Page 127 of Ruined By Protection
The room seems to shrink around me. I can feel Matteo's eyes on me but I can't look at him. I made a terrible mistake in speaking Matteo’s name.
"Such a whore," Elliott hisses, lurching forward despite Noah's restraining hands. "Having a husband and a lover at the same time."
"That's not—" I start, but peter out.
"Don't deny it," Elliott cuts me off. "I heard you. Night after night. 'Matteo, Matteo,'" he mimics in a high-pitched squeal. "Did you fuck him before our wedding? During? Both?"
Matteo's fist crashes into Elliott's jaw with a sickening thud. Elliott doubles over, screaming with pain.
"Don't you ever fucking talk to her like that," Matteo growls.
I flinch at the violence but force myself to remain outwardly calm. Elliott straightens up, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Look at him defending your honor," Elliott snarks. "You want her so bad? Take her. She's damaged goods anyway."
Something inside me snaps. Two years of suppressed rage comes pouring out. Before Matteo can hit him again I let him know the truths I’ve wanted to scream every day for the last two years.
"I'm not last year’s fucking purse, Elliott! I'm not something you dump at the curb or toss to someone else when you're tired of it!" My hands shake, but my voice doesn't waver.
And I’m not done yet. "You never owned me. Not when we got married. Not when you hit me. Not when you locked me inour bedroom for two days because I wore the wrong dress to your mother's birthday."
Elliott's smug expression falters as I continue.
"I am a person. A whole fucking person! Not your trophy, not your punchbag, not your property. And I sure as hell am not something you can tell another man totake."
My voice reverberates around the room. Noah shifts uncomfortably, unaccustomed to women having their say in this type of situation.
Elliott's features twist even uglier, the self-righteous hatred all too familiar.
"You think you're special?" he spits. "You're just like all the rest. Women like you, like Melissa—you deserve everything you get."
He jerks against Noah's hold, trying to go for me with such intensity that I take an involuntary step back.
"I should have done with you as I did to her. Wrapped my hands around your throat and squeezed until you stopped your squawking. Then buried you deep where no one would ever find you."
The room goes dead silent. Elliott's confession hangs in the air, impossible to retract.
A confession. An actual confession.
Some small, desperate part of me had been clinging to denial. I still hoped that somehow I hadn't shared my bed with a genuine monster. That Elliott was just damaged, egotistical, but not... this.
But now I know. I know with absolute certainty.
My terrible wicked husband murdered Melissa Winters. He killed her and their unborn baby and buried them.
"Why, Elliott? Why did you kill her?" My voice shakes, but I need to know.
Elliott's eyes glaze over, like he's looking through me to some distant memory.
"Because of you, actually." His voice turns eerily conversational, like he’s chatting with friends about the past. "I met you at the bar that night. You were... different. Beautiful, sexy, smart and so strong. I knew right away I had to have you."
My stomach churns at his words. I was the reason another woman died?
"I broke things off with Melissa the next day," Elliott continues, as if discussing a business transaction. "I needed to focus everything on you. On us."
He says "us" like it's something sacred, making bile rise in my throat.
"But then she came back a month later like some crazed bunny boiler. Crying, hysterical." His lip curls in disgust. "Said she was pregnant. Threatened to tell everyone if I didn't take responsibility and take the lying bitch back."
