I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe.
Cristian yanked at my hair harder in warning.
“I’m your good girl,” I moaned, the words breaking something in me. Shattering it. All the pieces belonged to Cristian now. I belonged to Cristian now.
Then he resumed his attack on my body, my soul. Thrusting hard. Fast. Un-fucking-yielding.
The rug burned against my knees, and I gripped the fibers like they were the only thing keeping me tethered to the world.
But it was Cristian.
He was the one keeping me shackled to this world.
Last night left me confused.
Very fucking confused.
Cristian had forced me to relive memories that I’d revised, history that I’d altered. He’d done that by fucking me so hard and so sordidly, I’d felt dirty. Defiled. And I’d fucking loved it. Cristian tore me away from the world I’d been trying to fit into, controlled every inch of me, saw every inch of me. I’d never felt freer in my life. Never felt more like I belonged. Like I fit. With him.
Yet I also hated him for it. For not letting my past lie. For not letting me deal with yesterday in my own way. Which would’ve been not dealing with it at all.
Mostly I hated him for making me feel more like myself than ever. For making me face myself. Although I may have been conventionally beautiful on the outside, my insides were warped and ugly. I could handle his gruesome revenge yesterday, rather loved it, actually. But seeing my own insides? No, I couldn’t endure that again.
Though with the cold light of day, my outsides looked pretty darn bad too. Lorenzo had not held back when he’d punched me, and although he was a coward, he was no lightweight.
Almost half of my face was various shades of purple. Even the most heavy-duty of makeup couldn’t cover it up. Beyond that, I was too shaken to go to work. I would be the talk of the office now, with two sick days in a row. I already had fourteen missed calls from partners needing help on cases, associates who couldn’t find the fucking photo copier without me, and even Edwin, concerned or doing a good job of acting like it.
I’d gone to work the day after I had my appendix out and had been there the day before, right before my appendix almost burst. When my mother was dying, I still arrived before everyone else and left after them. I went directly from her funeral to the office. It hadn’t lasted long, considering only three people attended the funeral, me along with Jessica and Aiden who went because they were good people. My mother was well liked, had friends all over the country. Transient friends who couldn’t be contacted or couldn’t afford to fly to New York for the service.
There was not a reason that could be invented or an illness that could be caught that kept me from work.
Until Cristian.
In any other circumstance, I would’ve gone to work with a black eye, would’ve ignored the looks, the comments.
These weren’t any other circumstances.
Cristian was gone when I woke. He left a note.
On the pillow.
* * *
Will be gone for the day. Dinner tonight. Seven.
C
* * *
It was written in a looping scrawl, elegant and old school. My fingers ran across the black ink, as if I could feel him on it. I’d inexplicably folded up the note and slipped it into my wallet.
It was only after my workout and coffee that I found clarity. That I remembered in this very kitchen, I was attacked. By a man who wanted to hurt Cristian. Yet he’d never get hurt. He was impenetrable. I’d always be the one who bruised and bled for him. He’d always be the one with the knife.
It was then that I walked around the entire house, searching for Felix. He was always in the shadows, on the periphery, a cold and menacing presence. The thought of finding him here in the house, without Cristian, scared me.
It excited me too.
Right up until I walked into one of the rooms upstairs, in a wing I hadn’t explored yet.
It was a girl’s room.
A teenage girl’s room. Frozen in time.
Posters of Hilary Duff and Jesse McCartney plastered the walls along with a collage of photos. The bed had a flowered comforter and was made impeccably with a collection of soft toys nestled amongst far too many throw pillows.
It smelled of perfume that some female pop star had created at the height of her fame. Sickly sweet and musky at the same time. I wondered if the invisible maids were doing that. The ones that cleaned all the surfaces, that laundered all my clothes and organized all of my toiletries while I was at work. My fingers trailed along the hairbrushes on the vanity, the makeup with familiar names and dated logos.