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The bile in the back of my throat made itself known in the form of a deep burning sensation, I concentrated on pushing it back down whilst Max continued to rant. The car pulled up and deliriously, I put one foot in front of the other as I concentrated on making it to the back seat before I collapsed. I clenched my jaw tight, refusing to scream. I rapidly blinked, refusing to cry, and lightly panted as I tried to breathe through the chronic pain sat in my chest.
As I sat in the back seat waiting for the car to pull away, I spotted the silhouette of the woman in the emerald dress as she came out of the shadows and into the light. My eyes locked with hers as we drove by and a lone tear of hurt and misery escaped, slithering down my red raw cheek. I noticed her eyes sparkled with joy, like the stars parading in the night sky.
CHAPTER TWO.
The sounds of his soft snores and his breath hitting the back of my neck told that he had come to bed sometime after I had fallen asleep. A sleep I found, hadn’t come easy.
The image of her gleeful eyes radiating back at me, the way her hair tumbled around her naked shoulders and that emerald green dress had haunted my mind for most the night, pulling me down deeper inside the cage of despair that was beginning to build itself around me. I was starting to feel trapped, with no escape.
I felt his arm coil around my waist and he pulled himself closer into my back, “Raine, are you awake?” He asked kissing my shoulder. I closed my eyes and pretended to still be asleep.
“I know you’re awake, your breathing hitched when I spoke,” he whispered, peppering kisses along my shoulder and up the back of my neck. “I apologize for striking you last night, I was out of order. You know how much I love you, how much I care for you and how I can’t live without you,” he said, then hooked his leg over the top of my thigh.
I tried to swallow against the dryness at the back of my throat. “I need a drink,” I rasped out and attempted to brush off his sexual advances and climb from the bed. I felt his fingers cinch around my wrist preventing me from moving. I heard the bedsheets crease and felt the mattress dip as he crawled up behind me. “Raine,” he pleaded, as his hand let go of my wrist and his arms slid around my shoulders.
“Max, do we have to do this now? I’m tired,” I whispered.
I felt the warmth of his hand slide to my cheek and caress lightly where he had struck me. “Please forgive me, I never meant to hurt you.” I could hear the desperation in his voice as he continued to apologize.
My eyes slowly bowed shut as the heat of his hand began to seep through my skin, then the memory of his palm striking my cheek like a bullwhip echoed in my mind and I moved my head, trying to break the contact between us. Suddenly he was at my feet, grasping my small hands in his large ones.
“I fucked up, I’ve never struck a woman before, ever. I have no idea why I was so angry last night, but I do know I took it out on you, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. I can’t change what I did, but I swear to you, I will never lay a finger on you again.”
I licked my parched lips and raised my eyes from my lap to look at the handsome face of Max. His eyes were sunken and pooling with the tears of regret, remorse was etched clearly over his face, and guilt was obviously gnawing away at him like a worm at the core of an apple as he bit down and chewed on his bottom lip, something he only did when he was at odds with himself.
A tear trickled down my cheek, “The woman?” I croaked. His thumb swept under my eye, disintegrating the next one before it had chance to fall.
“I’m not sleeping with her or seeing her behind your back. I take my marriage vows seriously, Raine, as you well know. You are the woman who has my heart, the woman who I married, the woman I love,” he emphasized the last two words with passion in his voice. “She smiled at me and I smiled back, is that wrong? It was all completely innocent but you chose to make it something toxic, to see something more than what was really there.”
“But—” I was about to tell him of her lurking in the shadows as we drove away but as my eyes glanced towards the daylight creeping in through the bedroom blinds then passed back to his face, I stopped myself and pulled my lips into my mouth. I felt myself wilt under his intense stare, it wasn’t just the cool blue eyes staring silently b
ack at me, it was the sorrow behind them, then they swirled with lust.
Before I had a chance to inhale, he yanked me from the bed to his level on the floor and covered my lips in a hungry kiss. My mouth betrayed my brain as it freely responded, opening just enough to allow him to delve his tongue inside and explore. My arms reached up and tangled around his neck then in an instant I pulled away and wantonly arched myself up into his broad chest, moaning at the contact of his body heat against my own, before I pushed my lips back to his.
Mahatma Gandhi’s quote; The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong suddenly reverberated in my head and in the heat of the moment I said the words he wanted to hear. “I forgive you,” I whispered. I felt Max smile against my mouth as he pushed his body weight against me, forcing my back to lay flush against the thick pile carpet underneath us.
*
I was sat at the dining table on Max’s right as he took up the seat at the head of the table dressed in a slate grey suit with a black shirt and grey tie. “Are you in court today?” I asked. He handed me today’s papers that had just been delivered.
“No, I’m in the office today tying up some paper work.” He sighed, pouring himself some coffee from the percolator.
“Fancy meeting for lunch then?” I asked cheerfully, in the hopes he would see how excited the prospect to perhaps have lunch with my husband was making me.
“No. I have client appointments, I’ll be taking a working lunch,” he replied, absentmindedly. His attention became captured by a document in front of him. I briefly watched his eyes scan back and forth with interest, then turned my attention back to my breakfast.
“Maybe I can swing by the office then and bring you some lunch, just like the old days?” I asked hopefully as I slid my knife straight through my eggs Benedict. It had been six months since I had last been to his office. Every time I would suggest a luncheon, he would throw me off with a flick of his hand and an excuse.
I caught him, from my peripheral, glance towards me, his eyes lingered over my face for a couple of seconds, then sharply looked away when I raised my head in his direction. “Not with your cheek like that, people will talk and I’m not having that.”
“I haven’t any make up on yet, I can conceal it,” I offered as my hand lightly brushed against the purple bruise now prominent across my cheek.
“I said no! Now drop it, Raine.” His palm harshly slammed down onto the table right next to me, causing me to jump in fright, and to lose control of my knife as it came crashing down on top of my plate. I gasped but the air wouldn’t enter my lungs. Feeling like I was starved for air, my heart began to race at a tremendous speed, and my lungs shallowly rose and fell. I sat there silent for what felt like an eternity, unable to move, but it was probably only a minute.
“I’m sorry for shouting,” he said quietly. “I tell you what, why don’t I finish early today and take you to that restaurant in Clent Hills you keep banging on about. We can have, what you young ones, call a date night?” He offered in a low, calmer tone.
I flinched when his hand came to rest upon my own and gently squeezed. Fearful of upsetting him further I nodded my head without looking his way and grabbed the papers ready to read about someone else’s shit life rather than deal with my own.
