Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
The request hangs between us, thick as smoke. I stare into Rowland’s black eyes, finding the kind of naked hunger that makes my insides seize. Oh, God. When did anyone ever need me this much?
But I have to know.
“Why do you want to kiss me?” I whisper.
A flush floods his cheeks, disappearing into his unkempt beard, and he drops his gaze to the Persian rug. “Annalisa.” The tremor in his voice catches me off guard. “I’ve never...”
He trails off, his massive frame somehow looking fragile. My brows crease as he struggles with the words, stirring something protective in my chest. This broken man is trying to give me something precious: his truth.
“I’ve never been kissed,” he finally mutters.
My breath catches. I study this mountain of a man, all scars and untamed hair, and something inside me shifts. “Never?”
“I’ve never been with a woman, either,” he adds, the confession tumbling out in a rush.
My mind goes quiet. All those nights in the dark, those gentle hands, that reverent touch. It was him. This broken man who’s never known tenderness was the one who made me come apart.
“What about the others?” I ask.
“I used to hear the first few from up in the attic, but I only broke through my restraints after Father left.” He rubs his wrists, and I notice the permanent red welts circling them like bracelets. “After that, security became lax.”
The timeline hits me hard. He was just a child when they locked him away. Ten years old when his family decided he was too dangerous to exist. My throat tightens imagining him growing up in that cage while his killer brother lived free.
“What happened to your father?”
Shoulders sagging, Rowland crosses the study and settles on a leather sofa. Pain flickers across his features like he’s reliving old wounds.
“What is it?” I ask.
He struggles with the memory, his jaw working beneath that thick beard. Something about his anguish makes me want to reach out to offer comfort, but I wrap my arms around my middle.
Finally, he says, “Father and Edward fell out over Mrs. Fairfax. It was terrible.”
“What happened?”
“Mrs. Fairfax was the glue that kept the family together. When she died, they turned on each other like wolves.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “Father wanted her buried. Edward wanted her preserved.”
The word hangs in the air like poison. I step toward the sofa, my insides churning. “Preserved how?”
“Like the taxidermy Father did to Adele and—” He shakes his head and sags.
My breath hitches. It makes sense in a sick sort of way. Edward was ten when he murdered his sister, too young to create that monstrosity. I lower myself on the seat beside him and place my hand over his. “So he loved Mrs. Fairfax?”
He nods. “Edward begged Father to do the same to her, but he refused. Said she was fat and old and unworthy of preservation. That’s when Edward turned on him and threw him down the stairs.”
I reel forward, my jaw dropping. I’d assumed Edward was a misogynist. Apparently, he’s an equal opportunity monster.
“Where is your father now?”
Rowland raises his shoulders toward his ears. “Edward never told me. All I heard from the attic was Father yelling for help, saying he’d broken his hip.”
“Shit,” I whisper.
“Father’s gone. So is Edward.” He turns in his seat, his gaze dropping to my lips. “But you’re here.”
Heat crawls up my neck, bringing me back to his request for that kiss.
His black eyes burn with an intensity that should be terrifying, but my body finds it thrilling.
I draw back, wondering why the hell I’m so skittish with a man who’s already given me orgasms. Maybe it’s because I need to know what really happened in this house.
“Rowland,” I say, trying to be tactful. “Did your dad know Edward was killing women?”
He glances at his lap, taking away all his warmth. “Father could be willfully blind. Admitting that Edward was the violent one would mean admitting he’d made a terrible mistake with me.”
“So he ignored it?”
He nods.
“But you said security got lax after your father left. You must have spoken to some of those women.”
“Disguised as Mrs. Fairfax,” he says with a shrug. “Edward was always close by, making sure I followed the script.”
I nod, remembering how quickly Rochester showed his face that first morning. It was exactly when I was trying to get the truth from what I thought was the housekeeper.
“And the night visits?”
Pain flickers across his features like lightning. “I tried warning the first woman. Edward made sure I didn’t warn the second.”
He lifts his beard, exposing a thick white scar on the base of his neck. I hiss through my teeth. Rochester slit his throat. That bastard could have killed his own brother.
“Oh, God... That’s...” I shake my head, unable to muster up words to describe the pain, the helplessness, the guilt. It makes what I suffered with Brother Matthew look like a spat. “Rowland, I’m so sorry.”
He hangs his head and nods, every line of his body radiating shame.
It’s like he can barely admit to enduring so much torture.
“I never gave up, though,” he says, sounding so earnest that my heart aches.
“I put on the ski mask, tried to frighten them at night, but it only drove them into Edward’s arms.”
“Weren’t you afraid he would punish you again?”
Rowland raises a massive shoulder. “Edward learned after the first time not to be so vicious.”
I wince at the implication that Rowland ensured even more torture trying to do the right thing. “You even tried to frighten me.”
“But it didn’t work.” He gives me a sidelong look.
“No, it didn’t.”
“You didn’t scream like the others. You didn’t run to him for protection. You seemed to like it when I took hold of your foot.”
Heat floods my cheeks, traveling down my chest. It tightens my nipples and seeps low in my belly. I squirm in my seat and gaze up at him through my lashes. “Put it this way,” I murmur. “I didn’t know my feet were so sensitive.”
A shy smile breaks across his features, making him look less feral. “I became addicted to you.”
My breath catches. “Why?”
“No woman ever showed me kindness except Mrs. Fairfax.”
Warmth fills my chest. In a world full of darkness and pain, the thought that I could mean anything to him steals my breath. “Oh, Rowland.”
His face crumples, and he bows his head. Tears roll down his cheeks, and his massive shoulders heave with sobs. Seeing this huge man cry cracks something open in my chest. I place a hand on his bicep.
“Rowland, what is it?”
“Mrs. Fairfax told me something before she died.” His voice cracks.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“She was our mother.”
I reel back, my mind conjuring up the corpse rotting in the attic. “She said that?”
His features pinch with agony. “Father used her as a servant. Never acknowledged her as a wife and mother. He worked that poor woman to death.”
My mind races from the attic, to the notebook of victims. All those women. Used up and thrown away like broken appliances. All this time, Mrs. Fairfax was the original. Was Edward trying to replicate his mother’s trauma?
“Was she also a prisoner?” I ask.
“She couldn’t leave with me chained up in the attic. Even though she knew Edward was dangerous, she couldn’t bear the thought of him in an asylum.”
“That wasn’t fair,” I whisper, pulling him into a hug.
“Father forced her to be his accomplice in caging me up like an animal.”
I rest my head on his shoulder as he continues to cry. This might be the first time he’s told anyone about his trauma. But how can a person ever process decades of that kind of betrayal?
“Rowland, I’m so sorry. You should never have experienced a day of captivity. You were innocent.”
“And so was Mrs. Fairfax.”
“Right,” I say.
“I watched her take her last breath. My own mother. Treated like a slave until the day she died.”
“That was terrible.”
He lifts his head to meet my eyes, and the anguish in his features makes me splinter. “We never knew the truth until it was too late.”
“I just don’t have the words,” I say, feeling inadequate.
He shoots off the sofa. His chest heaving, his hands opening and closing into fists. I scramble off, my palms raised, not knowing whether he needs another hug.
“Rowland?”
He turns to me, his eyes wild, his face etched with raw anguish. “I’ve never known love. Never known tenderness.”
Heat radiates off his body like a furnace. I step back, my pulse quickening to a drumroll. His dark eyes seize mine and bore deep into my soul. My stomach dips. What on earth is he about to confess next?
I take another step backward, then another, but he continues advancing on me until my ass hits the desk. He reaches out and cups my cheek with surprising gentleness.
“My life was nothing until you waved back.”
A lump forms in my throat. I only waved back because of the note, yet that small gesture changed the trajectory of a prisoner’s life. I swallow hard, trying to withstand the intensity of his gaze. My lips part, but I produce no words.
“It was meaningless until you chose me instead of him,” he murmurs.
Every instinct screams to run, but I can’t move. The ache in his voice batters at what’s left of my defenses, and my heart cracks open. Rising on my toes, I press my lips to his, and hope to Almighty God I’m not making a terrible mistake.