31. Maeve
Maeve
The instant Ronan’s hand falls away, mine replaces it.
My palm presses against my throat as though I can erase the memory of his fingers by covering the place they were. Air rushes into my lungs, too fast and too shallow, every breath scraping over something tender that hadn’t been there moments ago.
He isn’t touching me anymore. I know that.
I can see the distance between us. Barely three feet of polished concrete, but it feels wider than the entire house. His arms hang at his sides. His chest rises and falls beneath the perfectly tailored jacket he chose for tonight, the fabric still smooth and unwrinkled despite what just happened.
Everything about him looks the same. That may be the most terrifying part.
There should be some visible difference between the man I married and the one whose grip had closed around my throat. Something obvious enough that I can point to it and understand exactly when one became the other.
There isn’t.
Ronan still has the same carefully styled hair. The same expensive watch. The same mouth that kissed my forehead this morning before reminding me what time I needed to be ready.
Only his eyes are different.
They move over my face as though he’s searching for something he can say to pull the last few minutes back inside himself. His gaze drops to the hand I’m holding against my neck before falling to his own.
His fingers flex. A flicker of disbelief passes over his face, and for the briefest moment, I think he truly doesn’t understand what they’ve done.
“Maeve.” My name emerges quietly, almost reverently, as if speaking softly can change the fact that those same lips had been forming angry words while his fingers tightened.
I take a step away from him. I don’t decide to do it. My body moves before my mind catches up, my heel scraping across the garage floor as every instinct I have tries to create more space.
His face collapses. I flinched from my husband. The realization settles between us, heavy enough that neither of us can pretend not to feel it.
“No.” He shakes his head, taking one reflexive step toward me before stopping himself. “No, sweetheart. I didn’t—”
“Don’t.” My voice barely carries through the garage, but it stops him more effectively than a scream ever could.
I can’t scream.
The knowledge sits beneath the panic, cold and practical.
Declan is somewhere outside. The other guards are positioned near the drive and the gate.
One raised voice would bring all of them running, and I don’t know what frightens me more—the thought of being alone with Ronan or the thought of being surrounded by men whose only loyalty is to him.
Ronan’s hand lifts halfway between us. He seems to realize what he’s doing and lowers it again.
“I’m sorry.” The words should matter.
For months, I’ve waited for them.
Every time he dismissed something I wanted. Every time another piece of my life disappeared beneath the explanation that he was protecting me. Every time I stood in the spare bathroom and tried to remember whether marriage was supposed to feel this lonely.
I imagined an apology would loosen the knot inside my chest. Instead, it makes something twist tighter.
“I lost my temper,” he continues when I say nothing. “You kept pushing, and I—”
His mouth snaps closed. He hears it. So do I. The blame buried inside the apology.
I kept pushing. As if what he'd done to me had somehow started with me.
Ronan drags both hands through his hair, destroying the careful style for the first time since we left our bedroom. “That isn’t what I meant.”
My fingers remain pressed against my neck. The skin is beginning to throb beneath them, each pulse matching the frantic beat of my heart. “What did you mean?”
“I don’t know.” His voice cracks with frustration, and I brace before I can stop myself. His eyes catch the movement. Pain flashes across his face, followed almost immediately by something harder. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
The sentence sinks into me slowly. Not I shouldn’t have done it. Not You didn’t deserve it.
This wasn’t supposed to happen, as if it were an unfortunate mistake neither of us caused. A glass slipping from someone’s hand. A car skidding on wet pavement.
Not a choice he made while looking directly into my eyes.
“You put your hand around my throat.”
“I know.”
“No.” My head moves before I’m aware of shaking it. “I don’t think you do.”
“Maeve—”
“You grabbed me because I said I wanted to see my parents.”
“You shoved me.” The words come too quickly. His expression changes the second they leave him, but he can’t pull them back. Neither of us can.
I stare at him, waiting for the familiar instinct to rise.
The one that tells me to smooth everything over before his anger finds another place to land.
I should apologize for shoving him. I should explain that I was frightened and didn’t mean to embarrass him.
I should make my voice softer and reassure him that I understand how much pressure he’s under.
The responses are so deeply carved into me that I can feel each one waiting behind my teeth. None of them come out. Because he had been hurting me when I shoved him. Because I asked him to stop.
Because my husband’s fingers had closed around my throat, and I am suddenly so tired of searching for the perfect arrangement of words that will make his choices my fault.
“You were hurting me.”
“I wasn’t going to—” He stops, jaw tightening. “I would never seriously hurt you.”
My hand drops from my neck. The air feels cold against the damp skin beneath my palm. “You already did.”
His eyes close as though I’ve struck him.
For a moment, the only sounds are the low hum of the garage lights and the engine of the SUV ticking softly as it waits for us.
The vehicle is ready. The follow car is waiting beyond the drive.
Somewhere outside this room, people believe we are about to leave for another carefully orchestrated evening where I will smile when expected and stand at Ronan’s side while everyone tells us what a beautiful couple we make.
They have no idea that his hand had been at my throat only minutes before. They wouldn’t believe me if I walked out and told them. I’m not sure I would have believed me yesterday.
“I’m sorry,” Ronan says again. His voice is quieter now, stripped of the certainty he wears like another expensive suit. “God, Maeve, look at me.”
I don’t want to. I do anyway. His face is pale. There is real regret in his eyes, and the sight of it hurts in a way his anger never has. Because this is the part that has always confused me. He isn’t cruel every moment.
There are mornings when he brings me tea without being asked.
Nights when he settles his hand at the small of my back and tells me I’m beautiful as though he believes it.
He remembers which flowers I prefer and makes donations in my name and speaks about our future like it is something precious he is building for both of us.
Those moments are real. So are the cameras. So is the locked gate. So is the handprint I can already imagine forming beneath my skin.
For too long, I’ve treated the good pieces as evidence that the others couldn’t possibly mean what they felt like.
Standing in the garage with my throat aching, I finally understand that one does not erase the other.
“I love you,” he says.
The words land differently now. Once, I would have reached for them. Tonight, they sound too much like another lock clicking into place.
“I want to go to my parents.”
His regret disappears so quickly I almost convince myself I imagined it. His shoulders stiffen. “We’ve discussed this.”
“No. You discussed it. You decided. I listened.”
“You’re upset.”
“I’m terrified.”
“Which is exactly why this isn’t the time to make decisions.”
A strange, breathless laugh tries to escape me, but I swallow it before the sound can carry beyond the garage. Even now, after everything, he believes my fear belongs to him. Something he can interpret and manage until I return to the version of myself he prefers.
“I’m not asking you to make the decision.” His gaze sharpens. “I’m telling you I want to go home.”
“You are home.” The answer is immediate. Automatic.
I look toward the door leading into the house, at the keypad mounted beside it and the small black camera aimed down from the ceiling. Ronan’s home watches me from every angle.
My home never did.
Home was my father arguing with the television as though the people inside it could hear him.
My mother moving through the kitchen with flour on her cheek because she refused to let anyone else bake for family dinners.
It was laughter traveling down hallways and doors that never required permission to open.
Home was the place where I had never once wondered whether I was allowed to leave.
“No,” I whisper. “This is where you keep me.”
His face hardens. “I have done everything to keep you safe.”
“You isolated me.”
“I protected you.”
“You watched me.”
“Because there are people who would use you to get to me.”
“You took away my phone.”
“Because someone compromised it.”
“You got rid of my clothes.”
His jaw works. “They were inappropriate for your position.”
“They were mine.” The words come out louder than I intend. Not a shout, but enough that my gaze snaps toward the open garage door.
No one appears. Ronan notices the movement.
His voice lowers. “You need to calm down.”
Something inside me goes very still. I have spent months calming down. Calming my tone. Calming my questions. Calming every instinct that told me something was wrong because admitting the truth would mean admitting I had married a man my father would have seen through in a single conversation.
“I am calm.”
“You’re threatening to leave your husband after one mistake.”
“One mistake?” My throat tightens around the words. “Was the first camera one mistake? The second? The one outside the bathroom? Were the clothes a mistake? Keeping me from my family?”
His lips press into a thin line. He doesn’t answer. The silence does it for him.