I like them too, not that my husband would know that. I wipe away furious tears I refuse to let fall. “Do you remember when I first asked you to spank me? How shy I was about that?”
He groans, a feral sound that tries to break my heart. I won’t let it. “It wasn’t like that, baby. Nothing like that.”
“Do you remember?”
“Of course I do.”
“And you were so resistant. You didn’t want to hurt me.”
“I never want to hurt you.”
“You hurt me when you fucked her. You hurt me when you stopped fucking me. You hurt me when you fucked me again, knowing you’d just fucked her, and so it was weird. You have hurt me every day over the last two years, you miserable sack of shit.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“There have never been two emptier words than I’m sorry spilling out of the mouth of a lying fucking cheat.”
He doesn’t repeat it, and that’s good.
I glare at him, and he glares back, his eyes wet. “I don’t want to lose you, Grace.”
“Then why did you fuck someone else?” My voice cracks. “Why did you call someone else Kitten?”
His mouth drops open, and he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
I lunge at him, shoving the pillow in his face. He catches my arms, absorbing the blow, and I break into a thousand sobbing pieces.
12
Luke
Three years earlier
The acid churn in my gut is worst at night.
I’ve never slept well, but since Sam’s sentencing and the plea bargain that kept my brother out of jail—and the gutting of our bank accounts that went hand in hand with that, the non-stop critical inspection of our books by regulators, and the fact he’s sleeping on my fucking proverbial couch, still—my insomnia’s gotten worse.
Grace is still at the studio when I get home from the office.
Sam is in the guest room.
Fine, it’s not a fucking couch.
It’s still too much.
Tomorrow, the regulators will be back to review my plan to bring him back to work in a limited, no-trading capacity.
The little shit needs a fucking job.
I chew a couple of Tums as I strip off my clothes and start the shower.
Grace comes home an hour later, with dinner for all three of us. Sam emerges from his room but barely says a word as we eat. Fine by me. I don’t say anything, either.
Grace gets on my case when we retreat to the bedroom. “You could make an effort, you know.”
“I don’t need you telling me how to be a brother,” I snap.
“That’s not what I’m—” She cuts herself off and strips off her clothes, then pulls on a tank top and panties.
“If you’re going to bark at me, the least you could do is make it sexy,” she quips. “Threaten to spank me or something.”
I frown and get into bed, ready for a futile attempt at sleep.
She gives me an uncertain look, but crawls closer anyway. “Come on.” Her voice drops to a shy, hesitant note. It pricks at the back of my brain and feels dangerous. “Spank me, Luke. Channel some of that pent-up aggression in a more productive direction.”
The only thing pent-up inside me is irritation, and there’s no channeling that into being some kind of sex stud on command. “I’m not—I don’t want to.”
“Hey,” she says softly, stopping. But her gaze is challenging. It’s always challenging, because I’m never enough for her. “What if I want it?”
I make a face. “Don’t be weird about it. I don’t want to do that.”
“Oh.” She changes direction and crawls to her pillow instead, tucking her wee little self under the blanket. And then she rolls onto her side, facing the wall.
Giving me her back.
Well, I asked for that. I move closer, setting my hand on her shoulder. But she hears my sigh and takes it the wrong way.
“Don’t make me feel like a freak,” she whispers.
“I don’t know why you always need to make it about sex.”
“Because we’re married, and married people have sex. You used to be a guy who liked sex. What happened?”
I didn’t know my libido was so tightly tied to being a business success. “Nothing’s happened.”
“Great. Then it’s just being a freak.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what I hear.”
I sigh again. I’m so fucking tired.
“I have to leave early tomorrow,” I mutter.
“Do you want me to set my alarm?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Two very small sounding syllables. One word that’s a complete lie. None of this is okay, but I can’t fix us until I get Sam back on track.
I lay beside her as her breath goes even. Then I curl up behind her, trying not to think about all the ways I’ve failed her and the mess that still needs to be untangled.
And in the morning I go into the office to meet two lawyers from a new law firm we’re considering hiring as outside counsel.
13
Grace
Present day, sobbing on Luke’s couch
Luke holds me as I pummel his chest with my hands. He doesn’t try to stop me, and when I collapse against him, exhausted, he kisses the top of my head.
It’s infuriating.
But more than that, it’s utterly depressing, because where was this man three years ago?
“I had my first therapy session this morning,” he says when I’m finally quiet.
I move off him, and he catches my wrist, then lets go when I look down at the contact point.
He sighs. “That note you found. I never gave it to her.”
“What?”
He gestures to where it lies on the floor. “I wrote it. I’m deeply ashamed of that. But it didn’t feel right, and I never gave it to her. That’s—you can see that, right? If it was in my things, it’s because I never gave it to her.”
“There were probably more.”
“There weren’t.”
“I’ll never know that, though. I’ll always know that I love you more than you love me, that my love exists on a deeper, more painful level than yours. Because instead of diving deep into the pain, you scurried away.”
“I’d never leave you. I love you. I never stopped loving you.”
“Your definition of that word is different from mine. You want to know something truly awful? You don’t know just how much you love someone until they rip your heart out. Until they take your fidelity and make a mockery of it. And when you stay with them, when you can’t leave, not really, not even when you God damn fucking want to… That’s pure, unconditional love. And it’s the worst feeling in the world.” I laugh. I’m on a fucking roll now. “Unconditional love isn’t to be held in esteem. It’s a trap. I love you without reservation, without conditions. I should have kicked you out that night, that very second that I found the text messages. Made you go far, far away. You can’t be this close to be, because now, I find myself back here. Willing to take anything you dish out, apparently. I find a note, realize what a text message says, and I come scurrying downstairs to talk to you about it. We are a dysfunctional mess, Luke.”