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It hurt to lose them, but it took me no time to find my own family, to create a family that suited who I was as a woman and a mother. I found it in Colm, for a little while anyway. And when Colm was no longer what I needed or wanted, it was too late to go back. Too late to reconcile. So I gritted my teeth and put up with his bullshit until it was my turn.
My fucking turn.
Chapter Six
Sadie
It was hard to separate my love for Colm from my hate. They were intertwined inextricably, Yin and Yang, as if I couldn’t have one without the other.
But it didn’t start out that way.
When we were newlyweds, the days were ideal. They were perfect, at least what I took as perfection after everything that happened with Owen and my parents. Colm was always sweet, always charming, and he fucked like a god. I couldn’t imagine a time he wouldn’t be that sweet, charming man.
I thought I was the luckiest girl in the whole damn world. I couldn’t have imagined just how much my luck would change.
Or how quickly.
Colm wasn’t all bad, no one was. Deep down, he was good. He helped me get rid of some of my demons even though he couldn’t get rid of his own. Or wouldn’t. Most days, I didn’t know. Maybe I loved him for helping me get over what Owen had done to me and rescuing me from my parents and my mundane life.
Maybe I was in love with the strength and power he possessed. I didn’t know anymore, and I didn’t waste too much mental energy trying to figure it out. So while he wasn’t all bad, Colm was rich and spoiled, and he had a bad fucking temper, not to mention little self-control.
But in my early honeymoon days, I woke up early to get dressed and do my hair and makeup. I’d make Colm breakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day, before he hopped in his yellow and black muscle car to go handle business.
I knew Colm didn’t have an office job that required him to punch a clock. I knew he and Cillian operated in the gray area of the law, but that was about all I knew. Ironically, I spent much of those days in the same way my mother had, cooking and cleaning and making sure Colm had a nice, clean home and a hot meal when he came home from work.
I had, inadvertently, become Suzie fucking Homemaker in the flesh. The worse part? I didn’t hate it—or myself.
Colm appreciated the way I kept the home nice and neat, the way I was always dressed nice and wore makeup when he arrived home.
“Hey babe, you look hot today,” he’d always say, greeting me with a kiss that I felt down to my toes. It wasn’t the absent peck my dad offered up to my mom. No, this was the kiss of a man in love. A man who couldn’t get enough of touching his wife.
Sometimes the kiss would lead to a pre-dinner fuck right there in the kitchen. Or the laundry room. Or the small room he used as a home office. He was insatiable for me and knew just how to get me off, which I loved. Every fuck, every orgasm helped erase the memories of my summer with Owen.
“My cock would live in you if he could,” he growled and kissed me one last time before tucking himself away.
I would blush prettily afterward, still not used to accepting compliments without ulterior motives. “Thanks.”
“Come and let me get a good look at you.” He would flash that wide grin, his gaze looking me up and down as he took my hand and made me do a little twirl while he whistled at my appearance. “I must’ve done something right to get the prettiest wife in all of Nevada.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re sweet, Colm.” I sincerely believed that with every fiber of my being. No man had ever spoken to me that way, and my dad sure as shit never said things like that to my mom. To me, Colm was everything.
Until he wasn’t.
Not even a year into our marriage, the real Colm emerged.
I was in the kitchen pulling bread I’d just made from the oven when I heard the front door slam.
“Hey, babe” I called out, “I’m in the kitchen!”
I wore a smile, excited for him to see me in the new pink dress I bought because he loved the color on me. I turned with a welcoming smile for my husband and gasped at the sight of him.
“Colm, what happened?” My fingertips brushed the edges of a quickly-forming black eye.
He pushed me away. Hard. “Fucking Marsden cheated me. He fucking cheated me.”
I could smell the alcohol on his breath, as strong as if it had come straight from the bottle.
