Chapter 5
Malik’s words ring in my ears as I pull up in front of my house.
The lights are on downstairs, and I wonder why Adrian is still awake.
He usually goes through a handful of beers and ends up passing out in the spare lounge room a while before I get home from work.
It made sense to be with someone who is in the same profession as me, because no one else would understand the late evenings, the multiple phone calls, and the lack of a social life, but everything must come to an end somehow, right?
Shutting the door to my car, I clutch my bag at the sound of a gate opening nearby.
It’s almost midnight, and I know my neighbours are not night owls.
We live in a cul-de-sac, so generally, not many people drive through our street unless they know the people who live here.
I take a quick survey of the street, the lamp post flickering a couple of houses away.
Nothing.
Empty and silent.
You’re just tired and frustrated, I try to convince myself as I head inside, where I’m greeted by the mountain of laundry that I haven’t yet put away, strewn all over my sofa. My frustration amplifies to irritation.
“There’s some leftovers for you in the fridge if you’re hungry,” Adrian calls out as I place my handbag on the island counter to take a breath. I will for my mouth to stay shut because I don’t want to open that door. If I do, I know no amount of strength will close it again.
“Not hungry, thanks,” I reply in a bland tone.
He looks in my direction, his arms thrown atop the sofa and his legs extended, resting on our glass coffee table. “How was work?”
“Frustrating.”
He stands, making his way to me as the TV continues to play in the background. His green eyes are hooded as he extends his arms in a hug, beckoning me. “Aw, maybe I can make it better?”
He takes me in his arms and places a gentle kiss on my cheek. His hands move south, over the small of my back, and down to cup my cheeks, but I feel nothing.
“Isla,” he breathes, laying kisses onto my neck, and I shrivel up at the way he says my name. I don’t know why I don’t pull away. I want to scream at him, tell him to listen to me for once. Instead, I let him touch me in all the places he wants because I’m trapped in a life I don’t want for myself.
My stomach turns when his fingers slide into my blouse and beneath my bra. I squeeze my eyes shut, and he stops, noticing my lack of reciprocation.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Removing his hand, he takes a step back and glares at me. “You come home every fucking night with a stick up your ass, or you don’t show up at all. If you do, you’re almost always drunk off your face.”
I don’t answer him. Instead, I wait for the rest of the trash to come out of his mouth.
“When I touch you, I can actually feel you recoil from it. All I’ve done is treat you right, give you everything you ever wanted, followed the demands of your father down to his last fucking request, including taking your fucking surname when we marry, and you treat me like this!?”
I stay silent, not because I don’t have things to say, but because I want him to get angry. I want him to fucking hit me so I can hit him back.
Show me the rage you think you hide, Adrian, because I guarantee mine runs deeper.
It’s not just about the damn laundry. It’s everything else, too.
A short while after we got engaged, I found out he’d had an affair with my close friend, Lucy.
Looking back, I was na?ve enough to forgive him for it, thinking he could be a better man.
But I knew in my heart it was a matter of time before he did it again.
I know he’s seeing someone else now. So even though he touches me and tells me he loves me, his words are not exclusive to me.
“You’re cold, Isla. So fucking cold that I’m not convinced you have anything beneath that fantastic set of tits.”
Fuck you, asshole.
“I don’t know why I stay,” he says, bringing his hands up to his dark hair and running his fingers through the strands. “I deserve to be treated like I’m loved.”
Cry me a fucking ocean, Adrian, you pathetic excuse of a man.
He stares at me, waiting. I cross my arms and glower back without a word.
I want him to break, so I don’t have to do it because what I say will come out harsh, and I don’t want to be the one to end it.
Not when my dearest father believes this union will be the best thing to happen for our family legacy.
Throwing his hands up into the air, he finally explodes. “I’ve had it! I’ve fucking had it. This is it. I can’t do this anymore.”
Finally.
The ring slides off my finger easily, and I hand it back to him, but he doesn’t make a move to take it.
“Are you serious!?” He sounds incredulous as I stand there holding the ring.
“What did you expect, break-up sex?”
My response is his final tether.
He shakes his head, stomping from one end of the room to the other, grabbing a backpack from the storage space beneath the stairs, and shoving some of the clean laundry into it.
“Don’t say I never fucking tried with you, because I did.”
I nod dismissively, which makes him angrier.
“I did!”
Rolling my eyes, I turn away from him and place the ring on the counter.
I reach for a glass from the top cupboard.
Once it’s filled with cold water, I take a sip and set it down on the counter.
I’m startled when his hands are on me, spinning me around to face him, his hold bruising.
Adrian was never the violent type, but lately, when he drinks, he changes into someone else.
“You think you’re above everyone else, don’t you?” He leans into me as I struggle in his grasp.
“Stop it.” I fight, trying to break free.
“You think because your father is Judge Gordon Knight that you can get away with murder.” He forces his lips down onto mine, and I struggle to shove him off me. He’s taller, larger, and much stronger.
I turn my head, and his mouth moves south to my neck.
Bile rises into my mouth. “Get off me!”
“Maybe if you feel me inside you again, you’ll realise just how good it used to be.” His hands travel behind me to the zipper on my skirt, and I reach out for the glass I set on the counter. My intent is to scare him, but the adrenaline bubbling through my veins has other ideas.
I hurl it at his head, and a shard lodges in the palm of my hand when it shatters against his skull. Instantly, he retreats, palming the spot now trickling with blood, and stares at me with wide eyes.
“Don’t ever touch me again.” It’s not a request, and he knows I mean it.
He looks at my palm, then back at me. “You crazy fucking bitch.”
I let the insult slide off me. I’ve done it many times before, and this is no different.
“Get out.”
I hold my wrist with my other hand, my palm pulsing as the blood pours out. I watch him leave through the front door and wince in pain as soon as it clicks closed, letting my vulnerability seep through the stone wall I’ve put up.
“Fuck,” I whisper, staring at the shard in my hand.
It’s large and deep enough that I think I might need stitches.
Gently, I pull to remove it, the squelching sound making me gag as I throw it into the sink beside me.
Desperate to breathe the nausea away, I close my eyes and beg my mind to take me somewhere else as my hand throbs, begging for my attention.
Where my mind ends up is not what I expect—directly in line with Malik’s dark, honey-brown eyes.
I had to ask Jamie to drive me to court today because my hand is still sore from last night. I called him over to patch it up, and he agreed without hesitating. I owe Jamie so much more than I owe anyone else. He’s saved me in more ways than one.
“I’m sorry you had to see it,” I say, looking down into my lap. “I don’t really have anyone else to call.”
Pathetic, really. I should have friends to call, people to talk to about the troubles in my life, but I’ve given myself to my work.
I’ve dedicated so much of my time and efforts to my career that one by one, they started dropping like flies.
It comes with the territory. When your focus and goals shift, so do your priorities.
He takes his hand off the steering wheel to place it on mine. “Isla, please, it’s nothing.”
We’ve been working together for a few years now, and he probably knows more about my personal life than anyone else.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks, his brows creasing with concern as he looks me over.
“I’ll be fine, as long as Father Gordon doesn’t give me a hard time today.”
“Which isn’t going to be the case, because he wants to see you break and make a fool of yourself.”
I sigh, closing my eyes and resting my head against the headrest. “Sometimes I think I should’ve just become a bartender or something.”
The car comes to a stop in front of the courthouse, and he turns the engine off. “Then you wouldn’t be Isla fucking Knight.”
I can always count on Jamie to pull me out of a negative episode, and the one I had last night was of epic proportions.
The only other person I would talk to about my feelings was my sister.
She was everything to me. Being a year apart, we were closer than anyone else I knew.
We did everything together, went to parties, shared our deepest secrets, and even made life decisions.
The day she told me she wanted to pursue a career in art is still clear as day in my mind.
It was raining, and we were slumped over the computer together, waiting for it to load her results from art school.
When they appeared, and we discovered that she passed with flying colours, it was obvious she was made for it.
Not just because she was amazing at it, but because it legitimately made her the happiest she had ever been.