Page 39 of Shattered Hope
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Shaking my head, I went back to my chores. After all, I was still his housekeeper, and the place wasn’t going to clean itself.
I was finishing cleaning his room when he finally returned my calls. “I’ve just seen your calls and messages. What happened?”
“Your mother came to visit you,” I replied, taking a seat on the edge of the bathtub.
“My mother? Didn’t you tell her I wasn’t home?” he asked, surprised.
“I believe she already knew that. She came to see me, and finding me wearing your robe and barely awake was quite a shock for her,” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my tone.
“You slept late,” there was some amusement in his tone.
“And it surprises you? I didn’t sleep much during the night, as I’m sure you remember,” I scolded him.
“I didn’t hear you complaining,” he pointed out.
I didn’t. How could I when he was busy giving me the best night of my life.
“Anyway, we had lunch together… her suggestion, and she left right after.”
“What did she want?” he asked.
“She claimed she wanted to know more about me. You surprised her introducing her to me,” I said, though I wasn’t sure those had been the woman’s motives.
“I guess I did… she’ll get used to it,” he said in a dismissive tone.
“If you say so… I could have used your presence here, but Phoebe told me you were in a meeting.”
“Believe me, my presence would have only made things worst. I’ll talk to her and ask her not to bother you again,” he offered.
“She didn’t bother me. I was just caught off guard,” I assured him.
“As you wish,” he agreed, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Don’t bother cooking dinner. We’ll order Chinese.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’ll be too busy to cook,” he assured me. “I’ll see you tonight.”
He ended the call before I was able to say anything, and it was a good thing because I had no idea what I could have told him after that.
Shivers of pleasure rushed down my spine, and my heart skipped a beat with anticipation. I was still a bit sore after last night, but I didn’t care.
I wanted more – more of him, more of the pleasure he gave me, of the feeling everything was for once so damn right.
One night in Jayden’s arms and I was questioning all the time I had wasted while living with Daniel, trying to be someone I wasn’t, believing there was something terribly wrong with me if I wasn’t able to please the man I was supposed to love.
All the accusations, the beatings, the humiliation… I had always felt they were my fault, and even when I decided to leave Daniel, I still felt part of the fault was mine. He had blamed me so many times for it, I ended up believing him.
I remembered once when I was serving him dinner and the bottle of wine slid out of my hands, and broke into a million pieces, ruining the white carpet in the dining room.
We had been married for just a few months, but I had already learned how brutal he could be. I just stood there, in shock, looking at the stain, getting bigger and bigger.
Daniel had jumped to his feet and forced me to kneel on the carpet, on the broken glass, ignoring my cries of pain.
“You’re the clumsiest woman I have ever met. Can’t you do anything right? When will you learn?” he had yelled at me as he forced me to stay on my knees.
“I’m so sorry… it won’t happen again,” I promised, again and again, but he didn’t listen.
