25. “Love the Way You Lie” - Eminem Rihanna
“Love the Way You Lie” - Eminem + Rihanna
The ride back to Beck’s car is torture. None of us speak as Henry steers down the country roads and in through the gates of Worthington Park.
It turns out Beck and I wandered nearly four miles in those woods, and had it not been for his suggestion of heading for the road, we might still be in there.
After Henry parks, Beck and I climb out of the back seat. I wrap my arms around him and whisper “I’m so sorry” into his chest for what feels like the hundredth time.
He presses a kiss to my head, much easier to reach from his height than my lips. “Don’t be. I’m not.” I look up to find his eyes dancing in the moonlight. “I just got to spend three uninterrupted hours with you. I can think of worse things.”
“Say a prayer for me,” I say, shooting a sideways glance at Henry’s car. “I have to ride with the Grinch.”
Beck and I say goodbye, and I climb into Henry’s passenger seat.
I don’t know what I’m expecting on the long drive back with him.
I haven’t seen him in weeks, not since the night we kissed and he told me he “couldn’t” be with me.
He might as well have screamed “it’s you, not me” from the palace roof.
My body is trembling, both from the cold night air and the buffet of emotions raging inside me. I’m angry, for sure. But I’m also electrified at being next to him. I’m terrified he’s going to hurt me again, but I’m also hoping he reaches over, takes my hand, and confesses that he screwed up.
He doesn’t do any of that.
We don’t say anything for a long time, until finally I can’t take it anymore. “I thought you were out of the country.”
“I was.”
“So why are you here?”
“I’m back.”
“I mean, why did you pick us up?”
“You were lost.”
“Wow. Thanks, Einstein.”
Henry doesn’t make a sound.
“Did Maisie send you?” I keep my tone perfectly conversational. I will give up my firstborn child before I allow him to see what he’s done to me.
“I offered.” His hands are clenched on the steering wheel. If it were someone’s throat, they would be on their last gasp of air right now.
“Thank you.” I frown at my reflection in the window. “I think.”
There’s another beat of silence, then he slams his palm against the wheel, startling me so badly I let out a little yip. “No, not thank you. What the fuck were you doing, Celia?”
Instantly, my veins are a teakettle, the whistle starting to shriek. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.” I mourn the loss of my hypothetical firstborn, but there’s no way in hell Henry’s going to waltz back into my life and pretend he cares.
“You’re my wife!”
My mouth falls open, and I gape at him, momentarily at a loss for words. However, they don’t fail me for long. “Yes, I’m the wife of the guy who said he wants nothing to do with me before his World Tour: Supermodel Edition.”
A vein in his neck twitches, and his clenched jaw looks insanely attractive in the shadows of the car. I want to smash it with a baseball bat.
He swerves and brings us to a complete stop beside the road. Before I can ask what he’s doing, he climbs out and slams the door.
I wait for him to return. Maybe we hit something, although I didn’t feel a bump. Maybe a flat tire? I glance in the side mirror and can just make out Henry’s form pacing a little ways down the road. What the hell is he doing?
I get out of the car and prop my elbow on the roof. “Are you almost done ruminating out here? I’m tired and I want to go home.”
At the sound of my voice, he swings around and stalks back to me.
“You’re tired, huh? Maybe because you took a little adventure in the woods without telling anyone where you were, got lost in said woods, and put your life in incredible danger.
That does tend to exhaust people.” His words are pregnant with anger and laced with sarcasm, but there’s something else in them, too.
I open my mouth to respond, but he doesn’t let me.
“I’m not done. Do you have any idea what might have happened if I hadn’t seen you beside the road?
If someone else had come along first? The things people will do for money or fame is insane, Celia.
Insane. Or let’s say you had decided to rough it in the woods overnight.
Do you know what the temperatures drop to this time of year?
You’re not dressed for that kind of weather, and you didn’t bring a single blanket with you. ”
I lift my chin in defiance. “Beck and I would have kept each other warm.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m unbelievable? No, you’re unbelievable.” Like a drunkard, I punctuate my words by stabbing my index finger into his chest. “You expect me to stay locked in a tower while you go off and sleep with any woman who will have you. Except for me, of course. That’s unbelievable.”
He scoffs and shakes his head. “One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Only because one is you and the other is me!”
“No, because one is a harmless pastime. The other is life and death!” We’re screaming now, only inches apart.
“Why do you even care what happens to me? I’m surprised you haven’t run me over yourself.”
“Trust me, I’m considering it,” he growls. “But that wouldn’t serve my purposes. I need someone responsible at my side to balance out my image. It’s easier to gain the people’s trust that way.”
I can almost feel the knife. It slips through the soft flesh of my belly and tears through the thick lining of my stomach, leaving a gaping hole, blood gurgling out. It shouldn’t hurt—used to it as I am—but it does.
I was wrong. There was no misunderstanding, no hidden explanation. This is who Henry is, who he’s always been. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to make me hate you any more, but congratulations. You just did.”
“I won’t ask you to understand.”
“What a relief. Because it’s beyond understanding.” I wheel around and climb back into the car. Let him spend all night out there, for all I care. With any luck, he’ll be the one to catch hypothermia.
I sink into the rich leather of the seat and adjust the radio until I find a station playing heavy metal—much more fitting for the moment than the jazz Henry had on—and crank the volume so loud that conversation will be impossible.
When he joins me a few minutes later, he immediately lowers it.
I wait until he’s distracted putting the car into gear before turning it back up.
His hand shoots back over, and we keep it up like a pair of middle schoolers.
I finally give up after he shuts the power off, not out of defeat but boredom.
His phone is sitting in the cupholder between our seats, and when it vibrates, my eyes automatically flit to it. Before I can look away out of deeply ingrained politeness, Bea’s name snags my eye, like a flash of lightning in a black sky.
I grab the device, finishing school be damned. “Why is my sister texting you?”
Henry lets out a resigned sigh but doesn’t attempt to retrieve it from me. “I don’t know.”
“Right. This is just an isolated incident, then?”
“She texts me sometimes, okay? There’s nothing going on.”
“Do you actually expect me to believe you?”
He looks at me then. “It would be nice for a change.”
“Sorry. I’m not feeling generous tonight.” I hold the phone out to him. “Prove it. Let me read your messages.”
“You have major trust issues,” he says, but unlocks the screen and passes it back.
“I wonder why that is.”
Henry’s phone is a treasure trove, likely the reason it’s guarded with three different types of encryption, but I stifle the temptation and only open the message thread from Bea.
There have been an astounding number of texts exchanged between them, including pictures my sister has sent, fortunately still wearing clothing.
There’s nothing overtly suggestive about the messages, but it doesn’t stop my rage from bubbling up.
I should be angry with her—she assured me she wanted nothing to do with him—but she’s not here.
He is, and I’m already furious with him, so what’s a little more fuel on the bonfire?
“You told me you’d stay away from her. You’ve been texting her every day!”
“It’s not every day, and it’s never for long. I feel bad not responding.”
“But you don’t feel bad about breaking your promise to me?” I toss the phone back into the cupholder and cross my arms.
“How did I break my promise?” His tone has turned incredulous.
“By not staying away from her! You know Bea. She thinks any attention you give her means you feel the same way she does.”
“Fine. I’ll quit texting her. Happy?”
“Not by a long shot,” I snap, and turn toward the window.
Once we’re back home, I march up the staircase and down the hallway to my suite, hoping to make it inside before Henry comes up behind me, but he’s faster than I am. He grabs my arm before I can open the door.
“Let go of me,” I say, trying to pull out of his grasp.
“Not until you assure me you won’t do something reckless like that again.”
“Like what?” I finally manage to free my arm, rubbing it where his fingers have branded my skin like a red-hot iron.
I see his face in the light for the first time tonight. He looks upset, tired, and stressed—a lethal cocktail. “You know what. Wandering in the forest with him.”
“Define wander.”
“Celia,” Henry growls. The power of driving him to the edge is intoxicating.
“Well?” I raise my eyebrows. “I’m just trying to understand what you mean.”
“No, you’re trying to exasperate me.” He moves even closer, so close I get a whiff of that scent I’d sell my soul for.
He props his arm against the wall above my head and leans in until I can feel the heat radiating off him.
A few more inches and we’ll be touching—a thought that is sure to cause respiratory failure if I dwell on it for too long.
“Is it working?” I ask, dropping my voice to a whisper. I swallow hard at the look on his face.
His gaze doesn’t leave my eyes, and yet somehow I feel it down to my toes, his eyes orbs of inky darkness. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “You have no idea,” he finally says, “how badly I want to—”
“Strangle me? Carve me like a pumpkin? Use me for target practice?”
“God, Celia.” Henry closes his eyes briefly. “Do you have to be so morbid?”
I pull myself up to my full height, thinking it will make him take a step back. It doesn’t. It only brings our faces closer together. “Why do you care what I do with Beck? You’ve made it very clear where the two of us stand.”
“I don’t care. But since we’re on the subject, I never thought he was good enough for you.”
A loud, mirthless laugh breaks out of my chest. “Not good enough? He’s a better person than you by a long shot.”
“Probably, but I still think you deserve better.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you.”
Henry rubs a hand over his face, pulling down the skin around his eyes. “We both know your judgment has been a little lacking of late.”
“You know,” I say, wagging my finger, “I think I’m just a toy to you. You don’t want me, but no one else can have me either. That’s it, isn’t it?”
He pushes off from the wall. “Of course not. I just want you to be happy.”
If it wasn’t so ridiculous, it might actually be funny. “Happy? Really? That thought didn’t seem to cross your mind the night you threw me out of your room.”
He runs his fingers through his hair. “Within reason, C.” He says it softly, like a caress, the same way he called me “baby” that night. Baby, are you sure?
I fight to still my trembling jaw. He will not break me again. “And if I told you Beck makes me happy?”
“Does he?”
“Of course,” I say. “I’ve never been more blissful in my life.”
“Then I’m happy for you,” Henry says.
Even a child could see we’re both lying.