That hurt as much as it healed, and I found myself bracing against the table, trying to keep my balance as I reeled. I was too conflicted about this. So much so, I felt at war with myself. There was anger there, oh yes, the things he'd kept from me were unacceptable and detrimental, but also there was regret, so much of it. It nearly took me to my knees.
But overriding all of that, the strongest urge was a pervasive softening, a tenderness for my lover who had fought, at all costs, for my freedom.
Tenderness won for the moment, but only with brute force. It was simple: It was the strongest, so it won.
But I had no doubts that the others would be back to fight another day.
Dante noticed my slip, and he lifted me onto the table, perching me there, cupping my face, and tilting it back to study me carefully.
Silently and solemnly, I studied him back. He was a complicated man.
Manipulative. Ruthless. Savage.
In his eyes was an enigmatic power over me that was exclusive to him.
The king of all of my regrets. The architect of every last drop of joy I'd ever tasted.
My tormentor. My savior.
I looked into his eyes and saw the infinite universe, because everything I needed was in them. It all ended and began right here, with us. It always had.
Now if there was only some way we got to keep it.
I wondered with no small amount of trepidation whether Adelaide would ruin us this time, or if we'd do it to ourselves.
Dante, clearly, had other things on his mind.
He moved between my thighs, his tireless cock hard and ready again.
He fucked me on the edge of the table, my body jarring sensually, jolting and bouncing tantalizingly with each thrust, his hands anchored on my hips to keep me on the edge, poised at the perfect angle, eyes on mine to the very last.
He only looked away for one brief moment when he came, when his spine bowed backwards, neck arching as he lunged to the end of me and held himself there.
Watching him lose it brought me over, both hands clinging to his nape, eyes devouring him like he might disappear.
Afterwards he carried me to bed, which was fitting. I let him. I was limp, too weak to stand, let alone walk, and it was all his fault.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
"If you're losing your soul and you know it, then you've still got a soul left to lose."
~Charles Bukowski
PAST
DANTE
The moment I entered my apartment I knew something was wrong. I didn't see anything at first glance, nothing was messed up or askew. It was more of a feeling in the air. A presence where there should have been only emptiness.
But I didn't see anyone. The entryway was empty, as well as the living room. The small dining room, as well.
But it was there that I saw something different.
On the table, splayed out in a fan, was a thick stack of eight by ten pictures.
Something sharp and unpleasant twisted in my gut.
Before I ever saw what they contained, I felt sick enough to wretch.
I knew. Somehow, I just knew that I was looking at my ruin.
I approached the table with no small amount of trepidation.
I didn't touch the pictures. Much like finding the scene of a crime, I didn't dare disturb it or leave behind any sort of mark.
But I could see clearly enough just what they were. Photos of the trailer Scarlett had grown up in. The outside of it. The inside of it. Pictures that very clearly told the story of the darkest day of my life.
Pictures that painted my guilt, and worse, hers, in stark, vivid red strokes.
My mind raced as I tried to figure out how someone had taken them; how I was only just now seeing that we had clearly been found out.
Someone had been watching. Someone had seen it all. The ramifications added a new horror to it all.
Someone had known what was happening to her and hadn't stopped it. Instead they had built a case that I could tell at a glance could not and would not be disputed.
They hadn't gotten shots of anything going on inside of the trailer until after I had carried her out, but that was about all they'd missed.
There was a barrage of photos of me carrying her limp body out that eventually led to pictures of the body still in Scarlett's old bed.
I didn't realized I'd taken a seat, head clutched in my hands, still staring at the horrors in front of me, until Adelaide entered the room.
I looked up, still too shocked to react.
It was offensive how put together she looked, how polished she'd made sure to be for the destruction of her only child. The crazy bitch was even wearing her favorite pearls.
Her eyes raked over me with spectacular disdain. "Checkmate," she said with relish.
She was my mother and the architect of my destruction.
"We all have a weakness, my son, and I always knew that someday I'd find yours."
"It looks like you managed to find it quite some time ago," I choked out.
I never bothered to ask her why. I knew. Control was everything to her. My whole life we'd been locked in a struggle for power, and while I'd just been fighting for freedom, she'd been playing to win.
"What do you want?" I asked her. All was not lost just yet. Perhaps we could negotiate.
"Dump that piece of trash, for starters. Leave her and marry Tiffany."
I wanted to kill her. I looked at my mother and pictured wrapping my hands around her neck and choking the life out of her.
She smiled like she was reading my mind. "I'm not the only one that knows. You think I don't have a backup plan? I have several."
"I could just say no. I'll turn myself in. I'll take the punishment. I'll do the time."
"I know everything. You weren't even there when the shots were fired. She killed him. She killed a cop, and she'd never let you take the fall for her. That girl is a fool. She'd go down with you." She smiled when she caught my unguarded reaction to that. "You know it as well as I do. If you go down, you'll go down together. Pick your poison, son. My way, or yours."
"I won't marry Tiffany. Not fucking happening. Dream on."
She shrugged as though she'd been expecting that. She probably had. "An engagement then. One year. Give it a chance. You might find it's to your liking to be with a girl of your own class. And if it's not, feel free to break it off. Whatever. So long as you don't taint the family tree with that Theroux girl, I'll let you do what you like."
"A year? No fucking way."
"Six months then."
"And that's it? You just expect me to stay away from Scarlett indefinitely? No. I'll take my chances the other way."
"Five years. Stay away from her for five years, and I'll leave you alone. That'll be long enough, I think, for you to realize what a silly idea she was. Time enough for you to grow up and grow out of her."
"And in five years, if I go back to her, you'll just let me?"
She shrugged. "You won't. You'll have forgotten her name by then, but if by some miracle you haven't, fine, you can go play with the trash to your heart's content."
It was a frightfully quick interaction. My entire life changed in a few short sentences, a handful of minutes.
My mother insisted on being present when I called Scarlett. She didn't trust me to go through with any of it on my own.
I had no opportunities to warn Scarlett, to try to make it better, to do anything but what I was instructed to, which was brutal and swift.
I went a little numb as I made the call.
I knew just what to say. That part was simple.
It was too easy to convince her. She was always waiting to be abandoned, to be thrown away. I knew that.
"This doesn't work anymore. We don't work," I heard myself saying at one point. Nonsense like that rolled out of my mouth, my eyes on my mother all the while.
Her freedom or her love. Those were my choices.
It was no choice at all, but it brok
e us all the same.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FOUR
"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."
~Oscar Wilde
PRESENT
DANTE
We'd lapsed into some semblance of normal faster than I could have hoped for.
We had our issues. Of course we did. Our history was long and destructive. I knew we'd be working through some of it for years. I'd never been naive enough to imagine otherwise. Not for one second had I ever been that delusional.
I tried my best to be patient. I tried my hardest to stay hopeful when I saw her internalizing everything when what was needed between us, now more than ever, was communication. I let things slide, let issues drop that perhaps I shouldn't have, all with the assumption that she just needed more time.
It wasn't easy, though.
And it wasn't natural, or right.
I thought I was showing some rather impressive restraint with her and her boundaries, but sometimes I just could not take it.
It was when I caught her face in the moments when she didn't realize I was near. It was what I saw when she wasn't trying to hide that made me realize how much she was keeping bottled up inside.
The haunted look in her eyes, the pain embedded into her every unguarded expression. All of it spoke of the burdens she was carrying. Alone.
That I could not take. That I could not let slide.
It was dark out. I'd just come home, but she'd beaten me to it, for once. They must have wrapped up early for the day.
She was out on the balcony attached to our bedroom, wearing a bathrobe, her hair still wet. She was hugging herself like she had nothing else in the world to hold onto, her posture one of defeat, her face set into stark lines. The eyes she aimed out at the night were full of vile things, old memories, old nightmares.
My God, where did she go when she did this to herself?
I could hardly stand to even guess it.
And I could not take it. Could not take another day with her doing this to herself.
I joined her out on the balcony, loosening my tie as I moved.
She started when I opened the door, turning to me.
She schooled her face when she realized she wasn't alone, but I'd seen it, every last ounce of the despair still written on her.
I held out my arms to her, but she wouldn't even take that.
She shook her head, turning back to stare out at the night.
"Don't be like that, tiger," I teased her, pressing myself against her back, mouth at her ear.
She was in no mood to be teased. "Listen," she said, voice tense and brittle. "I'm not saying this to pick a fight, but sometimes I just need to be alone. I don't want to be comforted. I just want to be alone."
That was foreign and wrong. "Not anymore. That's not what we're doing. We never used to hide things from each other, and we're not going to do that now. If you have a burden, you share it with me. We take the weight together. That's how this works. Whatever's troubling you, we'll get through it."
"No," she said, and I could feel the way her shoulders set stubbornly against me. "I'm in no mood, Dante. Not right now."
Just as she could stir my desire with a glance, she knew how to invoke my temper just as quickly. There was an edge to my words as I responded, "Yes, I know. You prefer being alone. Let's try anyway."
"You don't know," she said, her voice soft. "You really have no idea."
Soft or hard, it was the last fucking straw. I was tired of hearing it, the same words spoken for different reason, all with a meaning known only to her. I was sick of her saying it, but even more sick of her using it as a shield against me. "What don't I know? Let's have it. About the men? I know about every single one. And frankly, if there's something that could hurt me more than them I can't imagine it."
That set her off. Of course it did. It was unfair of me to mention it, even if it was only the absolute truth.
She shrugged me off, moving a few angry strides away to glare. "What about you? Do you really have the nerve to go there? You were no saint when we were apart."
To tell or not to tell. Which thing was more hurtful? More lies or the savage, unbelievable truth?
"A saint? No. Of course not. Not for a day in my life." I took a very deep breath, let it out. This was going to be bad, but I was done dealing with her in lies. "But there were no other women." I rolled my tongue around my mouth and added, "Not one."
Simple. Complex. Hurtful.
She sent me a look that was as crushed as it was disbelieving. "What? What are you saying? I saw you. I fucking saw you! What the fuck are you talking about?" She was close to screaming by the end.
Even as she questioned me, I saw that she was starting to understand it, to believe.
"Everything with Tiffany was fake. Part of the arrangement I made with my mother. I agreed to a six-month engagement with her to keep you out of prison, but it was a ridiculous failure. I never so much as kissed her. I agreed to those pictures for the same reason, but it was all fake. I never touched her beyond what you saw.
She was backing away from me, hands in her hair, pulling.
She looked deranged and completely heartbroken.
I couldn't stand it. For every step she retreated, I advanced. We would get this out so we could work past it. It was as simple as it was hurtful, and I was determined to get it done. To put it behind us, if that were possible.
"Liar," she said, voice weak, tears running down her face.
I just stared at her for a beat, two, letting her see in my face my absolute sincerity. "I've told plenty of lies. I can't deny that. But I promise you I'm not lying about this."
She pointed a shaking finger at me. "Tiffany was one. One. I saw the others, too. Woman after woman you paraded in front of me. You think I forgot? You think I'd forget even one of them?"
I winced. It was a stretch to say I didn't have a lot of things to be ashamed of, but that petty revenge had been the most selfish. "Fake. All of them. I took them out, made sure you saw. Took them home. I was a perfect gentleman with every single one. You thought I'd betrayed you in the worst, most unthinkable way. You had an excuse for the things you did. And, while I was angry enough to want to hurt you, I could never make myself betray you fully. Not like that."
She studied my face, eyes moving desperately over every inch, seeking a lie, almost hoping for it.
She didn't find one.
I was closer by then, but that didn't work in my favor.
She lost her mind. Hitting, scratching, attacking me with blind determination and absolute abandon.
It was awful. I had to subdue her bodily, carry her inside. I pinned her struggling to the bed because I thought that she might hurt herself.
I was holding her down, trying to calm her, my voice soothing, as composed as I could manage.
But make no mistake. I was affected. By her pain. By my own. Shaken by it. Trembling with it.
Nothing seemed to help. I was at my wits end when I asked her in dismay, "Did you want me to be with other women?"
"Of course not," she almost screeched at me. "No. You don't get it at all. Don't you see, though, that it's so much easier to forgive your sins than it is to forgive mine? Do you think I needed another score against myself? Do you think I don't hate myself enough?"
I did understand something about that. Self-hatred was an old, familiar friend, and this night was rife with it.
I shut my eyes, touching my forehead softly to hers. She allowed me to for a moment.
"We'll get past this," I told her tenderly. "We'll work through it all. The worst is past."
That had her struggling anew. I was so caught off guard by it that she was up and across the room before I could react.
I'd barely risen from the bed when she slammed the bathroom door closed and I heard it lock.
Well, fuck.
I knocked and asked her nicely to come out. She ignored me.
I offered through a clenched j
aw if she'd prefer that I break the door down.
"Fuck you!" she called back, the last word a sob. "I'm directly on the other side. If you break it down, you'll hurt me."
Well, fuck. Even when she was near hysterical, she understood well how to stop me in my tracks.
Because I was good at it, I quickly resorted to dirty tricks.
It only took me a minute to walk down the hall, snatch our sleeping kitten from its favorite spot, and carry it back to the bedroom.
I sat with my back to the bathroom door, the still sleeping kitten cradled against me.
I could feel her on the other side of the door, her body propped up against it.
"Diablo is trying to get to you," I told her. "She's crying. She misses you."
Her voice came muffled and forlorn. "No, she's not. I'd hear it if she was."
"She's so sad, tiger. Baby wants her mama."
For some reason, that set her off sobbing the hardest of all.
I turned, leaning my forehead against the door. Sometimes it felt like my whole life was this. Waiting on the other side of the door from her, hoping to be let in.
Diablo was awake by then, rubbing up against my stroking fingers and purring loud enough that I wondered if Scarlett could hear her through the wall.
"She's really upset, tiger," I tried again. "Don't you want to at least check on her?"
"You're mean!" she called back, sounding like a forlorn child.
It made my heart turn to a tender pile of mush in my chest.
"My white flag is up, tiger. I won't say one more upsetting thing tonight if you'll just unlock the door."
"It's not you I'm worried about," she said, dread in her voice.
Wasn't that the damn truth. "I can take it. What I can't take is a locked door between you and me. C'mon, angel. Let me in."
Diablo was a good wing kitten. Suddenly and loudly, as though she'd just realized Scarlett was close, she let out a loud and plaintive meow. And then another.
Slowly the door opened behind me. She leaned down, plucked Diablo from my arms, and moved away, not toward the bed but to the chaise in the corner.