Chapter 25 #2
“I usually enter through the main entrance,” Tobias explains. “It gives me a chance to talk to the reception staff and any customers that are around, but I thought this might make you more comfortable.”
“It does, thank you.”
The staff-only entrance opens up into a dimly lit corridor. Tobias walks for a few feet, then turns left through a door marked “Private: Staff only.” He stops outside the second to last door on the left. The sign reads, “Frank Dutton: Head of Security.”
“This is the man who was with me that night. I should tell him I’m here. If you’d rather not see him, you can wait in my office. It’s right next door.”
“No, I’d like to see him to thank him. He saved your life and mine.”
“He’s a good man. One of the best.” Tobias taps on the door then opens it.
I’m surprised. He owns this place, yet he still shows respect by knocking first. Frank isn’t the only good man around here.
At every opportunity, Tobias shows me who he is, and I’ll never stop being grateful that we met, even if it was in such dreadful circumstances.
“Tobias.” Frank rises from behind his desk. “It’s great to see you.”
“Been a while.” Tobias holds out his hand, and the two men shake. “You remember Rebecca, my wife.”
My wife.
He presses his palm to my lower back, and every inch of me suddenly gets warm.
It’s as though I’ve wrapped myself in an electric blanket and turned the heat up to maximum.
This isn’t real. We’re not real. Yet the way he says those words in that smooth, aristocratic tone makes me wish it was, that I was his wife in every way, emotionally and physically. Especially physically.
My ovaries are screaming at me to fucking do something, but the agreement we made and the fear of him recoiling stops me.
I couldn’t bear to see horror stream across his face at the idea of my hands on his body, my mouth on his mouth.
The idea of ruining the friendship that’s become everything to me is abhorrent.
Not to mention potentially ruining Isla’s relationship with him, too.
I can’t do it, no matter how much I yearn to.
“Hi. It’s nice to meet you.” I try to put out of my mind that the last time this man saw me, I was buck naked, terrified, my scars on show, and my hands trembling as I pointed a gun at my husband. To Frank’s credit, he smiles warmly.
“It’s great to see you, too, Mrs. De Vil.”
“Everything okay here?” Tobias asks.
“We’ve got it all under control.”
“Sorry I’ve not been around much.”
Frank levels a look at him. Something passes between the two men. An understanding, maybe. “Like I said, it’s all under control. You’ve been missed, though.”
Tobias releases a small smile, then hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “We’ll leave you to it.” He pivots and leads me next door into his office, which is smaller than I imagined. There’s a desk and a high-backed leather chair, a small couch, and along one wall is a bank of TVs.
“Are they for…?”
“Watching, yes.” He gestures to the couch. I sit, and so does he. “It’s how I saw you that night. How I knew something was wrong long before you drew the gun.”
“So, you saw…” I take a breath. “You saw what Marcus did to me?”
“Yes.”
My hands curl around my middle. “I see.”
“Does that bother you?”
I think about it before answering. “No, not really. I guess when you’ve been stripped of your self-esteem, your dignity, there’s nothing left.
” I pluck at the skin at the base of my neck.
“I’m so grateful to you for everything you’ve done, for showing me I’m not broken, just bent.
That I haven’t lost the person I was before I met Marcus. ”
“We’re all a little bent.” He grins. “Perfection is overrated.”
I twist my lips to the side. “Do you think I could go to the room where it happened?”
“If that’s what you want, absolutely. Let me check if it’s free.” He shoots behind his desk and types on his computer. “Yep. It is.”
I draw in a deep breath and blow it out through pursed lips. “I’m ready.”
I keep my gaze fixed forward as Tobias leads me through the public part of the club.
He nods at a few people without stopping to chat.
No one stares or pays any undue attention to me at all.
Funny, but I have no memory of making this same journey with Marcus.
I must have blocked it out. I don’t know what I expected, but people sitting around on comfy chairs, sipping their drinks and chatting wasn’t it.
Maybe Tobias is keeping me away from the more salacious areas on purpose.
There’s a part of me that’s curious about watching strangers make out. I’m not sure I could do the full-on viewing of them having sex. There is a certain intrigue to it, though. Especially when you know it’s consensual and they’ve agreed to be watched.
“We’re here.”
He’s stopped outside an innocuous door without any windows. I stare at the handle for a few minutes, then push down and enter. Tobias follows, closing the door behind me. I look around. There isn’t much to it: a comfortable chair tucked into one corner, a table, a set of drawers.
“It’s… sparse.”
“We have a variety of rooms to suit different tastes. The VIP suites on the next floor are far plusher than this.”
“I see.”
I wander over to the drawers and open the first one. Inside is a variety of toys. I shudder and shut the drawer. Toys for me are synonymous with punishment. Logically, I know that’s not true, but I can’t help the sharp reaction to seeing gigantic dildos and anal beads.
“How do you feel?”
I consider his question, running my fingers over the table. “I’m not sure. A little empty, I guess. But I’m not afraid.”
He crosses the room and entwines our fingers, staring at our joined hands. “Can I ask you something about that night?”
“You can ask me whatever you like. I owe you.”
He shakes his head, his eyes darkening. “No. Not owe. You owe me nothing, Wren. I’ll ask, but if you don’t want to talk about it, then you tell me. There is no ‘owing.’ Not between you and me.”
I lower my head. “Sorry.”
He lets go of my hand and brings his forefinger beneath my chin, tilting up my head until our eyes meet. “No apologies, please. It breaks my heart.”
“Why?” My voice is barely a whisper. Electricity crackles between us. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.
“Because it gives me a peek into how your life was. How small you must have made yourself to avoid the wrath of a man I wish was alive so I could spend days torturing him, like he spent years torturing you and Isla.”
My heart races, pumping blood around my body until I’m dizzy with it. “You’re a special man, Tobias. There’s something about you that’s unique and wonderful. I hope you know that.”
A deep chuckle rumbles through his chest. “My head just swelled three times its size. We’re going to have to widen the doors before I can leave.”
I chuckle, too. “Go on, ask me. If I don’t want to answer, I won’t.”
“Why did you choose that particular night to attempt to kill Marcus? Was there a catalyst?”
A lump crawls into my throat. I swallow, my palms breaking out in a sweat. Images from that night assault me, and the cold-blooded fear I’d felt comes roaring back. I can’t speak, so I nod instead.
“Hey, you’re okay.” He runs his hand up and down my arm. “You’re safe. Forget I asked.”
“No.” The word pushes out through a closed throat. “I want to tell you. Just give me a minute.”
“Do you want to go back to my office? Or leave? Would that be easier?”
“I’d prefer to stay.” Oddly, I think telling him here will help me get this story out. I swallow again. “Could I have some water?”
“Of course.” He leaves the room, returning a short while later holding a glass of water with several square ice cubes bobbing on the top. I take two or three gulps, then set it on the table.
“Sorry. I should have expected this question sooner or later.”
“Truly, Wren, you don’t have to tell me.”
“I think it will help heal me a little more if I do. Like purging a demon.”
He nods, patiently waiting. No pushing, no urging, just Tobias being Tobias.
“I’ve already told you about how it was between Marcus and me, so I’m sure it isn’t a surprise when I say I fantasized about killing him on many occasions.
But that’s all it was, a fantasy. I knew I’d never find the courage to go through with it.
Mostly, I dreamed about escaping him, picking up Isla and running away, but that dream was as much a fantasy as killing him. ”
I pick up the water and take another sip. My mouth’s as dry as a flip flop in the heat of summer.
“The night before Marcus brought me here, he’d been out drinking with his friends.
I was in bed when he came home. I remember my heart pounding, and I burrowed under the covers as if that would save me.
It didn’t. Marcus came straight upstairs and dragged me out of bed by my hair.
He was always crueler when he had friends around to impress. But that night, he escalated.”
My heart’s pounding, like it was that night, and I almost stop.
Almost tell Tobias I can’t go on, but if I do that, I’ll never fully heal.
I’ve got close on a couple of occasions to telling Jane this story yet never quite made it.
I have no doubt, though, that it’s my sessions with her helping me now.
She often speaks about trauma as a cancer that, if we don’t purge it, will slowly eat us alive.
It may take years or decades, but eventually, it will destroy us.
“He’d brought back six friends. My instincts went crazy.
I knew this would be bad, and it was. They…
” I run my fingers over my lips and drop my gaze to the floor.
“They took turns. Marcus egged them on. I couldn’t cry in case I woke Isla.
At some point, I lost consciousness. I came to the next morning, sprawled out on the living room floor, bloody and beaten.
It became clear to me then that if I didn’t find a way out, he was going to eventually kill me.
I knew he had an illegal gun and where he kept it.
When he came home from work and told me we’d been invited to a sex club, all I saw were more horrors in my future.
Horrors that kept getting worse. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I think I lost my mind.” I shrug. “You know the rest.”
An eerie silence cloaks the room where our lives collided.
I’m still looking at the floor when he captures my hands and wraps them around his waist, then encases me in his arms. No questions, no recriminations, no berating me for not going to the police or for bringing trouble to his door.
Just Tobias stroking my hair and comforting me.
It’s my breaking point. Tears roll down my face. I can’t stop them. I cry and cry until my eyes run dry. Even then, my chest heaves with racking sobs. He strokes my hair and holds me tighter, my own security blanket manifesting in a warm, solid body.
“No one will ever hurt you again, Wren. You have my word.”
I nod, unable to speak in case I blurt the one truth that’s too loud to ignore any longer.
I’m in love with my husband.