by Geneva Lee
“Clearly, you don’t know to respect your elders.” She rubbed the bright red spot where I’d made contact.
“Nothing qualifies a person for respect. Not age or money or status. Respect is earned and you haven’t earned mine.” I spoke in a low voice so that she would have to strain to listen. I wanted her to pay attention. I wanted to know that she heard every word.
“Get out of my house,” she hissed, her finger flying toward the door. “Collect your things and leave. Don’t bother returning for Christmas, but I’d advise you to hold onto your lawyer. You’re going to need him.”
I didn’t need to be told twice. I’d come here with nothing, and I would leave with nothing, except a brittle marriage and a broken heart. I had no interest in ever returning to Stuart Hall. All my adult life I’d felt uncomfortable and unwanted here, haunted by the memory of my father. Now it wasn’t only the childhood I’d lost that lingered like a specter behind these walls, it was a future I wouldn’t have. I’d found hope in this place and it had been stolen away.
Smith stepped through the front door, his gaze traveling worriedly over me. The concern hadn’t left his eyes since he’d woken this morning.
“Did you say goodbye?” he asked.
Goodbye implied all the wrong feelings. Walking out that door, vowing not to return, that was my final farewell. But I couldn’t explain this to him. He wanted to help me carry the weight of the things we couldn’t change, but he couldn’t bear this for me. This pain, this loss, this liberation, was my own. Each feeling so inextricably bound together that I couldn’t untangle them. Maybe that was the reason the emotions carried guilt and shame with them.
“No,” I told him. I wouldn’t say goodbye. I would leave. Life had taught me that was the easier option.
Chapter 20
We hadn’t returned to my house in Kensington. Instead I’d taken us back to Holland Park, our brief residence before the attack and Jake’s death. Now more than ever, we needed to be close to one another. I wanted to give her a home, because I didn’t know how else to heal her. But so far it wasn’t going according to plan. She had seen friends and I had cleaned out my law office. It was time to make a fresh start. I hoped that I would inside these walls.
“Where were you?” she demanded as soon as I was through the door.
I’d never expected to come home to her in an apron and pearls, but the jealousy and suspicion she’d hurled at me since our return to London was wearing on me.
“I am doing the best I can to catch up.” I sank into the lounge chair by the fireplace, dropping my head into my hands. There was no way to make her see how hard I was trying, because right now she was far from rational. There was no chance I was going to call her out on being emotional though.
I didn’t have a death wish.
“I went to the doctor today.” She shrugged as if it was no big deal.
But it was to me. “I asked to come with you.”
“You were busy.”
She was angry. I could understand why, but it didn’t make it any easier to bear the brunt of it. Although I’d continue to until I brought her back to me.
“I’m never too busy for you,” I corrected her in a gentle voice. “What did she say?”
“I’m perfectly healthy. One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. I’ve stopped bleeding so there’s nothing more to do. We can start trying again as soon as we’re ready,” she rattled off the details of her appointment, her eyes distant.
It was the best possible news and exactly what she hadn’t wanted to hear. Belle wanted a reason. I sensed it. She needed to blame someone or something, and without that concrete answer, she’d continue to blame herself.
“We can get a second consultation if you’d like.” It was the best I could offer her.
“What’s the point? You aren’t interested and—”
“I’m interested. You are the only thing I’m interested in,” I interrupted her.
“All you’re doing is avoiding me,” she accused, beginning to pace. “It’s because things are boring now. You miss the excitement.”
“Do you hear how crazy that sounds?” It was out of my mouth before I could think. But now that it was, I knew I had to stick by it. I had to find a way to break through to her.
“Crazy?” she repeated, her blue eyes blazing.
Or maybe not.
“You don’t want to spend time with me. You leave all the time. You find me boring—or broken.”
I wasn’t certain what was worse—that my wife believed I no longer wanted her or that she felt broken. I didn’t see her that way. I didn’t treat her that way. I was no psychologist, but it wasn’t too fucking hard to see a case of projecting at play. The trouble was that I had no goddamn clue how to prove she was wrong.
“Beautiful.” I caught her around the waist and forced her to stop her frantic pacing. “I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Everyone leaves,” she whispered. “Sooner or later. Your friends get married. Your lovers cheat. Your…”
“I’m right here, goddammit. I don’t see you as broken. I see your strength.”
Her eyes sought the floor, and I cupped her chin, drawing her gaze back to mine.
“I’m broken,” she whispered.
“Then I will fix you,” I promised.
We stared at each other. I could see myself reflected in the blue of her irises. It was the only way I wanted to exist—as a reflection of her.
As a part of her.
Which is why it killed me when she pushed me away.
“Let’s face it. We barely know each other.” She swallowed hard, turning away from me.
“That isn’t true, beautiful.”
“Really? Did you know that Lawrence Davies was my first kiss?” she countered shakily. “Or that when I was thirteen I wanted to be Billie Piper?”
“You’re much prettier than Billie Piper,” I said softly, but I knew I couldn’t lighten the mood. It was time for a different approach. “I want you, even the shattered parts.”
I moved toward her, grabbing her shirt. She resisted, but I pulled her to me anyway. She could fight me all she wanted, because I wasn’t about to stop fighting for her. Catching her face in my hand, I forced her to look at me. “I love you. You can push me away and you can run scared, but I’m not going anywhere.”
I kissed her unyielding lips, softening my own until she began to melt against me. Her body still understood what we meant to one another, even if her mind had fallen victim to doubt and self-recrimination.
“I need you,” I said, pushing her roughly against the wall. My hand snaked up her shirt and I palmed her breast, catching her nipple between my fingers and tugging on it. Her head dropped back as a moan escaped from her. Despite the fury she clung to, she couldn’t escape what she felt deep within her. Under the pain and anguish, she was mine. We both knew it.
“You can be mad, beautiful,” I whispered, nipping at her ear. “And you can hit me and yell at me, but you may not doubt me. You may not doubt us. We’re going to make it through this.”
“What if we can’t?” she murmured.
The pain in her voice stabbed at my own heart. I wanted to take it away—to carry her pain as my own.
“We can,” I reassured her. “We can do anything we want.”
Gripping her hair tightly, I jerked her head back until her lips were displayed as an offering. I pressed my mouth to hers, spreading it open with my tongue and capturing hers. The kiss was languid but possessive. I would woo her back slowly, taking my time to show every inch of her body that it belonged to me. Her body molded to mine instinctively. My hands brushed down her torso and hooked in her waistband, yanking down her skirt. It pooled at her feet, but I didn’t allow her to step free of it. I knew how to set my wife free.
Twisting the elastic of her thong until it snapped, I slid the lacy remnants across her bare cunt. She’d begun to tremble. She’d kept her face tilted toward me, but her eyes had closed as she lost
herself in the moment. Cupping her mound, I leaned closer, pressing my palm to her heat. “Whom does this belong to?”
“You,” she breathed.
“That’s right. I own this.” I slipped my middle finger between her folds and found her clit. Massaging circles across it, I appreciated each gasp, each tremor running through her body. “I’m not stopping until you come, beautiful, but take your time.”
I was desperate to free her, and as her hips began to buck against my hand, my cock stiffened. I wanted to take it out and fuck her until I’d wiped away all the pain, but I wouldn’t until she asked for it.
Something she hadn’t done since that night.
Her breathing grew more strangled, and the throaty sound made it even harder to keep my dick in my pants. Her pussy had grown slick on my fingers. This was it: the reset button. I should have pressed it days ago. Her knees buckled slightly, and I anchored her to the wall as the spasms began. They rolled through her. Belle’s hands splayed against the wall, seeking leverage as she shook. Finally she launched herself forward, wrapping herself around me as she thrust desperately against my hand, riding out her orgasm.
After a few moments, her thighs squeezed, signaling that she had reached her limit.
“God, you’re beautiful,” I told her, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. “I want to take you to bed now.”
She stilled in my arms, and I realized that I’d said the wrong thing. I’d sworn I wouldn’t push her and here I was doing exactly that.
I’d never made that promise to her, but based on her reaction, she’d also assumed that I’d wait for her request—and I’d gone and cocked it all up.
“It’s okay if you aren’t ready.” But it was too late. She’d already pulled free of me and I’d let her go.
“I probably won’t ever be, so don’t waste your time.” She turned and ran toward the stairs.
“Belle!” I called after her, but she’d already slammed the door shut.
Closing my eyes, I slumped against the wall, searching for a solution I knew didn’t exist. I couldn’t help her while she pushed me away, which led me to one unbearable conclusion.
I couldn’t help her.
But that didn’t mean someone else couldn’t.
Pulling my mobile from my pocket, I dialed the only person I believed could.
“She doesn’t want me anymore.” It slipped from my mouth by way of greeting. I barely heard the well-meaning refute on the other end. “She needs you.”
I hung up without another word.
She could believe I didn’t care, but it wouldn’t stop me from trying to help her. And if she wouldn’t talk, there were other issues to attend to. Matters of practical concern that I could see to. I wanted to believe dealing with them would distract me, but I wasn’t an idiot.
Pausing at the foot of the stairs, I stared up. The silence of the house swallowed me, leaving me no choice but to walk out.
"You look like shit," Georgia commented as soon as I was through the door to her hospital room.
Georgia, despite her lack of make-up and her hospital gown, was radiant. Her thick, black hair only accentuated her pale, fragile skin. There were probably very few women in the world who looked better than her after a month in the hospital.
"It's good to see you, too." It was good to see her, but it didn't work with our relationship to admit it. We were only adoptive siblings after all. I hadn’t wanted to go to the hospital when we got back to London, but after my fight with Belle, I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. The truth was that I had few true friends. Georgia wasn’t always the warmest person, but she knew me better than anyone.
"Apparently it's harder to kill me than you'd think." She fumbled with a remote, pressing buttons until her bed tilted her up. "Not a big fan of this whole hospital thing."
"You have your own guards," I informed her. “You must be very important.”
“Or a criminal,” she said in a dry voice.
I dropped the pitiful bouquet of lilies I’d grabbed from a corner market on her bedstand. “They didn’t seem so bad.”
"I already fucked one," she said with a wave of her hand.
“And I worried that you were bored. Do the doctors supervise you at all?" I grabbed her chart and began to flip through it.
"That's private information," she said, leveling a glare at me.
"Save it for someone who hasn't seen you from every possible angle."
Still, there were remarks on the sheets that caught me off-guard.
Uterine scarring characteristic of multiple abortions.
Previous rape kit on file.
Scarring consistent with self-harm.
Then there was the information relating to the attack that had nearly killed her. I hooked the chart back to the bed and smiled like I hadn't just read all her secrets.
"Don't pretend, Price. You're terrible at it," she informed me. "You thought you knew the extent of my fuckedupedness."
"We both put on a pretty good front, but you and I both know that's something that no one else ever knows.”
"Even your wife?" she asked pointedly.
"So you heard?" Apparently I could avoid Belle but not the subject of her.
"Good news travels fast. Gossip even faster. I'll admit I'm lumped into the latter category. I’d thought you had learned your lesson with Margot. So council, how do you plead? Guilty? Temporary insanity? Because right now I'm wondering what to try you with.”
"Love." I rolled my eyes along with her. "I know. I know. We're supposed to be too cynical for that."
"I knew the first time I saw you two together."
It was an uncharacteristically sentimental remark for her. “Is that why you were so hard on her?"
"Of course. If she couldn't handle me, she definitely couldn't handle you." She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and smirked.
"Belle is stronger than you think.” I looked out the window, wondering if she was still locked in our bedroom. Did I just want her to be stronger? Or did I really believe that?
"Oh Christ, is this the part where we braid each other's hair and talk about our love lives? It's not really my forté."
Trust Georgia to keep things in perspective. "You should consider becoming a therapist. You have a real talent for soothing people."
"I already have a position lined up." She winked at me.
I didn't ask questions. I knew that whatever she was up to, I wanted no part of it. I'd detached myself from Velvet, the private BDSM club we'd owned, and now I was finally rid of our mutual employer. Georgia enjoyed some of the seedier roles she'd played in Hammond's empire. I didn't judge her for that, but it was no longer where I belonged.
"It took you long enough to visit." She didn't hide the implication in her voice.
“Belle and I took an extended honeymoon in the country." There was no gentle way to say what I needed to tell her. We were skirting the truth. The person that had bound us together had been taken care of, but Georgia and I had been on different paths for a long time. Our relationship was dependent on a shared history that neither of us wanted to remember.
“But now it sounds like the honeymoon is over.” She sighed and grabbed a pudding cup from her bed tray.
“What happened to not caring about my love life?” I dropped into the chair in the corner, shaking my head.
“I care about you, wanker.” She pulled the foil off the cup and scooped some on her finger. “No spoon. I’m not allowed anything with an edge.”
She shrugged like this was no big deal. I pretended to let it slide, too.
She’d been deemed a suicide risk. Maybe we didn’t know each other as well as I thought. I’d always assumed Georgia’s lust for pain only extended to being dominated. I hadn’t considered she could be capable of harming herself.
“Maybe our relationships only work in times of crisis,” I said, returning to the previous subject.
Georgia snorted back a laugh. “That is such a male thing to say. Were you
in crisis when you started fucking her?”
“That was different.”
“No, it’s not.” She shook her head, pushing herself higher up in bed to glare at me. “It’s the same. I won’t ask if you love her because, honestly, I don’t care and because I assume you must. Things got hard and now you want to bail.”
“I don’t want to bail,” I stopped her. She had the wrong idea.
“Sure you do. You’ve placed your loyalty with the wrong people before. Now you’re spooked. It’s natural.”
“I’m not the one who’s spooked,” I said in a strained voice. No part of me doubted Belle’s loyalty to me. That was beyond question.
“Can you blame her? She’s been through a lot.”
I stared her down. Someone was keeping her very informed.
“I have my sources.”
She had told me that she was fucking her guards. If she wanted information, she had no trouble securing it.
“Out with it,” she demanded. “What happened?”
No one knew more secrets than Georgia. She collected them. In her line of expertise, they were currency. She could keep a secret, but she could also sell one. The thing was that mine wasn’t worth anything to anyone but myself.
“She was pregnant.”
“Paste tense,” Georgia noted, pain flashing across her face so quickly I wondered if I had imagined it. “I’m sorry.”
It was amazing the effect those two small words had on me. Up until that moment, I had thought only of Belle’s pain. I hadn’t really felt my own. “I don’t understand how I can miss someone I never met.”
“Did you tell her that?” she asked in a gentle voice. It was a side of Georgia I had never seen.
I shook my head. “I’ve been so focused on trying to do whatever she asks.”
“Trust me, she doesn’t know what to ask for. She’s grieving and she thinks she’s alone.”
“She’s not,” I muttered. What did I have to do to prove that to her?
“You know that and I know that, but believe me, she’s not seeing things clearly right now. Bluntness is your friend.”
“Speaking of being honest, I’m glad you aren’t dead.” Standing, I crossed to the bed and pecked her forehead, feeling a wave of fraternal affection.