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He clears his throat and rakes his thick fingers down his neck. Discomfort doesn’t suit him.
“We match,” I say, simply to disrupt the suffocating tension. I dig my fingers into my palms to stop from reaching out and stroking his thick beard.
“Blame my sister,” he says, the intensity in his gaze rooting me to the spot. “I don’t do themes.”
In two steps, he’s in the elevator with me, standing by my side. Tonight, his signature scent of spiced aftershave and leather smells deeper, richer. More hypnotic. We both look ahead as we travel south in silence, our eyes trained on the display screen, watching the numbers counting down like a ticking bomb.
Again, I have the urge to speak as if it’ll stop me from drowning in whatever this is. “Well, how do I look?”
Aside from his Adam’s apple bobbing in the trunk of his neck, he’s perfectly still.
“Want a truth or a lie?”
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about it.
I decide to stick with what I know best: sin.
“Lie.”
The elevator slows, clicking into the bank and opening to reveal the lobby.
“You are the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“You know how to make a woman blush.”
And I am blushing. Maybe it’s because the wine has softened my sharp edges, but I’m grinning like a maniac. I fall into step behind Donnacha so that he doesn’t see it.
When we step into the rain, I taste the fresh air on my tongue for the first time in weeks. Feel the cold breeze rippling my curls and the alcohol-fueled heat cooling on my skin. It doesn’t last long, though; one of the guards circling holds an umbrella over my head and folds me into a waiting car, way before a single raindrop can dampen my hair.
Donnacha seems oblivious to the bad weather as he saunters to the van behind. I peer out the back window and watch as he talks to the driver, an expression darker than the night etched onto his face.
The car dips under his weight as he slides in beside me, bringing a swirl of heavy tension in with him. I struggle to wade through it, a sense of unease nipping at me as the driver pulls out into traffic. I steal a glance over at him, but the passing streets of Manhattan hold all of his attention.
It dawns on me like a new day. I haven’t seen him smile or heard that sinister chuckle in over a week. No sarcastic retort, no threats to break me as his eyes glint.
What’s changed?
I itch with all of the questions I know will never leave my lips. Instead, I rest my head against the window, watching the world I’m no longer a part of slip by. I remind myself that what’s going on inside my husband’s head is none of my business and convince myself there’s no rhyme or reason for the disappointment weighing on my chest.
None of this will matter soon, anyway.
New York City melts away in the rearview mirror, and in just over an hour, we’re driving through flat fields and narrow country lanes, leaves and branches dragging along the outside of the car like long fingernails on a chalkboard. Somewhere between the highway and the countryside, Donnacha’s possessive hand clamped down on my thigh, wordless and warm. I do my best to ignore him, his electric touch, and the tiny starbursts shooting off in my stomach in all directions.
Yet I don’t pull away.
Some time later, a soft glow appears on the horizon, distorted by the sheet of rain. As we grow closer, I can make out the shape against the black sky—a dome. It’s built into a hill, the front made of glass, the back melting into a grassy knoll, like nature is trying to reclaim it. We turn down a tree-lined road, lanterns and fairy lights and other glitzy objects giving bramble, branches, and bushes a majestic glow.
Aisling wasn’t joking about them going all out with the theme.
Even through the rain, I’m lost in the magic of the enchanted forest, but I’m soon brought back to earth with a firm squeeze of my thigh.
“Romy.”
Swallowing the knot in my throat, I turn to face Donnacha. His eyes are dark, and for the first time, I notice the gray circles that underline them. “I don’t need to tell you to behave,” he drawls, staring somewhere above my head. “Be a good girl. Speak when spoken to, smile when you’re not.” His lips tighten into a hard line. “In other words, pretend you’re my wife through choice, not because I took all other choices away from you.”
Staring at his lifeless expression, I find that in my sick and twisted way, I mourn for his spark. It’s in the danger that drips from his tone. In his cruel smirk that raises goose bumps along my arms. In the threats he whispers in my ears.
I crave it.
