My heart struggled to calm.
In that moment, I saw the firecracker teenager who I fell so fucking hard for. I remembered why I’d been equally enamored and terrified of her. She turned me on, excited me, but ultimately ruled me with just one touch of her tiny hands and one reprimand of her perfect voice.
I understood why she’d ignored the parameters I’d been set. I knew why she’d done what she had and I didn’t blame her.
I hurt her. And she needed me to see just how much.
“I’m sorry.”
Her hands fell away; a single kiss lingered on my lips. Her voice wrapped around me as gently as the steam from our bath. “I love you, Arthur Killian. I would do anything for you and I promise to adore you forever. But if you ever cut me out to protect me again. If you keep secrets or hide, I won’t be the sweet girl you remember.”
I know.
Her green eyes sparked. The atmosphere changed to electric. I didn’t need to ask who she’d become if I hurt her again—I recognized the fiery girl from my past, now transformed into a woman in my arms. But I wanted her to know I took her seriously. That she’d proven her point rather eloquently. “Who will you be?”
She stroked my thighs beneath the water, her nails skating threateningly. “I’ll be the woman who will make you pay.”
Her words echoed in my heart, heavy with warning.
How did I think I could continue to live a singleton life? How did I think I would ever get anything past this woman?
I’ve been a fucking fool.
Hugging her close, I vowed, “No more hiding.”
Her body melted into mine. “No more hiding.”
Her head turned, her mouth inviting.
A kiss sealed our vow.
She was mine. I was hers.
Our problems had to be shared.
Our successes equally celebrated.
I would have to tell her … everything.
Chapter Fifteen
Cleo
Were love and hate the same thing?
They must’ve been because I had no other explanation for how I felt about Arthur. One moment, I wanted to smother him in kisses, the next I wanted to steal my father’s gun and shoot him in the leg. He was so strong but sometimes so stupid. Couldn’t he see what I was offering? Couldn’t he see what his father was doing? His mother saw it, but she was too frail to intervene. Well, I wasn’t frail and I wasn’t afraid. And I wouldn’t put up with idiotic behavior any longer. —Cleo, diary entry, age thirteen
Three days.
That was the allotted prescription that Doctor Laine advised.
Three days of rest and recuperation.
Needless to say it wasn’t easy to get Arthur to submit. He kept growling about time frames and battle dates. Mo and Grasshopper were constant visitors, locking themselves in a room with their president, cooking up plans and discussing war.
Every day I henpecked Arthur like the bossy woman he claimed I was. I made sure he ate, drank, took his pills, and even took to watching him at night to ensure he was dreaming and not unconscious.
I couldn’t shake the fright I’d had when he’d squished me against the couch and passed out. The sensation of having his body inside me, then feeling the withdrawal of his intelligent mind as he slipped away scarred me for life.
I meant what I said. I would hurt him if he kept anything from me again.
He’d turned me into this neurotic mess. He was responsible for putting me back together again.
I jumped at the smallest noise—fearing he’d fallen. I eavesdropped on conversations—scared that he might suddenly start slurring.
I was a wreck.
And facts were facts—Arthur was a terrible patient. He tolerated me hovering, but he finally put his foot down on the third day.
He was in his office, busy placing trades on foreign currency pairs that he’d tried to teach me about but gave up when my eyes glazed over. The way he delivered his endless wealth of knowledge was stilted—punctured with awkward pauses and hovering with quavering confusion.
The fear in his eyes belied his true thoughts and I didn’t need to ask what scared him the most.
I believed he used those teaching sessions for himself to recall what he knew—not to teach me what I didn’t. I didn’t want him overthinking that those skills were lost. I believed in Doctor Laine. He would remember.
He will.
It would just take patience.
I placed the meat lovers pizza beside his keyboard, and he looked up, jerked from whatever world he existed in while staring at the four glowing screens. Swiveling his chair to face me, he watched as I flipped open the box. “Lunch is served. As you can imagine, it was a mammoth effort to hunt and slaughter something as wily as a pizza.”
“Thanks.”
My heart fell. I willed him to crack a smile. The more hours that passed, the more he acted as if he was under house arrest. Couldn’t he see I was only trying to heal him so he could be whole once again?