My body tightened, and the smile froze on my face.
“I want to find someone who will take care of me the way he takes care of you. Admit it, sis, your life is pretty perfect. You don’t have to work, your husband pays for us to have days like this; he’s hot, he’s rich . . . he’s hot.”
He’s a monster.
“You know what I want for you?” I asked quickly as I leaned forward, my question coming across a little too urgent. “To find someone who will love you through anything. Years. Distance. Separation. Anything. That’s what I want for you.”
She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mom.”
I cleared my throat and attempted a smile, grateful that she hadn’t noticed my tone. “Speaking of Mom . . . are you going home this summer?”
I sat back and resumed pushing my salad around when she launched into what her plans were for the summer. When I dropped her off an hour later at the apartment she was renting with some friends, I cried in relief as the tension drained from my muscles.
I hurried to get dinner ready when I got home, then walked through the house one more time, looking for anything I might have missed. I’d cleaned the bathroom from both our showers, the rest of the house still looked spotless, the new purse and shoes I’d bought this afternoon were sitting on display on the entryway table for Collin to see when he got home, and I’d just finished putting all the dishes away before I’d began my walk-through. My hands were shaking as I stared at the plates on the table. Something was missing. I just couldn’t think of what it was.
Chicken, potatoes, green beans. Forks, knives, spoons, napkins. Salt. Pepper. I glanced at the time and swallowed thickly. Oh God, oh God! What the hell is missing?
I had two minutes before Collin drove up the driveway; he was never a minute late. I wasn’t sure, but I’d started thinking he parked down the street waiting until the same time every day just so he could instill this fear in me for when he would show.
Drinks!
I rushed through the kitchen and pulled down four glasses. After filling two with ice and water and the others with wine, I set all the glasses on the table seconds before I heard the key in the lock, and my trembling increased.
The door opened and shut, and after a few seconds, Collin’s footsteps echoed off the hardwood floors as he walked through the entryway and into the kitchen to look at me. There was a beautiful bouquet of pink roses in his hand—as there was every night he felt he needed to apologize—and I tried to keep my face neutral at the sight of them. I’d always hated roses, something Collin knew.
“Smells great.” He smiled quickly, tossed the roses unceremoniously on the kitchen table, and then turned around to walk through the house. His eyes were going everywhere as he looked for something out of place. Anything. Two minutes later he walked back into the kitchen with a genuine smile on his face. He wrapped his arms around me where I was standing at the counter, clipping the end of each rose and placing it in a vase. “Do you like your gifts?”
“I do, thank you.”
“And seeing your sister?” he asked as he turned me to face him. He captured my mouth to kiss me softly, his lips only moving far enough away to ask, “Did you two have a good time?”
“Yes,” I whispered before he was kissing me again.
One arm moved slowly up my back as he deepened the kiss, and I tried to not let on to the fact that my stomach was churning from his touch.
A cry burst from my chest as pain spread across my scalp and down my neck when he fisted his hand in my long hair and yanked roughly to the side. With another hard tug, he turned—causing me to hit the counter and knock the vase onto the floor, where it shattered—and stalked into the entryway with me stumbling behind him, bent in half. Facing the entry table covered in the things I’d bought earlier, he pulled me up only to force my face down toward the table so fast that a scream tore through my throat. Everything halted when my nose was within an inch of the table, and my jaw shook as tears fell onto the dark-stained wood.
“Are you trying to get someone killed?” he roared.
“N-n-n-n,” I stammered, then cut off on a sob.
“What is missing, Harlow? Tell me!” He jerked my head a fraction of an inch closer to the table.
I stared at the table, shaking, unable to figure out what he was talking about.
“Who do you want gone, huh?” he asked close to my ear. This time his voice was soft and dark. “Your sister? You want her gone, don’t you?”
“No!” I choked out.
“Then where is it?” he yelled next to me.
Card. Credit card! “Wall—wallet! I’m s-s-sorry!”
Using a fistful of my hair as a handle, he threw me to the ground and stepped over me on his way to look for my purse. My hands immediately flew to my head to cover the tender parts as I listened to his footfalls fading away from me.