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He turned so his face was directly in front of mine, and though his mouth was curved up in a smile, there was something different about it. About him. “Are you fucking kidding me, Harlow?” he hissed.
My eyebrows rose in confusion. “Wait, wha—” My question was cut off when Collin released my hand, only for two of his fingers to dig into a spot on my wrist. The pain was instant and surprising. My mouth popped back open, whether to let out a cry of pain or demand why he was doing this, I didn’t know—but it didn’t matter, he spoke before I could.
“Do not show your pain, Harlow.”
“What?” I asked breathlessly, and gave him a panicked look. “Co—”
“Do not show your pain,” he repeated. His tone was soft, his face still carefully composed. If I weren’t the one on the receiving end of the pain, I would’ve been so sure we were flirting instead, from the look he was giving me. “You know how stupid you are, don’t you?”
Stupid? I thought lamely. The question would have frustrated me if I weren’t trying to keep a straight face while simultaneously wondering how two fingers could cause so much pain. “Wh—”
“You will never embarrass me in front of anyone like that again, and especially not my father or his colleagues. Do you understand?” Collin leaned close and brushed his lips across my neck to whisper, “Do not say another word for the rest of the night.” The words were emphasized by a relief so great it almost felt like the pain had worsened for a split second when he released my wrist. It was clear his words weren’t just a demand—they were a warning.
I never once would have considered myself stupid before . . . but now I wasn’t sure if I was for obeying his demand the way I did for the rest of the night.
I smiled pleasantly—well, I hoped it looked pleasant—stayed by Collin’s side as we flitted from group to group, and never stopped studying him as he charmed everyone he spoke to.
I wanted to know what had happened. I wanted to know who the man was who had talked down to me and hurt me, because it wasn’t the man I’d fallen in love with. And I wanted to know why each touch and caress throughout the rest of the night felt like something so similar—but somehow foreign now.
“Come here, Harlow,” Collin murmured softly hours later when we finally made it back upstairs to his bedroom.
I stood a dozen feet away from him, staring at the floor as tears pooled in my eyes.
“You looked so incredible tonight,” he said when he was behind me. His fingers trailed down my bare arms, an
d he wrapped one arm around my stomach to pull my body close to his.
“I don’t understand,” I choked out, and immediately wondered if I was allowed to speak now.
Collin turned me so I was facing him, and used his thumbs to gently brush away the few tears that had fallen. “All you need to understand is that I love you.”
My head shook. “No, that’s—you hurt me.”
His blue eyes flashed with something I’ve never seen before, but it was gone just as quickly. He gently gripped my fingers to bring my hand close to his face and whispered, “I’m sorry,” before he placed soft kisses along my palm and the now-sensitive spot on my wrist. “I lost control of myself for a second, Harlow, that’s all,” Collin said as he straightened my engagement ring.
“Collin,” I began hesitantly, but didn’t continue. I thought about what was going on in our lives right now, and knew he was under a lot of stress finishing his senior year and graduating from college in a month. I knew he was worried about getting a respectable job, and figured he might have been right. Maybe I had embarrassed him in front of those men—the same men he might or might not work with after graduation.
Because I’d been trying so hard to understand the conversation earlier, I might have said something I wasn’t supposed to. Or maybe I wasn’t supposed to say anything—I hadn’t heard Collin’s mom offer anything to the conversation other than introducing us. Could those conversations be only for the men? Something the women pretend not to hear? And now that hours had passed, I couldn’t remember if I had said something I should’ve been embarrassed about.
With the way Collin’s mouth was ghosting across my collarbone and playing with the zipper of my dress, I also wasn’t sure if I’d over-dramatized the whole thing with him earlier. Had it actually hurt? Had he meant it to hurt? He’d never touched me in any way other than the way he was now. Like I was precious . . . like I was his everything.
“We’ll go buy you something tomorrow,” he promised just before his lips brushed my own. “Whatever you want.”
I huffed and shook my head as I cradled his face in my hands. This was the Collin I knew and loved, the one who was absurd in his need to give me things. The one who knew how to make me forget the bad. “You’re so ridiculous. You give me too much . . . I don’t want anything.”
“We’re going,” he assured me as he unzipped me, and my dress pooled to the floor.
“Just give me you.”
With a look I knew well, he led me to his bed, and did just that.
Present Day—Richland
COLLIN HAD WORSHIPPED my body and made love to me for hours that night, and I’d pushed the bizarre encounter out of my mind. I’d slowly learned over the next six months that he knew about a dozen pressure points on each side of my body incredibly well, and every time we were in public and I did something he deemed stupid, he would be quick to show me, along with commanding me not to show my pain. If we were alone, he would dig his fingers into a pressure point until I ended up on the floor, begging him to stop. But it wasn’t until just a few hours after we said “I do” that I understood I’d never known Collin at all, and that pressure points were the least of my worries with him. The guy I’d been making excuses for, the guy I’d loved, was no longer there.
He was still tall and handsome, with sandy blond hair and dark blue eyes. He still knew how to charm anyone into believing whatever fell from his lips, and he still held the hearts of my family. But everything I’d loved about him was now gone. My love for him died the moment he finally crushed my spirit, and I’d just been going through the motions, and praying for better days, every day for the last two and a half years.
My hands froze when Collin’s arms slowly wrapped around my waist that night before I was able to calm myself enough to continue washing the dishes from dinner.
