“Give me a second,” I tell him, applying my lipstick in the vanity mirror.
Today, we’re meeting his family since they’ve returned from being out of town for the past several months. And because, aside from Lorenzo, I don’t have any family of my own, I’m hoping they are nice and accept me into their family. I wasn’t as close with my parents as I would’ve liked because of them sending me away, but we still had a relationship, and I miss them every day, especially since they died before I could graduate and move home.
“Now!” Henry barks from the doorway, making me jump.
“Excuse me,” I say, forgetting about my makeup and turning to face him. “Don’t speak to me like that. I don’t care how nervous you are to see your family. You don’t get to disrespect me.”
I’ve heard him speak like that on the phone a few times,and it’s raised a red flag, but until this moment, he’s never spoken to me like that.
Rather than looking apologetic, his jaw tics, and my stomach sinks. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s almost like he’s a completely different person now—a person I’m not sure I want to be with.
I take a deep breath and walk over to him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Hey, is everything okay?”
I place a kiss on the corner of his jaw, and for a second, he sighs into my touch, but then he shocks me when he pushes me away.
“Let’s go,” he says through his clenched jaw. “We can’t be late.”
Grabbing me by my bicep, he pulls me down the hall, and his fingers send a bite of pain through me.
“Stop it! You’re hurting me!” I yell, trying to get out of his grip.
“Then, for once, do as you’re fucking told!”
He shoves me into the passenger seat of his car and slams the door, and I’m stunned silent.
What the hell is going on?
I consider getting out of the car, but before I can, he slides into the front seat and takes off out of the driveway.
“Who are you?” I gasp, confused as to what happened to the sweet man who had helped me get through the dark time after my parents’ deaths.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he says, focusing on the road.
I pull my phone out to text my brother—what, I don’t know—but I’m suddenly scared, and he’s the only person who can help me, but Henry snatches it out of my hand.
“I’ll take that.”
“Give me back my phone!”
I reach over to take it back, but he swings his hand around and backhands me, forcing me to hit the back of the seat.
“Just sit there and fucking behave!” he hisses.
Oh my God. He just … he just hit me.
And I’m in the car with him.
With no phone.
I glance around, wondering how the hell this all escalated so quickly, when I realize we’re pulling up to Russo Property Group.
Surely, he’s not going to hit me and then take me to see my brother? He doesn’t have a death wish. But rather than point that out, I stay quiet, hoping we are in fact going to see my brother. Because the moment I tell him what Henry did, Lorenzo will end his life, and then I’ll be free from my crazy husband.
Holy shit!My crazy husband.
I look at him and wonder if he’s somehow been body-switched because I don’t recognize this man at all. I know I was caught up in my grief and trying to graduate on time, but I’ve spent the past four months with this man, and he’s never behaved like this.
The first month, he courted me, and I felt like it was a scene straight out of a romance novel. Every night, he would come over and make me dinner. We would talk, and he’d hold me while I mourned the loss of my parents.
