asks.

I make a sound of offense. “Me? He had some revelation, with my help I might add, and took off! I swear he better not leave me at the alter with his mother or I will freaking kill him.”

Bryant laughs. “I’ll protect you from the Mother Rhodes Miss Blue.”

“Yeah right. You should have seen her when the woman doing the flower arrangements suggested daisies for my bouquet. She nearly got her head bitten off.” I say with a scoff.

The guys follow me inside and I tell them all about the horrors of flower shopping.
When I go to bed Artemis still isn’t home and doesn’t reply to any of my texts. After the way he’s been acting I would be worried but I know where his head is now and it’s not in reality. It doesn’t make sense for me to wait up, so I decide to get some beauty rest.

Can’t have dark circles under my eyes on the day of my wedding, what would Mama Rhodes say?

The first thing that I feel is a hand covering my mouth. My eyes fly open, and I see my foster father’s face. His eyes look unfocused, and he reeks of alcohol and BO. I nearly gag but I force myself not to throw up since my mouth is covered.

“You scream and I’ll hurt you more.” He hisses at me.

I’m scared and I want to fight but I know what his punishments feel like, and I don’t want that. So, I nod.

“Good girl.” He smiles at me and I feel the urge to gag again.

Instead I try to focus on the reflection of myself in his eyes, but I scream when I see it’s not the child version of me…it’s me now. I scream again and start to thrash as hard as I can. Is this a dream? A sharp pain radiates from my cheek when he hits me across the face.

“I said be quiet!” He yells into my face.

Oh god this feels too real…

“Stop struggling!” He growls and tries to hit me again when the bedroom door flies open, and I see Bryant come rushing in.

Dane is next and he grabs my foster father around the throat and pulls him off me. I scramble back and Bryant stops next to the bed to check on me. I can’t hear him talking because all my attention is focused on the man being pulled to his feet by Dane.

It wasn’t a dream…