Page 26 of Brutal Husband

More sense than to believe a husband and wife should love each other? Maybe I am naive, but I truly thought Nero and I had something special.

“There’s more,” I tell her, dreading bringing this up but needing to get it off my chest. “There was a man at our wedding I recognized from the news who was accused by several children of being a rapist.”

“Your aunt Francesca mentioned this to me,” Mom says, and a line of concern appears between her brows. “She wondered if she’d seen him there and told me that he was found murdered the next day. She was right? He really was at your wedding?”

“Yes, he was there.” I hesitate and then blurt out, “I think Nero killed him.”

Two shadows hung over mine and Nero’s miserable, silent honeymoon. The first one was the terrible things Nero said to me on our wedding night. The second was the very real possibility that I was sharing a bed with a murderer. If Nero and I had shared a beautiful, sexy, happy wedding night and then I’d turned on the television and seen that Shields had been murdered, what would I have felt? Nero murdered the man who’d made me upset. A man who deserved pain for the things he’d likely done to children. Did Nero force him to confess as he was beating him to death? Should I feel relief that a predator is dead, or should I feel sickened that my husband is a killer, and he’s turned the same coldness on me?

Mom’s silent for a moment, and then says briskly, “Your husband’s dealings with his associates are his business. Youneed to put that piece of human garbage from your wedding out of your mind and focus on mending your relationship with Nero. How are you going to fix things?”

I shake my head helplessly. “I don’t know. Nero won’t look at me. He won’t talk to me. Before we were married, he was attracted to me, but Nero and I haven’t slept together since that first time. Should I try to seduce him?” I don’t even know how I would do that. He didn’t so much as touch my hand on our honeymoon. Perhaps I could walk around the house in sexy lingerie and see if he notices?

“Absolutely not.” Mom shakes her head. “You mustn’t give Nero any reason to believe you’re a loose woman or that you’re even thinking about sex. You need to remake yourself into the woman he believed you to be before you were married. A good, obedient, and chaste woman, and eventually he’ll be able to forgive you for your terrible mistake.”

I give Mom a doubtful look. Nero never believed I was good, obedient, and chaste, and he didn’t want me to be either. He said the most depraved things to me on our first date.

But perhaps I’m reading things wrong. He enjoyed it when I blushed and squirmed and told him no like a good little virgin, but as soon as I gave myself willingly and enthusiastically to him, he was disgusted with me.

“I don’t know, Mom,” I say, rubbing my forehead tiredly. “Perhaps we should just get an annulment. The marriage hasn’t been consummated. We could talk to the priest who married us and dissolve the whole thing away.”

Mom slaps my hand away from my face. “You will never speak that word again. You made a promise to that man in front of all our family and friends. When I made my mistake, did I run away or take the easy way out? No, I kept my mistake.”

“Don’t talk about Mia that way.”

“You made a mistake, and it’s up to you to fix it.”

“I don’t think it can be fixed. Nero is too strange and angry. I don’t understand him.”

Mom’s eyes narrow, and her voice turns cold. “You signed a prenup before you married Nero, and I know what was in it. You’ll get nothing if you leave him before five years is up, and I won’t give you a penny either. What will you do if you get an annulment, Rieta? You’ll be destitute. I’m not having you back in this house.”

I recoil from her cruel words. “You would just abandon me? Even after everything I told you just now? How is this failed marriage my fault from any sane person’s perspective?”

“I will threaten you for your own good. Do not throw away this marriage at the first hurdle. Listen to your mother, and everything will work out.”

“You don’t understand,” I say desperately. “I think there’s something wrong with my husband. There are things he says and does. Names he calls me…”

“Like what?”

My pretty piece of cunt.

If I tell Mom about that, she’ll no doubt twist it so it’s my fault as well, and I’ll have even more things to feel ashamed about. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“You have a duty to your family and to your husband,” Mom says with an air of finality. “Show Nero that you’re an obedient wife, take care of him, and he’ll forget about your misbehavior before the wedding. Listen to your mother, Rieta. I know better than you.”

9

Rieta

Out of hope or foolishness, I’m not sure which, I do exactly as Mom tells me to do.

I make a beautiful home for Nero, decorating the unfinished rooms in his enormous house. I was never very good at cooking, but I learn what he likes and how to make it, and I serve it up to him. I wear makeup and pretty dresses. I smile. I never argue with him. I’m the perfect, chaste little Stepford wife.

It changes nothing between us. Nero’s cold, silent anger toward me is as palpable as ever.

We don’t even share a bed. I sleep in the master bedroom, and he sleeps in the guest bedroom down the hall, and we both have our own en suite bathrooms. We haven’t seen each other naked since before our wedding. We’ve never had sex as husband and wife.

Sometimes I catch Nero staring off into space, lost deep in unfathomable thoughts. He rubs his brow, clenches his fists, or sighs heavily. Small signs that there are loud thoughts in hishead. Regret? Confusion? Conflict? It’s impossible for me to know, and when he sees that I’ve noticed the signs, he turns away from me.

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