The first few tears broke again, but Monica sniffed them up, determined to be rational. If that was even possible.
“I didn’twantto do anything, Henry. Iwantedto keep that man away from me for the rest of my life. Let alone away from the rest of the people in this family that I now call my own.” She finally had the strength to look up again and meet Henry’s cooling eyes. “It wasn’t about want. It was need and desperation. I could never explain to you what was going through my mind. I don’t ask you to understand it. I just need you to know that it was done entirely to save Abigail. I would… I would die without her.”
Henry lowered his arms again, sighing.
“If something happened to you, I would find a way to move on. If for no one else’s sake but Abigail’s. But if something happened to her? If she was gone forever? I would fade away into a quick nothingness no one had ever seen before. I did it to save my life as much as I did hers.”
She took his hand. It was as warm as hers. Sweaty, too.
“He didn’t touch me. He didn’t touch your sister.”
“Why do you have to put that thought in my head?”
“Because you deserve to be reassured after all that’s happened. Don’t you? Don’t you need reassurance that everything’s going to be all right, too? It’s not a peace that only I get to harbor, Henry.”
Although his hand slowly pulled out of hers, it was only so he could slump against his desk. His head was now closer to his wife’s, and she saw more clearly that Henry was as worn down by recent events as she was.
“If anything happened to our daughter…” He swallowed, shaking his head. “Anything that God couldn’t make right… I don’t know what I would do. Waste away, too. You’re my other half, Monica, but Abby’s my light. She’s what keeps my head on straight.”
“I feel the same way.”
“If I could save her before it was too late… if the universe asked the unthinkable…”
Monica came closer. She still shook in delicate rage, but it wasn’t at her husband. It was the people of the world who thought they could do what they wanted to others. That money and power gave them the authority to use, abuse, and cast away those who were lesser. Monica had known many. Not only in her bed but in her precious one life that had also created the child she would spend the rest of her existence trying to protect from the worst of the worst.
But that would never be enough.
“One day,” Henry said, “we won’t be able to rush after her and put our bodies on the line, will we?”
“No. All we can do is prepare her to do it herself.”
Henry buried his face in his hands while Monica stood next to him, offering a humble comfort without touching him.Let him do it.He had been demanding and brought this terrible emotion out of her. He could initiate the healing.
“When I think what that family wanted to do with her…” Henry accidentally smacked his face when he curled his hands into fists and slammed them in his half-hearted lap. “Treat her like an object. A seven-year-old broodmare. Because you know they would have filled her head with all sorts of nonsense to make her think that was her purpose in life.”
“They were certainly going to groom her for it, Henry.” She meant that in every definition of the word.Pretty dresses to go with her heart full of self-hate.That had happened to someone else in this family, but in the end, she always had the chance to make her own life. Isabella wouldn’t let that happen twice. “Your mother facilitated it.”
His next sigh was louder and heavier. “The worst she ever did to me was set me up with women who weren’t right for me and say terrible things about you. I knew one day she would set her eyes on Abigail. I just didn’t know it would be like this.”
“I prepared for it since the moment Abigail was born. The moment she stepped out of line, talked back to your mother, or showed a sign of a personality that didn’t fit her master plan, that would have been it. I’ve been dreading the day I have to explain to Abby why Grandma doesn’t seem to love her anymore.”
“Fuck! I hate it!” Henry was on his feet again, pacing to the couch as he tossed a hand into the air. “My parents got this whole family into such adisasterthatIhad to bring us out of! It took years! I was doing the high-society equivalent of selling my fucking plasma just to get us by another month! We came this close, Monica.” He squeezed his fingers together in front of her face on his next pass toward the desk. “This close to losing this home that’s been in my family longer than my parents ever acknowledge outside of getting their asses kissed. And did they ever say, ‘Good job, Henry?’ Of course they didn’t. Certainly not my mother, who was congratulating herself for raising me‘right.’” Henry was on the verge of ripping his hair out. “It’s maddening!”
Monica nodded along. She knew much of this already. Henry had dripped some of his revulsion toward his parents over the years, but to finally hear him yell it out was cathartic for them both. “I often have the same thought. About Jackson.”
“God, that’s right. This started with that bastard.”
Monica showed herself to the couch and finally sat down. “Since we’re coming clean about things, there’s something else I need to tell you. About Jackson.”
Henry stared at her. “Now what?”
He didn’t join her on the couch. Monica had to unravel her recent meeting with Jackson alone, including his involvement in her business and his offer to buy the Château from her.
“It’s my fault,” she whispered, Henry an ever-lingering presence. “I shouldn’t have reminded him of my existence. Now he’s harassing Eva. He’s a monster. Always has been.”
“I wish you had told me.”
Monica squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t want to worry you. Besides, I wasn’t even sure what to make of what was happening. I just… I want this… forhim…to go away.”
