“What, honey?” he murmurs softly.
“I miss you, and I love you so much. I hate it when you’re not here, when I don’t have you next to me. It’s . . .” I trail off when I realize Declan is standing in the double door entry to the room. His scowl is murderous as he glares at me from across the room, causing my spine to straighten as I sit up. He’s irate, there’s no doubt, but I’m playing my ace at this point. To one man, I’m his loving and devoted wife. And to the other, I’m an abused woman who’s trapped in a marriage to a terribly violent and powerful man.
Bennett pulls me back to him when he picks up my lost words and questions, “It’s what, honey?”
With my eyes on Declan, I answer my husband, “It’s lonely,” and my words aren’t taken well by Declan as I watch his jaw grind and then set.
“I feel it too,” he responds as I drop my head to avoid Declan’s scowl.
Needing to end the call before Declan loses his shit on me, I say, “Honey, can we talk later?”
“Yeah, no problem. I’m actually in the car with Baldwin. We are meeting the project manager and one of his architects for dinner.”
“Okay, well, I hope you have a good evening. I’ll call you later tonight before I go to bed.”
“I love you.”
With my head still down, I return his words, “I love you too, Bennett.”
When I hang up, I slowly raise my eyes to see Declan walking towards me. He stands in front of me as I look up at him, but he doesn’t sit, he just exudes his authority while staring down at me, jaw still locked.
“Dec—”
“Don’t talk,” he snaps, cutting me off, but I don’t take his order when I state softy, “He’s still my husband.”
“And those words you said to him?”
“They’re just words,” I whisper in a mock cowardly tone.
“You miss him?” he asks, keeping his words clipped and tight.
“No.”
“You love him?”
“No.”
“Are you lonely?”
“No,” I tell him firmly.
His tension looms as he stands here, unmoving as time passes in silence. He eventually breaks it when his rough voice admits, “I want to punish you for calling that dickfuck in my home, but . . .”
His voice trails as he closes his eyes and puffs out a hard breath through his nose, his lips pressed firmly together. I give him a moment and then he slowly shakes his head as he drops down to his knees in front of me. His hands grip my hips and his head falls to my knees before he looks up, but he isn’t looking into my eyes; he’s looking at my bruises.
I open my mouth to speak at the same time he does, but I let him go first.
“You have no idea how hard it is for me to keep my shit under control, knowing what’s going on. And then finding you in here, talking to him . . . I wanna throw my fist into the fucking wall.” He takes his hand and cups the side of my tender face. “But then I look at this,” he says, referring to the bruises, “and I’m afraid I’ll scare you.”
“I don’t scare that easily,” I breathe.
“I think you lie about that. I think you want me to believe that. Maybe even you want to believe that, but it’s all a lie. It’s you . . . trying to convince yourself.”
I take a hard swallow, nervous, that even through all my shit, he seems to read me pretty damn well. As much as I want to deny what he’s saying, if you cut me deep enough, I believe there’s truth to how he sees me. I hate that about him.
“I want you,” he states matter-of-factly, and I nod. “I can’t refute my feelings, even though a part of me wants to because I know I can’t have you, but I want you. I want to have you, I want you mine, I want to own you.”
Closing my eyes, I rest my forehead against his as my body slacks forward. Declan holds me, adding, “I want all of you, and it fucking hurts to know I can’t have that. But I don’t want to stay away from you either.”
“I don’t know what to do because . . .”
“What, baby?”
I draw my head back slightly to look at him when I explain, “There’s a reason we got married so quickly. I didn’t see it at the time, but . . . shortly after we were married I saw his obsession with me.” I urge on the emotion when I feel the constricting of my throat. My words strain as I say, “He’ll never let me go. And if he knew about you, he’d ruin you. He’s powerful enough to do that.”
“Let him ruin me.”
“But it’s me,” I tell him on shaky words.
He peers his worried eyes into me, and I choke back a faint whimper, when he asks, “What are you afraid of?”
I take a pause before finally speaking the words that bring a flare of protectiveness to his eyes.
“He’ll kill me.”