Page 88 of Inflame

He paces around the room, as I toss my handbag a little too hard onto the bed. It bounces and falls to the floor. “You just laid there while I made love to you. No affection.”

“Made love to me?” I dart for him, shoving him hard. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, you bitch!” His hands grab at me, and I guess I deserve it since I touched him first. My body wilts from the force of his hold.

“You are hurting me. Stop. Please stop.” His cold eyes make me freeze.Please don’t hit me.Please. “You promised it wouldn’t happen again.”

Tossing me away, he straightens his spine. I stumble back into the bed, feeling my back scrape against the nightstand before landing on the mattress. “I’m not even in the joking mood right now with you. What a fucking disgrace to treat me so cold while I was trying to warm you up. You didn’t even try!” Ethan’s hands slice through the air in fury. “It was like having sex with a corpse.”

“Fuck you.”

His body flies toward me, landing on top of me. I kick with all my might, not getting him to budge in the slightest. His fingers tangle into my hair, jerking my face to look at his. “Fucking would have been refreshing. No, you just lay there, just like you are now. It was humiliating.”

“Get off of me!” This time he does. I pull myself up, wrapping my hands around my knees. “If you call what you did to me love, then you have issues that I cannot fix. You have treated me badly ever since I graduated from college and then you—”

“Oh, this again?” he snaps. “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” His hands make a snapping gesture, imitating how he thinks I talk.

“Just stop, please,” I say quietly.

“Poor Claire, gave up her dream internship. Poor Claire. Always poor Claire.”

“You are such a bastard,” I snarl, as tears pour out of my eyes.

“It was an internship, Claire. Quit acting like you got some bigwig job. You would have been a temp. Expendable and replaceable. But, no, you keep fantasizing and bringing up this long-lost dream that Evil Ethan kept you from,” he mocks, changing his voice to sound feminine and whiny.

He takes a step closer, getting into my face. I quiver back on the bed from the fear that he may hit me. He hasn’t done it in a long time, but his anger is so palpable that it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t make this once again physical. He is so close that I can smell the stale whiskey on his breath. It burns my eyes.

My head throbs from the overindulging I did at the bar. Before I say anything more that I may regret, I crawl off the bed and walk into the bathroom to change into a set of comfy pajamas. I just need to bide my time. Ethan will pass out soon. He always does. I splash some cold water on my face and brush my teeth.

I shuffle back into the bedroom, pull back the covers, and crash from the emotional exhaustion I endured the entire day. Maybe if I go to sleep, I’ll wake up and all of this will be just a bad dream.

I’ve learned that when things get this heated, it is best to deescalate Ethan’s anger as best I can—usually by removing myself from the argument.

We can hash this out again tomorrow if need be. But for now, I have no fight left inside me.

“Good night,” I mutter, before allowing sleep to overtake me.

25

CLAIRE

I wake with Ethan kissing my neck. It feels weird. Like a stranger is lying beside me. Nic already suggested that I do not know Ethan as well as I thought. And the way my back feels from hitting the nightstand and how sore my arms are, I realize it is true.

It’s as if someone came along and poured ink onto a beautiful love story—one that wasn’t finished being written yet. I went from having what I thought was a fairy tale to quickly having it turn into a dark nightmare.

Has the person I thought I was going to be with forever been the villain all along?

But let’s not leave out Nic Hoffman from this equation. He orchestrated this plummet in Ethan’s and my relationship. He best be glad I didn’t do more to him than just dousing his crotch with perfectly good margaritas. Sure, he didn’t twist anyone’s arm yesterday, but his mouth still uttered my name and involved me in his pissing contest.

It is Ethan’s slimy tongue trailing up my throat that makes me want to hurl. “I have to use the bathroom,” I mumble, rolling out of bed. I just need to get my head on straight before we can be intimate again. Last night broke me. The mockery and intimidation did me in. Just the way he grabbed me and shoved me was too aggressive for my liking. It’s hard to ignore all that went down.

But people make mistakes. And if he is truly sorry, then maybe—just maybe—we can move forward and heal from all of this drama.

“Up for some shower sex?” he calls out from the other side of the door. “I have a business meeting this morning but have time if we make it quick.”

I groan. How can he be so clueless to know that the only thing that will fix us right now is an honest conversation? And therapy. Lots of therapy. “I think we are going to hit up a few of the casinos we missed seeing and then will head over to the airport. Should I expect to just meet you there?”

“Oh, I thought I told you…”

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