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She was.
But still . . . it had to hurt. Even now.
“My father used to go through different women,” he told her. “Most of us have different mothers. He got in deep with some bad guys. Alec got us out of some hot water and moved us here. He’s always been more of a father to us than our real father. Who is likely still out there. I just hope to fuck he’s not still procreating.”
“I’m so sorry,” she told him.
“My point is that shitty parents don’t define us and we shouldn’t take their actions on. What your mom did was awful. But it wasn’t your fault. Just like my father taking off on us wasn’t our fault. In fact, we were a lot better off without him.”
“You had Alec.”
“And you had your grandma,” he said.
“Right. And I sold her house, something she left to me so I would have stability, so I would be safe, and I sold it. To give the money to him,” she said bitterly. “I should have walked away from him after that fuck-up at the club. Instead, I went grovelling to him, promising to do better, to be a better sub and girlfriend. He said he would have to punish me.” She gulped. “It . . . it wasn’t good. He, uh, he tied me up and started touching me. For a start, I was into it. I got aroused and stuff . . . but his touch just didn’t feel right. It was just slightly too painful. It was almost like he wanted to make me respond against my will. When I came, I felt like crying. And then he fucked me and it was so . . . so robotic. After he came, I expected him to untie me, to cuddle me. That everything would be okay. Instead, he left me tied up for over an hour on my own. I didn’t even . . . I didn’t even know if he was still in the house. Don’t you think I should have clued in then? But no, I was grateful he came back and untied me. Grateful! What was wrong with me?”
“Nothing was wrong with you and everything was wrong with him. Fucker.”
“The strange thing was, the next day, it was like none of that had happened. Everything was amazing. That’s when he told me he wanted things to go further. That he could see himself waking up beside me every day and going to sleep next to me every night.”
He squeezed her hands as she paused.
“I just wanted to please him. I didn’t want him to be mad and stop talking to me. So I ignored my friends and all those warning signs, and I said yes. He convinced me that I’d feel better if I was on an equal footing with him, if we bought a house together. So I sold Grandma’s house, and we went house shopping. We found this gorgeous house. By then, I getting cold feet, but Steven had this way . . .”
“This way of what?”
“Making me feel like I owed him, I guess. Or that I should be super grateful that he wanted me. He, uh, he had this way of saying things . . .”
“What sort of things?” he demanded.
“I never really had issues about my body. I was pretty used to not wearing much at Saxon’s and people only ever stared at me with admiration. But for some reason, I didn’t like the idea of being naked at a club with Steven. And it wasn’t until later that I worked it out. It was because of him. Those little comments he’d make about what I ate or how I needed to work out. If I just did some squats, my ass would be phenomenal. Or how I needed to swap to skinny lattes rather than full-fat ones. Things like that . . . I started feeling self-conscious. To eat less.”
“That fucking bastard.”
“Yeah. I know. Anyway, by the time we found a house, I was kind of a mess. I deposited the money in the account he gave me without much thought. And when he asked for money to pay for movers and cleaners and the lawyers’ fees, I just . . . I emptied my account and gave it to him. How could I be so stupid?”
His poor girl. She’d already had issues from being abandoned by her mother. Then this asshole preyed on her . . . he made her feel indebted and even grateful to him for wanting her.
Then he took everything from her.
“After that . . . he, uh, he disappeared. He said he had to go away for work and I was to wait for him to get back to help him pack up his stuff. It should have been a sign that he didn’t want me to stay with him at his house. But he said it was because it would be nicer for me at a motel.”
