I slap the glass off the counter. I’m more surprised by it than Andre is. I thought I was back to normal, but I guess I’m not. I stare at the shattered glass and splattered water.
“Why does that bother you more than the cameras?” Andre asks.
“It just does.”
Andre is silent for a long time.He doesn’t budge from where he’s standing across the counter from me.
Then he asks in a low voice, “Is this something your father used to do?”
My throat tightens. The truth is that I don’t know how much my father tracked me online. I thought I was invisible to him. That’s how he acted to my face. But he deciphered my plans from my internet activity. I didn’t think to hide it, and that’s why Rose is dead. I had to run before she and I had planned. She covered for me so I could get far enough ahead, and my father killed her for it.
But I’m not ready to talk about that.
“We’ll clean your laptop,” Andre says quietly. “But location tracking stays on. I have to be able to find you. Okay?”
I look at him, and I see that he accepts my boundary. I see that he understands even without the facts. He’s listening to me.
I nod.
Andre leaves it at that. He picks up the larger pieces of glass and puts them in the trash, then he tosses several towels on the floor and starts cleaning up the water and broken glass.
I calm down as I watch him. He doesn’t mind that I made a mess. He’s made them too. The mirror in his office. The desk.
I can express myself with him. He wasn’t even angry about what I did to the suit in his penthouse closet. I should probablybe embarrassed about that, but the fact that he didn’t react to it, just accepted it makes me feel ... free. Like in my fantasies. But this is an even better freedom because it’s real.
He finishes cleaning up and throws away the towels because they’re full of glass fragments. He crouches again and sweeps his bare hand across the floor, hunting for shards. I hiss in a breath. I don’t like that.
When he’s done with the floor, he goes back to work on the coffee, pouring the freshly boiled water into the press pot.
“I have to ask you something,” he says with his back still to me, “and I really need you to answer.”
I tense at the tone of his voice. I don’t like that his back is to me. I don’t like how the seconds are stretching.
“It’s about your father,” he finally says. “I need to know if—” Andre cuts off. He’s completely still, not breathing. I don’t know what he’s going to ask me, so I just stay still, like him. I wait. Then he exhales carefully and says, “I need to know if he hurt you. Physically, I mean. Sexually. I know he hurt you in other ways. I can tell.”
A hot, sick feeling churns through me, not because the answer is yes but because it’s no, and yet, I know why he’s asking.
I know why there are whip scars on his ass, hidden now by his boxer briefs. I know what’s been done to him, even if I don’t know the details. I heard the things my father said in Andre’s office.
I say quietly, “I’ve never been hurt like that.”
“It’s not always … violent.”
“I’ve never been hurt like that, Andre.”
He nods his head, but his back is still to me. My eyes sting. I want to approach him. I want to touch him. But I don’t think he could handle it right now. I don’t feel like I’mallowedto touch him right now.
I whisper, “I understand if you hate me.”
Andre spins around. “I don’t fucking hate you.” His blue eyes are locked on me, intense and angry.
I hate that tears spill down my cheeks because this isn’t about me and I don’t want to make it about me, but I’m feeling too much and I can’t help it.
Andre walks toward me. I’m ready for him to hit me or storm past me, but I’m not ready for him to grab me off the stool and haul me up into his arms. I start crying harder, and I wrap my arms and legs around him as he carries me into the living room and sits down on the couch. I sob against him, because I feel so fucking horrified and angry and overwhelmed.
Andre holds me tight. He’s breathing hard, his chest heaving against me. He’s shuddering.
I get a strange, sudden clarity. He needs my reactions. He needs my emotions, needs me to express them—because he can’t. He expresses anger, but that’s all. He doesn’t know how to cry. He doesn’t know how to say that he’s hurt. And it just breaks me open more.
