CHAPTER FORTY-SIX Pain and Lies
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Pain and Lies
I woke up to the ache. Not in my chest, though that too was restless, thudding uneven, guilty for having betrayed itself, but lower, where my body still remembered him.
I was aware too of his hands mapping out my body last night, sore in hollow places where he pressed himself into me.
I hated the way it felt honestly, and I hated myself more for craving the honesty of his body when his mouth gave me nothing.
The sheets smelt of him, and yet he was gone.
I pulled the robe over my shoulders as if it could hide the shame stitched into my flesh, cinched the belt so tight I almost wanted to choke myself with it.
I told myself repeatedly that this was the last time, the last lapse, and yet the lie cracked before it formed.
My mind repeated questions and lies I believed in.
But what more did I expect?
Of course he’d leave. I was not the woman he loved. Not the one he considered human. I was just his toy, a doll he could play with whenever he wanted. Toy with my emotions, and leave me to fend for myself.
Who was I to him? Why did he keep me close yet never let me touch the marrow of his truth when he knew everything about me? Why did I feel as though I was living in a borrowed body, a stranger’s shadow?
And the depth of my thoughts mocked me. My body hurt, but not half as much as the darkness where answers should have been.
I stepped into the corridor, adjusting the hooks of the long, partially sheer lingerie robe he probably left beside the bed, and found Elena polishing silver in the anteroom, her face serene as if she didn’t care what was happening to me in this house.
“Where is he?” My throat pained as words left my mouth.
Elena slowly looked up and let her eyes take me in. If she was surprised seeing all the red marks all over my visible skin, she didn’t show.
“Master had business. It was urgent, and he left before dawn.”
Business.
“Elena,” I pressed, folding my arms to keep them from trembling. “How long have you served him?”
Her eyes lifted. “Long enough to know he doesn’t forgive easily.”
“That isn’t what I asked,” I snapped, surprising even myself. Desperation slithered out of me. “What are you to him? A confidante? A keeper of his sins? You know him more than I do, don’t you? Tell me, Elena, who is he really?”
There was a pause, and she inhaled sharply. “I’m just his servant.”
The simplicity of her tone enraged me. “And before that? Before you became this shadow in his halls? Did he… did he love someone? Did someone leave him broken enough to carve that scar into his face?”
There was a tiniest flicker, and her hand froze on the silver tray. “The scar…” she said softly. “Came from his loved one.”
“Loved one?” My pulse jumped. “Who? Who was she?”
Elena’s lips tilted. “Sometimes, the truth is hidden not because it’s cruel, but because it is too tender to survive your touch. You don’t need to know everything, Mrs. Vitale. If he wanted you to know, he’d tell you himself.”
The air left from my lungs, and I swallowed hard. “What does that mean? What truth?”
But Elena dipped her head. “Forgive me, Mrs. Vitale, I must prepare luncheon. The master expects several guests this afternoon. I suggest you also get ready. He wouldn’t like seeing you roaming around wearing this.”
I looked down at myself. The clothes I wore were indeed revealing, but I didn’t care.
“Guests?” I frowned. “Who?”
“Important ones.” That was all she gave me before she got up and swept away to the kitchen. Alone, I stood anchored by my own fury. If he thought I would wait for him to tell me something, he was wrong.
If there were answers, they would be buried in his study, where he never let anyone in.
I turned around, making sure Elena was busy cutting the vegetables. I had exactly three hours before the afternoon. If I was right, the guests would start coming by half past one. I had to get ready too. Give or take, two hours.
I jogged to his study barefoot and twisted the knob. It was open. Maybe it was his arrogance, or certainty, that I would never dare. I entered, took a deep breath, and avoided looking at the desk where he fucked me last time I was in here.
I rifled through drawers with my trembling hands. Rifling through sheaves of documents that gave me nothing but dust, transactions, letters to faceless names. In between the documents, my eyes landed on one with a very familiar name on it.
Celestine.
My heart raced as I pulled out the file with trembling hands.
Swallowing hard, I flipped it open only to find several photos of me.
In art exhibitions, with Adrian, and among my loved ones.
There were several pictures of Grace, too, along with other colleagues.
My heart stopped beating, and I read the words written over some pictures.
Mine.
Oh Lord….
How long had he been stalking me for? These pictures… I flipped one of them and my eyes widened. It was of me and Adrian, on a date, where he first gave me flowers. The white daisies. It was our first date.
Chills ran down my spine.
Four years. Four years ago, daisies clutched in my hands, Adrian smiling, my hair falling over my cheek, captured, frozen. Was he there that night? In the shadows of the street? In the crowd? Had he followed me home afterward?
Every memory I thought belonged to me suddenly felt poisoned.
How many times did I laugh, unguarded, thinking I was free?
How many times did I undress in my own room, believing the walls were mine alone?
The photos of Grace… why Grace? Was she collateral? A warning? Did he follow her too, the way he followed me? Was she in danger simply because she existed in my orbit?
My hands trembled so violently that the papers rattled, like bones clinking together. I wanted to drop them, burn them, rip them apart, but I couldn’t stop looking. My face. My smile. My vulnerability lay bare in glossy ink.
Did he keep count of my steps, the cadence of my breath, the way I tilted my head when listening? Did he watch me sleep?
I swallowed hard, bile rising in my throat. He had called me his. But what did that mean? Possession? Obsession? Protection twisted into something grotesque?
What else did he know? About Adrian? About my family? About every secret I thought was safely buried?
I hastily looked for more pictures. And to no surprise, I found my father’s. Aunt Brenda. And Adrian’s side of the family. Strangely, there were some bills attached to my father’s picture.
Ten thousand dollars.
Fifty thousand dollars.
And a hand-written note.
Moved to Bulgaria to a private hospital.
The room spun and the walls seemed to close in. The study wasn’t a room anymore, it was a shrine. A mausoleum of my life, dissected and catalogued by someone who had claimed me without my consent.
He moved my father somewhere else when all the while I kept thinking he was in Italy. Why was he taking care of him? Moved him to another private hospital and spent so much money on his treatment?
It didn’t make sense. One minute he was ruining my life, hurting the people I loved, and the second he was… being this version of him I couldn’t recognise.
And the most terrifying thought of all crept in, uninvited, ruthless: if he had been watching for four years, if he had always been there… What else had he done that I hadn’t noticed yet?
Frustration rose like bile, and I quickly put the pictures back and tugged at my hair.
I needed to know more about him. Him, and not me. Where did he keep his past? Where did he keep the piece of himself? Obviously, it wouldn’t be so easy to know about him, but I wouldn’t stop even if death knocked at my door.
My eyes snapped to the bookshelf. The red room. He knew I wouldn’t return after what I discovered there. And what could be a better place.
I got up on my shaky legs and shook as I pulled out the volume from the shelf. The mechanism sighed, and wood slid, stone groaned. And there it was, the hidden room.
I stepped into a cathedral of perversion. Restraints glimmered like cold jewellery, and the ankle I wore burned against my skin. I was suddenly reminded of it. There were leather whips, cuffs, sticks, and some perverted-looking toys.
I swallowed. My heart bruised itself against my ribs. This is not who I was. And yet I couldn’t look away.
But I didn’t have time for this. I needed to find something, to make me feel less insane.