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That night, her father had appeared at the house to see his suitcases by the entry. He tossed them open in a rage and shoved everything back into his closet, slamming the door behind him.
But no door could contain their screams.
“You’re not making me leave, this is my house, you fucking whore! You vindictive whore … what have you been telling my daughter about me? She won’t even look at me, won’t even let me touch her anymore! Am I the only one who erred here? I know you slept with him to spite me, I know it!”
“Yes, yes, I did. You have no say in the matter anymore! You son of a bitch, you’re not getting the house, you’re not getting Monica, you’re not getting shit, you womanizing asshole … I’m not signing the divorce so you can marry that snot-faced whore!”
Monica sat in her room for a long time, staring at the wall, until she grabbed a headset, turned on the music as loud as she could, and pretended that Pink could take it all away.
Sometime during the night, Monica pulled off her headphones to find the house silent. She turned off the music and went out to the hall; everything was dark save for the light still on in her parents’ bedroom. She was going to go downstairs for dinner, having not eaten anything the entire day, but saw a strange wetness from under the door of the master bedroom.
“M
om?” She couldn’t even say her dad’s name. He’d started it all. He’d been with another woman, broke her mother’s heart—she could barely touch him without wanting to vomit. And she’d opened that door …
She awakened in bed with a soft cry, dazed and frantic at the sound—the same soft cry she always made, when she had this very dream. She shuddered on the bed as she scanned her surroundings, immediately recognizing that for the first time in too many years, she was not in her bed.
Panic began to well until she saw Daniel was sprawled beside her, face down, his blond head angled toward her, an arm over her stomach, and before she thought better of it, she grabbed his arm and put its heavy deadweight more firmly around her, and slipped into his arms until her heart calmed down.
But sleep eluded her.
She stared at his face in the dark, the shadows still allowing her to see the rises of his cheekbones, his perfect nose, his full mouth, his every male feature. She cared so much about this man, he could hurt her without even trying to. She was genuinely so connected to him, that to sever it as horrifically as her parents had might feel like a death to her, too.
Growing up, she had absorbed every detail about this man. By the time she’d moved in with his family, she knew that Daniel was grumpy in the morning until coffee. She knew when he was tired, and how women looked at him so much that he’d grown used to it and never looked back. She knew he thought it annoying when he ventured out and occasionally found a fan who screamed “I love you! Marry me, Daniel!”
She knew his favorite drinks and foods, knew his greatest friends, his different smiles. He’d been her hero and confidant and when the press had gone on and on about the “Ice Maiden and the Prince” being an item, she’d in part yearned that someday it could be true.
But she’d been wounded and alone, and she’d needed him so powerfully it had frightened her. She’d needed a nest, and he’d given it to her, allowing her to slowly build her walls and to grow numb. She’d become stronger, slowly but surely, and even at nineteen, she’d known she had to depend on nobody if she wanted to survive. And Monica had not aimed to survive. She had wanted to thrive, and nobody would stop her.
True, Roland was not Daniel. But Roland was kind and elegant, distinguished, worldly and traveled, and Monica would never burn with rage if he looked at another. She wouldn’t be consumed by hurt if he went to bed with another. She’d move on. For he would be a luxury to her, not a necessity like … the man she was in bed with.
She studied him with an awful knot in her chest, his muscles glorious even at rest, his lashes resting against his cheekbones. Her mind went back and forth for hours, until she rose to get dressed.
“Daniel,” she said softly as she sat on the edge of the bed, watching his eyelids flutter, his gaze sharpening with alarming precision the instant he noticed she was dressed. He pushed up on one arm, scraping the other folded which had been across his face, his triceps flexing.
“What time is it?” His voice was bedroomy, grazing along her skin.
“Six a.m.”
“Come back to bed, baby,” he said, draping an arm around her.
“I can’t.” She wiggled him off and impulsively clasped his face between her hands, softening her voice. “I can’t do this, Daniel.”
He groaned and turned his head to nuzzle her palm with his lips, lightly nipping her before he tried gathering her against him again. “I can’t think right now, Monica. Come back to bed with me. This is the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in years. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
She resisted him, edging off the bed. “It is tomorrow. Daniel, I shouldn’t have spent the night.” Her voice wanted to crack on the last sentence when he slowly, slowly opened his eyes, and she couldn’t even hold that gaze.
It took every ounce of strength in her being to find the same girl, the same woman, who’d stood up before both judge and jury and related how she’d found her parents dead, after an hour’s shouting match and then another several of silence, how she had found them in the master bedroom with their wrists slit. Dad had also cut his throat. Or maybe mother had done it, she wasn’t sure.
Nobody was sure.
She felt the cold go through her again and said in a soft but toneless voice, as she stared at his throat, “I can’t do this. You’ve always known I can’t. I merely didn’t want to leave without telling you that whatever this is, it’s over.”
“Look at me when you talk to me,” he said, and then he gently grabbed her face and pulled it to him, her jaw cupped in his palm from ear to ear, thumb on one side, four fingers on the other. “That’s better. Now tell me, Monica.”
She clamped her teeth and, pushing his arm away, stood back at the ill-concealed anger in his voice. “I’m trying to fix this. It was wrong of me to ask you to sleep with me. We can’t do this anymore.”
“Why did you ask me, Monica? You really think I’m buying that you wanted a fuck buddy? Sex wasn’t the driving force here, princess, you just used it as an excuse to come to me at last.” He uncoiled from the bed like a snake, suddenly coming to his full height, his eyes and voice sharpening as he edged closer.
