Page 300 of A Vicious Love

She looked at me through tears.

“You held it out in public as if it cost nothing. Hand, please. That sweet voice. Those eyes. You would take my hand into your lap and trace the ink while half the room watched. You made me choose between refusing you and letting you touch a part of me no one else got near.”

“You looked angry every time.”

“I was angry.” I turned my hand beneath hers and laced our fingers. “Because it made me vulnerable. You could ask for that hand and I would give it to you while pretending I hated it. Because every time you traced my knuckles, my body stopped waiting for the room to attack. You made me feel safe, and I had no use for that feeling, so I punished you for giving it to me.”

She stared at our joined hands, crying quietly.

“And when you took it away,” I said, the words rough now, pulled from somewhere I had buried under work and years of resentment, “when you stopped asking, touching me, stopped calling me Jamjam, I missed it. Like fucking crazy.”

Her breath hitched.

“I missed your hand in mine at tables. I missed you tracing my tattoos. I missed your voice. I missed the way you looked at me before I taught you to stop. I told myself the silence was better because I’m an idiot. It wasn’t better.“

She whispered, “I thought you were relieved.”

“I was never relieved.”

“You seemed…”

“Cruel,” I said.

She didn’t deny it.

I deserved her honesty now.

I slid my free hand to her cheek, wiping tears. “You are not living in Adrian’s apartment. You are not scraping together rent while wearing my ring. You are not babysitting to survive unless you want to because you love those little tyrants. You will have money in your name before the wedding, property in your name after it, and rooms in every house I own because my wife will never wonder where she is meant to sleep.”

“Your wife.”

“Yes.”

“You say that as if it’s already real.”

“It is. The paper is catching up.”

“You can’t just decide I’m moving into your house because you feel guilty.”

“No, baby.” I leaned closer. “I decided because you’re mine. The guilt only clarified how badly I’ve mishandled what already belonged to me.”

“That is a terrible apology.”

“It wasn’t the apology.”

Her eyes lifted.

I swallowed my pride because it had never done anything useful for her.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The words felt inadequate.

“I am,” I continued, hand steady on her cheek. “For the doors. The events. The whiskey. The cars. The tables. The way I made you stand beside me and then acted as if you had forced yourself there. Every time you asked for my hand and I made you feel foolish for wanting it.”

She gave a shaky little smile.

I bent and kissed the corner of it.