Free Dawson's Fall (Welcome to Covendale #5) by Morgan Blaze Page B

much? He obviously didn’t have any problems hurting her. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “So sleep on that, you bastard.”
    She walked away fast, blinded by unshed tears, and nearly walked straight into the door before she managed to fumble it open and bolt for her car. Every word she’d spoken had been a lie. Even though she desperately wanted to hate him, she couldn’t—and that just made everything worse.
    Her family was right. The Dawsons were bad news…especially Mark.
    * * * *
    Mark stayed where he was for a long time, staring at nothing in particular. He’d gotten into more fights than he could remember over the years, and more than once he’d come away bloodied, battered, and broken.
    Right now he was completely unscathed—but he’d never been this hurt.
    Idiot wasn’t a big enough word for what he’d done. He hadn’t fought the temptation hard enough. She’d showed up at his house, with his favorite whiskey, and said she wanted him. And he should have been stronger and said no.
    But he didn’t. So he had to hurt her, in order to save her.
    It killed him to do that.
    Even if she really did want him, there was no way to make it work. Her family would never stand for it. If they found out she’d been with him, they’d cut her out. And that would hurt her a lot more than he ever could.
    He had nothing to offer her. The Monroes had wealth, power, and respect—everything the Dawsons didn’t. Being with him on any level would ruin her life.
    So it was better to close things off like this, instead of trying to pretend they had a chance in hell of being together. At least this way, she was only hurt once.
    He was pretty sure he’d never stop hurting.
    After a while, he made himself get up. The last thing he needed was for Jonah to find him half-naked on the couch and interrogate him into a confession. He dressed stiffly, carried the tumblers into the kitchen, rinsed and put them away. Then he brought the bottle up to his room and locked himself in.
    He’d lost all desire to savor the Scotch. Now he only wanted oblivion, and he didn’t care how he got there.
    It wouldn’t last long enough—but it was a start.
     
     

Chapter 8
     
    Aubrey didn’t sleep at all that night.
    She cried herself to exhaustion, but her thoughts wouldn’t stop churning. It had been hard enough trying to deal with every disaster in her life since she came back to Covendale. Now her attempt to fix just one thing had made everything a thousand times worse.
    It was enough to make her consider quitting after all. Not just the job, but this town…right now, for good. She must’ve gotten up a dozen times, alternately determined to pack up and leave, or grow a spine and stick it out.
    By morning she’d decided that she wasn’t going to work. At least, not right away.
    She had a tentative plan. Aching and bleary-eyed, she sat at her kitchen table with a strong cup of coffee and tried to hash it out. First of all, she wouldn’t quit. Staying on the job was the only way she could get back at Mark for what he’d done to her.
    But to do that, she had to confront her family.
    She couldn’t spend the next two months dodging and evading while she worked with the enemy. The stress was already killing her, and it had only been a few days. Her father and brother would be pissed, but she knew how to diffuse the situation—Mrs. Joliet Vanderbright. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of that before.
    Mrs. V. had hired the Dawsons, and she was a huge client for the bank. So they wouldn’t risk upsetting her. They’d have to accept the fact that she was working with Dawson Construction at Mrs. V.’s insistence. She’d just go to the bank, where they couldn’t make a scene, and tell them.
    Then she’d head back to the job site and shove her continuing employment in Mark’s face.
    Covendale Savings and Loan was a sprawling, well-landscaped brick building in the heart of downtown, at the corner of Main and Spring.