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My heart pinches at the memory. “When we moved in together, after the bakery was open, that’s when I knew something wasn’t right. The dynamic changed. He was off. Annoyed when I’d leave to go to work. He’d come to the bakery and sit at a table all day until I went home with him.”
Davis’s brow furrows.
“Aiden was good at the long game. Lying in wait. Making me feel fucking crazy when I was talking rational. Taking inventory on just what exactly he wanted to diminish about me.
There were all these tiny put downs. Critiques of my skills. He was an investor, but he wasn’t a chef. I wouldn’t listen to him.” I chuckle. “Aiden trying to keep me down only made me work harder. I got better. Bigger. And he…he couldn’t handle it. He got angry.”
“Because he knew you deserved better,” Davis growls.
I nod and cross my arms.
“Three months after opening the bakery, I was closing up for the afternoon. And like always, Aiden was there. He wascounting the money in the till, complaining that we were in the red. I told him he was crazy. That it was too early to worry about money. And then he…”
I pause and look into the dark.
“Tell me,” he says gruffly.
My eyes flick to him. “He slapped me across the face. Just once. Told me it was his responsibility to take me down a peg. I was so surprised I just went back to closing down.”
In the dark, Davis’s face is a mask. But that strong jaw of his is clenched, and I recognize murder in his eyes.
“There were other things,” I whisper. “Cutting me off from you. My father. Fallon. And I let him. I couldn’t just leave Aiden. He wouldn’t allow it. He’d hunt me down. He’d take my bakery. I felt like I had so much at stake, and Aiden King doesn’t lose. I didn’t want to accept the truth.”
Silence stretches through the darkness like a heavy cloak.
“I thought I could compartmentalize. That maybe, somehow, we’d just dissolve. And it worked. Until the night he broke my arm.”
Davis tenses. His fingers dig into his biceps.
“We were alone in the bakery one night. And out of nowhere, he started making all these angry demands. Sell the bakery. Stop working. I couldn’t help myself. I laughed and told him to fuck himself. And it was like I flipped that switch.” I close my eyes. “It was the real Aiden. The violent temper. The rage.”
The night sky stretches above us. Stars blink in and out. And then I whisper—
“He broke my arm with a rolling pin.”
Davis swears. A dark, violent sound.
He’s suddenly on his feet, pacing in front of the truck, as though he’ll combust on the spot if he stays still. I can practically hear the gears of his jaw grinding together.
My fingers shake as I trace them over the small scars on my arm. “He pinned me to the counter, and he brought it down. And then I passed out.”
The ground crunches as Davis moves to the front of the truck.
I slip off the tailgate. “Where are you going?
His eyes look wild, crazed. “To get on a fucking plane to DC and kill the guy.”
“No.” I hook my arms around his massive frame, stilling him. “You stay with me. I need you here.Weneed you.”
I feel the rage melt out of his body. Davis heaves a sigh, and then he turns, crushing me against his chest. He’s shaking. “Jesus, baby,” he murmurs, his chin sweeping the top of my head.
I sniffle, burying my face in his chest.
“What happened then?”
“He took me to the emergency room. I knew if I said anything, it’d just end in more of the same. I was in pain and hysterical. All I could do was let him take me home.”
I look up. Silent tears slip down my face. Seeing them, Davis reaches to wipe them away, but I shake my head, wanting them to fall.
