Page 76 of Fragile Twisted Vows
“That night haunts me and so does every moment of your fucking life that I’ve witnessed. The abuse, all of it. Not because it happened, but because I didn’t save you. Didn’t hold you. Didn’t help you. Didn’t heal you. It haunts me because you’re right, I fucking did nothing.”
She’s quiet except for her sharp intake of air and sniffles as tears pool in her beautiful blue eyes.
Eyes that have haunted me for nearly seven years.
There it is. My bitter truth,
My most sinister trait of all.
I am in love with Lucy Fairchild and I think I have been since the moment I first laid eyes on her.
“But it’s okay now?” she asks, breaking the long stretch of silence.
“What is?” I huff out.
“To touch me, to fuck me. To manipulate me now because I’m older. Because time has passed. It’s okay to use me now in any way that you see fit, Damien?” Her hands ball into fists at her sides and I swear I can hear her heart pound from across the room.
She’s angry.
And she has every single right to be.
“I fucking hate you, you know that?” she says, tears pouring from her eyes.
I want to go to her, to take her into my arms and hold her, but she is a wounded animal right now, all guarded and afraid.
“I know, I know baby.”
“Don’t fucking call me that! Stop fucking with my head!” she cries, and I shake my head as I approach her.
“No, I won’t. You can be as angry as you are, you can feel hurt, but you won’t tell me to hide my feelings now after you’ve spent years fucking pulling them from me,” I growl, “after you told me last night to face my consequences like a man. Well, here they are, sweetheart. Here is every feeling, every consequence from my actions,” I say as I stop right before her.
“I love you, no matter how fucked this all is, no matter how doomed it was from the start. I love you and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for the fact that I abandoned you when you needed me the most, when you needed someone.” Her breath hitches on a sob and I move to touch her, but she rips away.
“You could have avoided all of this, if you had just, if you had…”
“Told the truth? I know. I could have.” I sigh. “But here is the rest of it now. Your father has tons of hush money cases that I know you’re aware of, but I’ve been blackmailing him with this one for years. As soon as we’re married, I’m releasing it to the public and I’m taking your entire fucking family down for all of the turmoil that they’ve caused you, Lucille. I swear it,” I vow and her head drops, tears now splashing onto the carpet.
“It doesn’t matter now, Damien,” she whispers, so broken sounding, so lost.
“None of it matters now. It’s too late. The damage has already been done and you have been dealing with it as much as they have for years.” She won’t even look me in the eye when she speaks, she just pushes against my bare chest with one of her fists to move me away from her.
“We’ll go through with this contract. I’ll hold up my end of the deal, finish out my degree, finish out this year, but that’s all this will ever be, a business transaction. Nothing more. I owe you nothing and now, you owe me nothing.”
“Wrong. I owe you the world, Lucy,” I rasp out, but she shakes her head at me before meeting my gaze, her blue eyes now cold and vacant.
It’s bone chilling. Heart breaking.
“As soon as the year is up I want out of this marriage. When I graduate, I’m fleeing the state, maybe even the country. I’m getting far away from my family and far away from you,” she says, and the words slice me open like a knife, but I deserve them.
I also don’t believe them. Because I have an entire year to prove to her that she should stay. That she will stay.
That she’s mine and always has been. Always will be.
She turns around then and starts folding laundry on her bed.
“Have Bruno give Jenni an invitation to both the rehearsal dinner and wedding next week, she and her husband are the only family that I have and even though none of this is real, she at least deserves to see me fake happy,” she explains and I want to touch her, to spin her around and shake some sense into her.
“I found a dress online and ordered it here yesterday morning, it should arrive by this weekend,” she says before turning and facing me.
