Page 57 of Stolen Rival
Or so I thought.
The truth is I lost my mind when she began playing with herself. I should have sent her back to her room with a kind word and an explanation that this wasn’t the right time or place. Except that would have been a lie. There was nothing wrong with the time or the place. The only thing wrong was that she took control and shone a light on a flaw born out of loss. One Ineverallow anyone to see.
Except she did. And I hit back. Hard.
In order to regain my dominance, my superiority, mypower,I’d crushed her spirit.
This solemn, quiet version of the fiery redhead I’d forced into marriage should have me metaphorically leaping for joy.Life’s a hell of a lot easier when she isn’t running her mouth and defying me at every turn. But it isn’t joy I’m feeling; it’s bewilderment. There’s a hollowness in my chest that I’m not sure how to fill. I don’t like it.
“Fasten your belt,” I say as the plane begins to taxi to the runway.
Deliberately not looking at me, she sets her book down on the table, snaps her belt shut, then picks the book up again.
Holding back an irritated sigh, I gaze out of the window as the engines rev, and the plane picks up speed. As we lift off the ground, Sorcha drops her book into her lap and grips the arms of the chair. She did the same on the way out here, too, and just like then, I ignore her obvious discomfort.
I wasn’t always like this. Sure, I’d grown up knowing I’d have a part to play when I eventually took over the family business from my father, but I never used to be this cruel, especially to those who don’t deserve my wrath.
The night my parents died fundamentally changed something inside me. The agony of knowing it wasmyphone call in the early hours of the morning that brought them out of the house and into the path of that drunk driver.Mypleading with them to come and pick me up because I’d lost control after a fight with my then-girlfriend, got shit-faced, and couldn’t drive home.
Fire burns through my chest. I make a fist and rub it, but the ache only worsens. I glance over at Sorcha again. She’s nibbling the inside of her cheek, and I could swear her bottom lip trembles.
Say something, you fucking twat. One sentence.
“Flying is the safest way to travel.” I almost groan aloud at using the often-trotted-out phrase for anyone who’s a nervousflyer.
For the first time since I cruelly discarded her last night with my cum dripping down her legs, she gives me her eyes. And swimming in the depths of her blue irises isn’t hate or loathing. It’s hurt and disappointment.
“Statistics mean nothing if you’re on the plane that’s hurtling to the ground at hundreds of kilometers an hour.”
A faint smile pulls at my lips. “I suppose not.”
She shifts her gaze to the upturned book in her lap, her fingers still clinging onto the leather-covered arms of her chair.
I wriggle uncomfortably in my seat. I have killed men while their wives and children looked on, their screams not giving me a single sleepless night. I have taken territory that did not belong to me through violence and bloodshed. Hell, I murdered Sorcha’s family and didn’t bat an eyelid.
But her reaction to my barbaric dismissal last night feels like a hunting knife embedded in my chest.
“About last night…”
Her eyelashes flicker, and with painful slowness, she tilts up her chin and meets my gaze.
“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Patrick. I’m aware of my position in your life. A wife to gain access to your inheritance, a pussy to fuck, and a womb to carry your children. My hopes and dreams and thoughts and feelings aren’t important. They don’t even make the top ten of your daily concerns. So, whatever you were about to say, don’t. I’m not interested in hearing hollow words that mean nothing.”
Five minutes into the flight and a twenty-year-old slip of a girl just handed my balls to me on a tarnished silver platter.
She releases her death grip on the chair and picks up her book as I comb through my mind, seeking words I’m not capable of uttering. A tear slips down her cheek, and she sweeps it away. This is different tothe wild sobbing in the car on the way to Dylan’s, and it has an infinitely graver impact on me.
Forgetting I don’t have the empathy to comfort anyone, I unfasten my seat belt, ignoring the illuminated sign ordering me otherwise. I get to my feet, unclip the curtain from the fuselage and pull it across the gap. Andrew, the two bodyguards traveling with us, and the single flight attendant disappear from view. I pluck the novel from her hands and set it on the table.
“What are you doing?”
Leaning down, I take both her hands in mine and tug her to standing. “I’m not an ebullient man, nor am I prone to caring what effect my words and actions mean to others. But how I treated you, and what I said to you last night was wrong. And I’m… I’m sorry.”
As she gapes at me, mouth wide open, I slide one hand around the back of her neck and wrap an arm around her waist. Tucking her head against my chest, I stroke her hair.
She collapses like an underproofed pile of dough. Sinking against me, her shoulders shake as she silently lets her tears fall. I say nothing as she expels the poison I dripped into her veins, and, as I hold my wife in my arms, the hollowness in my chest doesn’t feel quite so hollow.
Perhaps this is the catalyst for us to find a way forward. It doesn’t excuse what I did, but maybe, just maybe, this marriage might not be the worst thing that’s happened—to either of us.
