Chapter 3
3
SAMANTHA
M y fingertips tingle as if I’m arguing a case in court. The roof of my mouth is numb. I consciously force myself to inhale as deeply as I can, to hold my breath for a full count of ten before I exhale every molecule of air from my lungs.
This is Braiden. The man I trusted enough to marry. The Dom I’ve allowed to do things to my body I never dreamed I could accept.
I force myself to meet his deep blue gaze. I see pain in the lines around his eyes, a pinched expression so different from how he looked when I found him this morning in the kitchen, happily whipping up breakfast after our night of crazed lovemaking.
“I know you want me to say I understand,” I tell him, as gently as I can. “You want me to excuse you. To say this couldn’t be helped—your hiding Birte from me. You want me to say all is forgiven. ”
He’s frozen. Every muscle in his body is stretched, pinned, waiting.
“I can’t,” I say.
“Samantha—”
“I listened to you,” I snap. “Now you listen to me.”
I cross the room to stand beside him. It’s dangerous here. The heat of his body calls to me, the cedar and spice that ransacked my brain three months ago, rewiring everything I thought I knew about myself. I dig my fingernails into my palms as I look out the window at Birte.
She’s sitting where Braiden left her, bundled in her coat and holding her cup of tea with both gloved hands, like a child afraid of spilling. The tumble of her hair matches Aiofe’s. She’s not much taller than the ten-year-old girl I’ve come to know since moving into Thornfield Hall.
“She needs help,” I say. “Both of them do.”
“Doc Kelleher says?—”
“They need a real doctor.” I know Kelleher has his medical degree. But he’s on the payroll of the Irish Mob, better at treating bullet wounds than managing any patient’s day-to-day care. He administered contraception and handled my sprained shoulder, but I wouldn’t come close to trusting him with a shattered mind. “They each need a complete physical. And serious, long-term mental health care.”
“That can’t happen,” he says.
“You’ve kept a woman imprisoned for seven years! She deserves?—”
“It’s not a prison up there.”
“What do you call it, then? She’s locked behind a door that no one is allowed to touch.”
“I’m protecting her! Keeping her safe.”
“From what?”
“From herself. From the world. You don’t understand how fragile she is.”
“I understand that the first thing she did when she got out of her cage was to set your office door on fire, with you on the other side. You can’t possibly say that’s normal behavior.”
“It’s not a feckin’ cage,” he insists. “She’s got windows and a piano to play and movies to watch. She eats the same food you and I do. Fairfax knows all her favorites. She has a chapel up there, with stained glass and a velvet-covered kneeler and candles to light every Sunday.”
“Does a priest hear her confession?”
“She’s in no state—” He bites down on his losing argument before he finishes making it.
“What about Aiofe?” I press. “She’s ten years old. How traumatized was she by what she saw at that church?” I think of how withdrawn Aiofe is, how often she behaves like a child half her age. I remember the drawings I’ve seen, her beautiful sketches of a country chapel, of a bride, of a stuffed animal, and a horse cart. I’m willing to bet she carried that toy rabbit at the wedding, that she watched her aunt arrive for the ceremony on that cart.
“She has everything a child could ask for. New dresses. Countless toys. I pay good money for John Bell to tutor her five days a week.”
“If her life is so perfect, why won’t she say a word? Has she ever spoken to you?”
His own silence is my answer.
“They both need trained professionals who understand trauma.”
“Impossible,” Braiden says.
“How much can it cost? Ten thousand dollars? A hundred? You burn through that in a day.”
“It’s not the fucking money! I can’t bring a therapist to Thornfield. How would I explain the security? Answer basic questions about my income?”
“You answer those questions all the time. You make donations to the Philadelphia Flower Show and say they’re on behalf of Kelly Construction. ”
“How will I explain a shrink to my men? What will the security team think at the gate?”
“Whatever the fuck you tell them to think! You’re the man in charge. You make the rules.”
Rules .
That’s what we have between us—all of Braiden’s house rules. Eating breakfast every morning. Not working past six. Wearing flowery skirts instead of my severe black, white, and gray. Not wearing panties.
Braiden shakes his head. “I can’t do it.”
“You won’t do it.”
He shrugs.
He’s stubborn. He’s used to being in charge. He’s built a life where no one ever tells him he’s wrong. He’s the best and the brightest and he always has the biggest dick.
Fuck. I will not think about his dick. I won’t think about any of the things we’ve done in bed, any of the ways I’ve debased myself to please him, to satisfy the soft needy bits between my legs.
I turn to leave the room. I have to get my things. Call a cab. Get somewhere safe and figure out how to get Birte and Aiofe the help they need.
“Where are you going?” he asks before I reach the door.
“To pack.”
“You’re leaving?” He sounds astonished.
“I can’t stay with a lying bigamist.”
“I’m not a bigamist,” he says.
Technically, he’s right. Father Brennan wasn’t a real priest. My marriage is a fraud.
“Fine,” I say. “I stand corrected. You’re just a liar.”
I make it to the hall before he calls out, “I’m a liar who killed for you last night.”
I turn back to look at him. He’s standing between the table and the window, his weight evenly distributed on his feet. He’s calm. Confident. Certain I won’t go anywhere .
He did kill a man last night, a man who pointed a gun at my head. And he tortured his victim first, trying to find out who targeted me.
Braiden didn’t care that he was covered in blood. Didn’t care that he was grazed by a bullet, that his arm is wounded even now, bandaged beneath his dark tartan shirt.
He saved me.
But he didn’t find out who sent the killer. If I leave this house, I’ll be as vulnerable as the woman-child sitting on the patio. The second I step outside Thornfield’s gate, anyone can come at me—including the paparazzi who’ve been swarming like starved goldfish since the story of my graduation night became public.
I’m a liar who killed for you last night.
The words hang between us. Absurd. Unanswered.
I can’t go. I can’t stay.
Before I can figure out how to respond, Braiden’s phone trills. The ring-tone is U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.
I’ve heard it before. I’ve seen the cold shock on Braiden’s face. I know he won’t let it go unanswered.
Sure enough, he taps the screen and says, “Kelly.” But he cuts off whoever’s on the other end. His voice goes thick with his Irish accent and he says, “I’ll be with ya in a second.”
Pressing the phone against his chest, he makes a half-hearted attempt to keep from being overheard. “Don’t go,” he says.
It’s an order. Another one of his rules. But I don’t think I can play his game ever again.
“Please,” he says.
And that breaks something inside me. That’s the opposite of the voice he’s used before, the crack of authority that sends me—literally—to my knees.
I don’t have any good options. Stay with a liar who is steadily breaking my heart. Escape to a world where someone wants me dead, where I’m front-page news for every tabloid in the country, where I’m in danger of losing my law license and my job and my independence because of all the mistakes I made eleven years ago.
I look past Braiden, through the window to where Birte sits in the cold March sun. She’s huddled in her coat, in her strange white dress, in her flimsy slippers. Beyond her is a low stone building—the pool house. It’s safely behind the front gate. It’s not under this roof. It’s a port in a storm, the best I can come up with on short notice.
“I’ll be in the pool house,” I say.
He opens his mouth to argue.
“That was a statement, Braiden. Not the start of a discussion. Take your call. And here’s a new house rule: Don’t come in there without my express permission.”
I leave before I can see his reaction.