Anything to keep his temper at bay.
Eric took another step in her direction, and she realized his hair was disheveled, his checkered tie was askew, and he had creases in his pants. “I’m waiting.”
Amy opened and closed her mouth several times.
Finally, she released a deep, defeated sigh and hung her head. “I don’t have an excuse.”
Bile rose in the back of her throat.
“Exactly, and even if you did, if I wanted one, I’d ask you for it. How many times have I told you to keep the house presentable? It’s your only job, and you can’t even do that right.”
Shame, guilt, and anger rose up within her and made the knots in her stomach tighten further. She hid her hands behind her back, afraid he was going to see the tremor going through her.
She refused to lift her gaze and let him see the effect his words were having, the shell of a woman she’d become because of him.
And for what?
She’d kept her mouth shut for years to keep the peace, and all it had gotten her was heartache, misery, pain, and a life of deep loneliness and isolation. Suddenly, she thought of Lily’s letter, which had arrived earlier that morning. Her fingers itched with the urge to take it out, unfold the edges, and hold it up to the light.
Maybe Lily was right.
Was there a better life for her out there?
Eric stopped advancing on her and turned away, making some of the knots in Amy’s stomach unfurl. Carefully, she looked up at his retreating back and resisted the urge to call out to him. In the early days of their marriage, Amy had given as good asshe got, hoping against hope that the man she’d married, the one she’d fallen in love with, would find a way back to her.
The day she realized it was all a lie had been one of the worst days of her life.
Eric had never been the man she fell in love with, and she had no one to blame but herself for not seeing the signs sooner.
When Eric spun around to face her again, he no longer looked angry. He cocked a finger in her direction, and on impulse, she found herself walking over to him. Then he tapped his foot impatiently as her hand drifted up and around his neck. She tried to keep the tremor out of her hands as she fixed the tie, pausing to run her fingers over the smooth and silky fabric. As soon as she was done, Eric stepped back, and her hands fell to her sides again.
Wordlessly, he stepped into the living room and stopped in front of the wooden table next to the balcony. After pouring himself a generous drink from the glass decanter, more and more of the anger left him as his shoulders relaxed and some of the tightness around his eyes eased. On his second drink, he turned to her with a smile and a familiar glint in his eyes.
“I hate it when you make me angry,” Eric told her. “Especially at our age. Why can’t you just do as you’re told?”
Amy swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry.”
Eric nodded and finished the last of his drink. “So am I. Now, you’ve ruined the evening for me.”
Without waiting for a response, Eric strode over to the door, pausing to glance at his reflection in the mirror above the shoe rack. He patted his hair down, examined his row of pearly white teeth, and then shot her a hard look over his shoulder. It sent a shiver of unease racing up her spine.
“Clean yourself up,” Eric said in a hard voice. “I’ll be back later.”
The door slammed shut behind him, and Amy stood frozen for a long time.
So long, in fact, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed as she stood there, frozen in horror and shock. When she realized it had only been a few minutes, Amy’s hands trembled as she reached into her pocket. She unfolded Lily’s letter, set it down on the counter, and burst into tears. The sound of her own heavy sobs reverberated inside her head. When her shoulders started to shake, and she found herself unable to catch her breath, Amy pulled a chair out and sank into it.
Then she buried her face in her hands and cried for the woman she once was. The woman she thought she’d be by now.
Using any and all means at his disposal, Eric had done everything within his power to chip away at her, to mold her into a cold shell of a woman with no life of her own, and she’d let him.
And she couldn’t even remember why.
Through her tears, she glanced at their penthouse apartment, with its large terrace overlooking the city skyline, hardwood floors that polished and gleamed, and several spacious rooms, and she suddenly couldn’t recognize any of it. Not the paintings on the cream-colored walls, with colors of far-off landscapes she was never going to see. Not the plush Persian rugs littering every inch of the living room, and not the cameras set up in every corner of the house, ensuring Eric had complete and total control over everything.
On the outside, Amy looked as if she had the perfect life.
But only she knew the truth about the gilded prison she lived in and her cruel jailer.
