Chapter 19 Aurora
AURORA
“Good girl.”
Everett’s eyes are cold. Impersonal. His knuckles on my cheek skim over the ghost of my dried tears.
“Stop it,” I beg. “Let me stay here.”
“Don’t leave anything out when you tell me about your day later.” The derisive command doesn’t sting. It’s fake.
I know better than to believe he still hates me.
Between the two of us, Everett might be the puppet master. He owns all the secrets. He owns this house behind him. He owns me.
But he’s made one mistake, and that’s keeping me close. Close enough to study him. Close enough to learn my husband’s tells.
A part of him broke down for me earlier. He’s been hard at work to reclaim his composure ever since he wiped his cum off my face.
With almost impersonal movements, he sanitized a new butt plug and put it in me.
He looked at me with a closed-off gaze as he locked the collar around my neck.
My pleas went unanswered while he forced emerald-green pants and a cream blouse onto my body. He didn’t say a word when I kicked him with the new black heels he put on me.
This silence doesn’t mean he hates me. Not at all.
Liking me scares him, because it means he’ll have to stop hurting me.
He’s damaged. Flawed. Wounded beyond repair in the most beautiful, dark ways.
And despite how cruel he is to me, I don’t want to fix him. That cruelty is just his pain talking.
Something inside me tells me he’s been waiting for it for a long time. That he’s been planning this forever.
Everett even pursued a judgeship just to trap me. He didn’t say as much. Didn’t have to.
My husband is a calculated man. Never leaves anything to chance.
With time, he’ll tell me what broke him. We’ll grow into whatever this is. My only wish is to spare him some of that ache.
That, and to convince him not to send me to the ward.
His expression tells me that at least today, that won’t happen.
But I still hope. I try.
“Everett.” My anxiety clamps around my lungs and throat like a vise.
“What?”
“Hear me out, okay?”
“No.” His comment slices me.
Living under the Clarkes’ roof was awful enough. A constant reminder of the love I could never have from my biological parents. How am I supposed to survive this?
I’m doing my absolute best to keep a straight face. To breathe in the early morning air and relax.
I think I’m doing such a good job that Everett and I can almost pass as two normal people instead of enemies. Just two people standing in the driveway, outside their front door. Rings on our fingers. Our hair and outfits are impeccable.
Well, the two black Mercedes and drivers aren’t what I’d call ordinary, but yeah.
We don’t look like we’re at war either. Like I’m seconds from a meltdown.
Except I am. I really am.
“Please. I’d work at any other job. Would volunteer anywhere else.” He opens his mouth to deny me. I’m quicker. More desperate. “I’d stay out of your way completely. The brat you can’t stand. Wouldn’t it be nice?”
I regret the words the moment I say them, praying it won’t be the part that appeals to him—me, being gone.
The early morning breeze whips at my hair, threatening to ruin my carefully constructed chignon. Neither Everett nor I acknowledge it.
“What makes you think I wouldn’t want you here?” His eyebrows dip. His gaze flickers to my collar. My wedding band and engagement ring. Back to my face. “You’re mine. Here is exactly where I want you to be.”
A singular small butterfly beats its wings in my belly. The possessive statement could be a good sign.
Good and bad.
Here could mean here as his wife. Or his prisoner.
His to torment.
The butterfly flutters its wings in my belly, regardless.
“So keep me here.”
“I have work to do.” His scowl is an expression I’ll never forget. Tight jaw. Narrowed eyes. Lips pressed into a thin line. He comes to me in both dreams and nightmares. “And so do you. I thought I made it clear.”
“I can’t go there.” My scowl won’t ever match his, but the alternative is breaking down and crying. I won’t, not in front of him again. Not in front of the staff and drivers. “I thought I made it clear.”
“That fucking mouth,” he growls, snapping two fingers around my chin. Stealing my breath away when his lips crush onto mine.
His angry kiss must clean the red lipstick right off my lips.
“You’re going, and that’s final. Cormac”—my new bodyguard, apparently—“will report back to me. You’re free to give him hell. To defy him. Remember this though. You’ll be punished accordingly. I’ll take great pleasure in that.”
It shouldn’t be possible for my stomach to churn and my pussy to ache at the same time.
Apparently, it is.
Everett can make anything happen.
Breathless from the kiss and the mind-fuck he’s putting me through, I nod.
“Go.” But he doesn’t release my chin.
His lips are close. His hot breath mingles with mine. I want it. I don’t.
“Fuck.” Everett bites down on his bottom lip, turning his head to the side. “Go, Aurora. Just go.”
My heart is heavy, my panties are soaked. Nothing I can say or do will change his mind. Nothing will persuade him to have mercy on me.
Cormac gestures to the first Mercedes idling in the driveway. On the short walk to my car, I wonder about Everett. What scarred him so badly that he won’t let himself open up for more than a fleeting moment.
Sooner or later, I’ll figure him out.
Once I survive today. If I survive it.
I step through the door that Cormac holds open for me. The scent of a new car envelops me. It does nothing to slow my racing heart or stop my hands from shaking.
Everett’s attention is on me the entire time.
I feel it first.
Then I see when I look outside the window.
The gaze he’s pinning me with is severe, hot and cold at the same time.
Leather and lace.
A tear slides down my cheek once the car rolls out of the driveway.
He could’ve saved me. He could’ve put an end to this.
He didn’t.
I’m still as unlovable as I’ve ever been.
I have to find out why.