In many ways, Lina is a mystery. According to her medical reports, she suffered from anorexia and bouts of bulimia, but since she’s been eating at my table, she eats as if every meal is her last. She has an angelic face, but she never smiles. It’s not just when she’s with me. She doesn’t smile in her yearbook or newspaper photos. A young woman of twenty-four, she only wears black, not in a gothic or alternative fashion, but in a genuinely morbid, depressing way. She covers herself from head to toes like a goddam nun, even in the heat of summer. Russell told me he showed her the pool. She doesn’t own a bathing suit. I went through her belongings when her suitcase arrived. What am I supposed to make of all this? I doubt she’s crazy. Not crazy enough to be locked up for a year. Eccentric, perhaps. Spoiled, maybe. Incompetent? I have my doubts.
She pushes her empty plate away. “May I please be excused? I’m rather tired.”
The question pops out before I can stop myself. “Why did you marry Clarke?”
We stare at each other, her eyes round and my heart thumping with a dead beat. The night she offered me her shawl, when I’d found her in the corridor before going to Dalton’s office, I’d walked right up to her and said, “It was nice to meet you, Angelina Dalton. One day, you’re going to be Mrs. Hart.” There wasn’t a trace of a smile on her face when she replied, “I know.”
She gapes. “W-what?”
“You heard me.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
When she pushes back from the table, I grab her wrist. It’s out in the open, the big, fat elephant, and ignoring it will only make it bigger.
“You said you’d be mine.” Not in so many words, but on the night I told her I was going to make her Mrs. Hart, she said, “I know.”
I know.
She doesn’t fight the hold of my fingers, maybe instinctively sensing pushing me now is dangerous.
“I was eighteen,” she says in a quiet voice.
“Yet, you married Clarke.”
“He asked.”
“Did he, now?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Your father needed mining rights for my discovery. Clarke was the only one who could grant them. It seems convenient that you suddenly became his wife.”
Anger flashes in her eyes. “I didn’t marry him for mining rights.”
“Just for money?”
“Like you married me for money?”
I chuckle. “I told you it’s not just about the money. Don’t change the subject. You could’ve waited.”
“For what?” she exclaims softly. “For a man I saw once? You were in jail for theft.”
I can’t believe my fucking ears. “You believe I stole that diamond?”
“What was I supposed to think? I didn’t know you.” Her tone is pleading. “I still don’t know you.”
Not good enough. She said she knew. She should’ve known. She should’ve waited. This is the moment I blow it. This is the moment my carefully crafted composure cracks.
“You’re right, Lina. You don’t know me. Not yet.” I stand, pulling her with me. “But you’re going to learn, starting right now.”
Her calmness slips. She tries to hold back. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show you who I am.”
Chapter 6
Damian
No amount of kicking and fighting can stop me, not that Lina is fighting. She knows she’s too small, too light. She knows we’re alone. She stumbles behind me in her effort to keep up. I don’t slow down. I’m not the younger version of me who told her I was going to make her mine. Back then, I meant it in a good way. Now, I’m a man stripped from everything that’s good. That’s all right, or so I tell myself, because she’s not the girl who bewitched me. Neither is she the woman who’s going to save me. I’m long since beyond saving.
With her unstable history, she’s ten different shades of problems, which is why I’m walking a tightrope with no safety net by dragging her into my study, into my anger. I fling her into the room, letting go the moment I’m sure she won’t fall, because the longer I touch her the more I want to hurt her, and the more I want to hurt her the harder I get. She watches me warily, like she should, rubbing at her arm where I’ve gripped her. Holding her gaze with all the intentions bubbling up inside me, I reach behind me and close the door.
Her throat bobs as she swallows. She’s too brave, lifting her chin and standing her ground when I advance. My mind screams at me to calm down, but my heart knows no mercy. Stopping short of her, I grab at the last straws of reason. She’s an incompetent woman. Her mind is fragile. So is her body. Yet, she’s not insane. If there’s a classical rich girl dysfunctional cliché, I can pin it on her. Attention seeking, weight obsessive, egoistic, and spoiled. The crazy label is just an excuse to hide her personality defects and justify the sympathy she doesn’t deserve.