Page 52 of Drowning Her

“I don’t care about them. I care about you.”

I held the back of my neck, then stared up at the beams crossing the ceiling. My body was numb, drained of energy, completely dull. I needed to kill, to dig myself out of this bottomless well, but Maisie consumed me. Trapped me in her needs and emotions. Drowned me.

So many fucking emotions.

“Just tell me we’re okay,” she said, her voice quivering, near tears. “That’s all I need.”

But it wasn’t that easy. There would never be an ‘okay’ with us. Not while Sawyer was alive. Not while my father was with us.

I headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I turned around slowly. “You need me to carry you?” I glared at her. “Can’t walk yourself back to your ivory tower?”

She crossed her arms. “You’re an asshole.”

By the time we got back to the house, her face hadfallen, but there wasn’t anything I could do. No matter which direction I moved, we were pinned in the same place. There was no way to win. I slid into bed, flipping onto my side. Maisie settled in next to me. She put her arms around my waist and I scooted away, her touch excruciating. I didn’t have the energy right then. Everything was lost.

“Are we okay?” she asked.

I sucked in a breath, her scent making my head spin. I closed my eyes, everything going dark. She needed reassurance. It was a natural, human response, and after what we had been through, I didn’t blame her for that. But I was sleeping next to her, wasn’t I? I had never slept with a woman before her. Had never even shared a bed withanyone.I could have told her to go back to her own bedroom. I could have gotten up and slept on the couch by myself. Wasn’t this enough?

A life with me wasn’t going to give her the security she wanted, the stability she deserved, the home she had been searching for. If it wasn’t my brother hunting her or my father taunting me, it would always be something else. Another enemy searching for my one true weakness, if Maisie didn’t kill me first.

I was certain that I didn’t have any heart to give, but Maisie had ripped it out and put it in chains.

And I hated it.

I had to do something. In the morning, I would make her see the truth. Show her I could never give her what she wanted. Give her one last chance to run away.

But until then, we’d stay quiet, waiting for that final sleep.

“Wilder?” she asked.

“Go to sleep,” I said.

Chapter 19

Maisie

The first shadesof morning light poked me awake. Wilder’s side of the bed was cold, like he had been gone for hours. But I reminded myself that was normal. I stretched, then walked barefoot to the kitchen. The drying rack was empty, and the table was clean.

There were no signs of him anywhere.

I kept telling myself that it was just another day. Another day in our strange, arranged marriage that had finally started to make some sense.

But now, that was all gone.

I perched on the couch near the window. Usually, I saw Wilder cross the area a few times during the day, but I didn’t see him once. A nervous fluttering rolled inside of me, wondering if that meant anything.

Each time the house creaked, my pulse raced. Everything put me on edge. Adrenaline constantly surged in my chest, my body weak. My father-in-law had bound and gagged me through sheer force, and his brother had tried tokill me. And yet, I had never doubted that Wilder would save me. Better than I could save myself.

But Wilder had still pointed a gun at me. It was clear his family wanted me dead.

At eight o’clock, I ate dinner by myself, then left his plate plastic-wrapped on the table. I stared blankly at the television, my fingers flicking against my legs. The images transformed from laugh-track comedies to cheaply done local commercials. I didn’t see anything but the memory of Wilder the night before, telling me to go to sleep, his tone soulless. As if I would have been better off dead. Like it was easier to pretend I didn’t exist. And the screwed up part was that Forrest and Sawyer could come into our home at any time, and I would have to rely on Wilder again. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to rely on myself.

And Wilder clearly didn’t want me to rely on him either.

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