Chapter 12
Ireturned home a half hour later, no calmer than when I’d left Channing Enterprises.
His voice flitted through my mind, on constant loop.
But instead of repeating what he’d said, my chaotic mind put words in his mouth, filling the holes of my insecurities with lies my heart believed were true—with things I was sure he hadn’t had the guts to say.
If you hadn’t interrupted, I would have fucked her on my desk.
You’re just a slave, a toy I use for pleasure. She’s the mother of my child. You can’t compete with that.
I’ll always be right, and you’ll always be wrong.
Entering the bedroom, I let the door bang against the wall, and the nasty voice in my head changed his tune.
Do as you’re told.
Don’t argue.
Get on your knees.
On your knees, Kayla.
On your fucking knees now.
The sight of the floor set my teeth on edge.
Hardwood, a means of torture for my joints, and he expected me to drop and wait until he decided to show his face.
I tore across the room toward the bathroom, wondering if I were finally cracking.
These past few weeks of sneaking around and stealing moments of freedom had finally caught up with me.
This week alone had broken my spirit. Ian’s reemergence into my life, the revelation of Conner’s paternity, and the sexually frustrated nature Gage had left me in.
Going on autopilot in the bathroom, I stripped the clothes from my adrenaline-flushed body, dragged a brush through my wild hair. Prepared to become the slave he craved.
Always a slave.
Not a woman with feelings and wants and needs. My vision blurred with the hot sting of tears. The brush snagged on a tangle, and the dam finally broke.
Always crying, always bending, always taking the blame. He was right, and I was always wrong.
I glared at my reflection, hating the shell of a woman staring back.
If he wanted to punish me, I’d give him a reason.
Because blowing a gasket over finding another woman practically in his lap was a bullshit reason—an excuse to revel in his sadism at my expense.
I’d done nothing wrong, unless I counted visiting sick children, eating lunch with a friend, and finding my husband with that… that bitch.
I yanked drawer after drawer open, contents rattling under my fury. My pulse skyrocketed, then dived toward the ground at the sight of the red-handled shears. I reached a hand out but faltered.
He would be livid.
So what? Gage Channing would be mad. Big fucking deal. I grabbed the scissors and straightened my spine with purpose. Parting a thick section of hair, I counted to ten before raising the shears.
Snip.
The first lock of hair drifted to the tile. I brought the scissors to the left side of my head. Tears rimmed my eyes, threatening to spill over.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
My bare breasts heaved, nipples puckered.
I didn’t want to be warm. Warmth let feeling in, and I was suddenly and amazingly numb.
Besides, warmth deceived with its inherent comfort, and comfort didn’t exist in my world—not when he wanted me on my knees.
Not when he wanted a meek and pliable and obedient robot for a wife.
Snip. Snip. Snip.
The severed strands circled my feet, freeing my shoulders from the weight of the red hair he loved so much.
I couldn’t help but recognize the significance in this moment, the symbolism, and it terrified me.
It was only hair, but this rebellious act would change the tenuous dynamic we’d settled into for the past year.
This very moment was about to fracture our world and expose the guts of our lies.
Narrowing my brows in determination, I faced the reflection of the woman whose eyes lit up with something foreign. Something challenging.
Something he wouldn’t like.
This strange woman from another time—before rules and rituals and Gage Fucking Channing—was reborn as she lifted the shears and cut off the last section of hair.
Movement in the mirror drew my attention. He stood in the open doorway behind me, his posture inflexible as always. My eyes swerved to his before dropping to the belt clasped in his determined fist.
I whirled, crossed my arms, and silently threw down a challenge. A belt wouldn’t cut it this time. I knew it, and now he did too. No, on the eve of our first anniversary, Gage would have to do better than that.
“Do you mean to goad me?” he asked, flexing his hand around that strap of leather.
“What are you going to do about it? Lash me with your belt?” I grabbed the brush and yanked it through my newly cut hair. “Or maybe you’ll have me sit on your desk next time, half dressed since you seem to enjoy that sort of thing.” I raised a brow. “Huh, Gage? What are gonna do?”
He opened his mouth, shut it. Opened it again.
I blinked, feigning apathy, but I was shaking on the inside. He’d never looked so…at a loss. Unsure. After a year of submitting to his every order and whim, a single act of rebellion had knocked him on his sanctimonious ass. What a powerful, addicting feeling this was.
The belt slipped from his hand. “What do you want from me?” He spread his arms. “I’ve given you everything—”
“No! I’ve given you everything.” My voice rose.
“I’ve spent more time on my knees than at your side.
Have spent more time with your cock in my mouth than actually talking to you.
You’ve forced your damn rules and jealous tirades on me, but I’m not allowed to feel anything when I see that bitch sitting on your desk like she fucking owns it?
” I threw the hairbrush at him, but instead of hitting his face, it thumped against his broad chest. He caught it, folded his fingers around the handle, and I realized too late that I’d just given him a weapon.
He stalked into the bathroom, his body moving in a way that warned. I had no room to retreat, no way to defend myself as he grabbed my arm.
“Don’t you dare judge me when you’ve been sneaking around for weeks working at his hospital.”
I gasped, and the sails of my anger dropped, leaving me bobbing in a sea of blatant deception. Leaving me stagnant with guilt.
“That’s right, Kayla.” His gaze wandered my face, assessing the flush of guilt spreading across my cheeks. “I’ve known since you started.” Letting go of my arm, he grabbed my chin, holding me prisoner in his furious indigo eyes. “Did you see him?”
“Yes.” My admission crashed a wrecking ball through his heart, and my own fractured at the flicker of betrayal in his eyes. “Nothing happened. I ran into him a few days ago, and I told him to leave me alone.”
“You really don’t want to lie to me right now.”
“Please, Gage. Don’t do this.”
His fingers slid from my jaw, and he fiddled with my short hair. “You started it, baby.”
“I’m sorry.” And I was. Not because I’d defied him. Not because I’d blown my top over Katherine. I was sorry because this was the worst time to poke at the frayed past named Ian Kaplan.
He lowered his eyes. “I’ve tried so hard not to come down on you about this. I’ve waited and waited and fucking waited for you to tell me.”
The Friday ritual…I was right. He’d done it to punish me, maybe even to coax a confession out of me.
“I only wanted to do something meaningful with my spare time.”
“You should have asked for permission.”
“You would have said no.”
He cocked his head. “You sound so sure of that.”
“Are you saying you would have given your blessing?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not you’re still in love with him.”
For a few seconds, my lungs ceased working. The room and everything in it, including Gage, blurred, shifted. My eyes stung with the truth. I wasn’t supposed to care about another man, especially when that man was his brother. I was certain my silence gave him all the answer he needed.
“Kayla…” he said, voice thick with pain. “What do you want from me? I’ve gone to counseling. I’ve been the best father I can be to Eve. I’ve worshipped the fucking ground you walk on, yet you go behind my—”
“You’re slowly killing me!” I barreled past him and paced the bedroom, tired of being cornered, especially since he still held that brush with purpose. “Your love is toxic. I can’t fucking breathe anymore.”
Spanning the distance, he held my left hand and ran his thumb over my wedding ring. The one that meant so much to him because it had belonged to his mother. “I’ve given you everything I can. Everything that I am.”
“You don’t get it!” I yanked my hand from his. “I need more than this. I need to be able to walk out the door when I want. See who I want. Wear what I want. Get a damn job if I want.”
“Then explain it to me. Why do you need those things?”
I blinked several times. That was not the reaction I’d expected. “Because…because I just do.” I brought my fist to my chest. “I need a piece of me back.”
In the space of two seconds, he had my chin in his strong grip. “But you gave every piece of yourself to me the day we married. I need you to submit, always.”
Like a flash going off behind my eyes, it all became devastatingly clear.
Control. It would always whittle down to his thirst for complete control over every aspect of his life, and now mine.
He’d had none growing up. I’d known this, and maybe I’d understood it on a subconscious level.
I’d bent for him for a year because I’d wanted to make him happy—because giving him everything meant giving him the security he needed.
“The question goes both ways, Gage. Why do you need it?” I wondered if he’d figured out what I had, or if it was still a need that chewed inside him, mostly uncategorized.
His forehead creased. His eyes narrowed. He struggled to speak.
“You don’t know why you need it, do you?”
“You’re asking me to change who I am. I can’t, Kayla. I’ve already bended the most I can bend.”
“No, I’ve bended. Every damn day, I’ve given up myself for your needs.”
“You’re more limber than I am, baby.”
“Don’t joke about this.”