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“No, you’re not.”
“Wanna try me?”
“Never.”
“Good. So I get dressed and get the hell out of there so fast, the
blindfold’s still around my neck when I get home. And I cried for, like,
three weeks.”
“He should be the one crying.”
She shrugged. “I took care of it.”
“How?” Unless he was dead in a ditch, she didn’t do enough.
“Got a guy I know to hack into his editing bay. You’ll be shocked to
know there was child pornography on there. We tipped the Feds. He’s doing
twenty in Chino Men’s and I haven’t dated since.”
Four years.
This stunning, wonderful woman had been celibate four years because
of that asshole? Nothing about this was fair or right. Incarceration was his
punishment and he’d earned it, but her punishment was the prison of fear.
She didn’t deserve it. Not one minute of it.
“Ella.” I took her hands. They were ice cold despite the warm cup. “I
won’t do anything like that. Ever. You can trust me.”
She leaned into me and spoke in a low, serious tone. “I know.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. I don’t know why. I didn’t trust my judgment for a long time, but
—I don’t know. Maybe it was the big, fat diamond or the proposal, but
something about you lulled me into complacency.”
Between the two of us, I’d been the complacent one. That was over. I
was going to make everything right for her. She was going to walk out of
this marriage not just rich—but whole.
“I want to kill him,” I said.
“Kiss me instead.”
Slowly, with an appreciation for every second our lips touched, I kissed
her.
I tried to heal her with that kiss—seal wounds with my lips, soften
scars, and pry open the armor she’d built around herself.
Ella was broken, and I kissed her to make whole, even if I broke it all
again.
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