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“Dani, it’s okay. You don’t have to justify your answer, not to me. I simply want to ensure that you’re alright. If that ever changes, if you start feeling as if you aren’t safe, you can come to me. I will listen and help however I possibly can.”
Dani felt a tiny crack appear in the wall she kept her emotions behind, and the tears sprang to her eyes. Bridget saw and knew she was finally making progress with her.
“Dani is there more to these rumors than what you’ve let on?”
“No, Luke has never physically harmed me. We’ve both hurt the other emotionally and probably psychologically because in a way we’re a lot alike, but he’s the one place where I feel safe.”
“That’s good Dani.”
She sighed, shaking her head as the tears broke free. “No, it’s not.”
“I don’t understand. If you feel safe with Luke, why is that a bad thing?”
“Because he hates me, he only married me to keep me quiet.”
“Keep you quiet about what?” Bridget asked concerned. This was not the Dani she’d gotten to know the past six months. That Dani had been hurting but never questioned her relationship, not like this, and it wasn’t the girl who’d started seeing her to deal with the constant attention her marriage brought about with the media.
“You asked if I was scared because I didn’t know what happened between Luke and Chance that night…I do know.”
“You remembered something about that night?”
“No, I’d been in Luke’s study talking on a video chat with a friend. Chance broke in and came after me. I’d ended the chat just before he got in there but left the video recorder on and running. Luke, he didn’t mean for it to happen…it’s sort of the same thing as with Ty and hitting me.”
“What is Dani?”
“He’d gotten the knife away from Chance, but Chance wouldn’t shut up. He kept saying that he’d keep coming back for me, that he’d prove how little of a man Luke was and that he’d leave me unrecognizable, and Luke snapped. He went after Chance and that’s when the knife went into him.”
“You told the police it was self-defense though. Did Luke threaten you to back his story?”
“I didn’t find the footage until a week after it happened. I hadn’t wanted to look at it and put it out of my mind. I was going to leave—go away, start over but I knew I needed to erase the first part of the argument with Chance.”
“So, you located it and watched it?” Bridget asked.
“I did, Luke found me watching it and said the only way to keep me quiet was to marry me, it was the only time I was ever afraid of him.”
“Dani…I don’t…”
“It didn’t take me long to understand it, but in that moment, it wasn’t Luke the man I’ve been married to for three years who did that. It was a man who knew he had to protect me, and he took it to extreme, but he doesn’t deserve to be punished for killing him. He goaded him into it, made him snap. Why should that cost Luke anything?”
“If that’s how you feel why tell me?” Bridget inquired.
“Because despite how we started I fell in love with the man he is, but he doesn’t feel the same.”
“Dani, that’s absurd. Luke is so deep in love with you that he literally killed someone to keep you safe.”
“He did that because he wanted to protect me, not because he loves me.”
“Sit down with Luke and talk to him Dani. I’m sure once he finds out how you’re feeling, what you’ve been going through with losing the baby he’ll understand, and he’ll show you how much he loves you.”
“I wish that were true but it’s not and I don’t think it ever will be.” Dani sighed sadly. Her heart hurt thinking he wouldn’t, and she refused to allow the darkness to swallow her completely.
Bridget watched her leave wondering if anything she’d said to her had gotten through. She’d observed them in public and there was no doubt Luke loved her beyond reason. She just hoped she could show Dani that.
