My skin crawled.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair, his head moving to glance at the hills in the distance. “I’m sure you’ve noticed we aren’t home yet. I’m obviously waiting for Hillary,” he said as if she was off on Spring Break, not running from her sicko father whom she’d thankfully never met. “I thought she might want to stay somewhere familiar, that you both would. So I bought this place.” He held his hands out. “More modest than I’m used to, and obviously a touch more opulent than what you’ve been able to provide, but it’ll serve as a good transition home,” he said, moving his eyes back to me.
I glared at him with hatred, not speaking.
“Maybe it was a good thing I haven’t been reunited with my daughter just yet,” he continued. “Gives me time to make sure I have her mother setting a good example,” he mused.
My blood curdled. “She’s not your daughter,” I informed him icily. “You lost any claim on her the moment you laid a hand on me when she was growing inside me. When you almost killed her,” I sneered.
Sid banged his fist down on the table, his calm fa?ade shattering. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” he bellowed. “When you made me believe she was dead, I was fucking sorry! It haunted me for years,” he screamed, spittle flying out his mouth. “It gave you no right to run, to hide from me.”
I laughed without humor. “You are fucking insane,” I informed him. “When you beat me while I had my daughter inside me, you gave me every fucking right to get as far away from you as humanely possible, you sick fuck,” I yelled, pushing back from my chair.
Quick as a flash, Sid was up and had plowed his fist through my face before I even had time to react. My body was thrown back into the glass door behind me. The impact sent pain vibrating through my body, up my spine. I was lucky it didn’t smash. Pain erupted not only in my jaw but in my wrist, which I had thrown out to break my fall. I lay there holding my jaw, cradling my other arm to my stomach. I bit my lip to stop the tears from falling. I was in a lot of fucking pain but I wouldn’t give him my tears. My eyes didn’t leave Sid, the hatred I felt for the man increasing by the second.
He walked over to me slowly, his Gucci loafers stopping at my prone body. He knelt down, his eyes blank.
“Why do you make me do this?” he asked, shaking his head. His hand went to brush a hair out of my face. I flinched.
“Maybe you’ll be different when Hillary’s here, when we can be a real family,” he mused thoughtfully.
In my pain-drenched haze I still realized that Sid had well and truly gone off the deep end, if he had ever been swimming in the shallow waters of sanity. Maybe he had always been this crazy, but my na?ve teenage eyes had been blinded by affection and the illusion of love. Of being wanted. Now that I knew what real love was, I saw him for the monster he was.
“But while we wait for her I think you need some time—time to mull over what being a good wife means,” he continued, his voice flat, as is he hadn’t just plowed a fist into my face and potentially broken my arm. “And you think while you have that time, that if when Hillary gets here you put a foot out of line, it will be in front of our daughter that you get taught your lesson.”