“Ouch!” He yanked his hand back and eyed her like she was a rabid beast that had just gone for the kill strike. “What the hell?”
She swallowed and took a step back, her hand still shaking as she set the scissors down on the vanity. “I’m sorry.” Stepping back toward him, she took his hand in hers to survey the damage. He was bleeding.
Damn it.
Hot tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she snatched up a tissue from the box behind her and held it to his hand. “I’m so sorry, Scott. You just … you startled me.”
“And your first instinct is to try and sever my hand off?”
She rolled her bottom lip inward and held the tissue tight against his hand. “No … I … just. Instinct. I went into protection mode.”
Once again, he gripped her wrist, squeezing until she lifted her head to look at him. “Am I someone you think you need to protect yourself from?”
No. Not you. Not you ever.
She shook her head. “No.”
“But you’re used to having to protect yourself from someone … from him.” It wasn’t a question.
Her molars slammed together to keep her chin from trembling. “He wasn’t violent with me, if that’s what you mean. Todd, he just … ” She couldn’t maintain eye contact any longer and glanced back down at his hand, lifting the tissue to see if he was still bleeding. He was. “The man has a temper. He yelled a lot, belittled and threatened. And he … ” A tear slid down the crease of her nose. Before he could take her hand, she shook herself free of his grasp, handed him the tissue and moved back around behind him, resuming her station with the scissors and comb.
“Eva … ” His deep voice drew her gaze up to the mirror, where dark eyes, curious and gentle, looked back at her. “What did he do to you?”
Swallowing, she began to cut his hair again. “A few years ago, when things with Todd really started to get bad but I was too scared to leave, I moved into the guest bedroom. I wasn’t interested in being his wife anymore, at least not behind closed doors—and certainly not in the bedroom. I knew he was cheating on me anyway, so I figured he didn’t care that I wasn’t interested in sex. He didn’t make much of a stink about it, thankfully, until one night … ”
His nostrils flared, and even in the mirror, she could see his pupils dilate. The hair on the back of his neck pricked up too. “What. Did. He. Do. Eva?”
“He came home after a work function, and he’d been drinking. He came into my room and tried to have sex with me. I pushed him off, but he became persistent, and then he … ”
“Eva … ”
She shook her head and bit down hard on the inside of her cheek until the metallic taste of blood spilled across her tongue. But not even that could keep the tears from flowing freely down to her chin, spilling over to her purple tennis shoes. “I didn’t know that marital rape was a thing.” Her laugh at her own stupidity was brittle. “Can you believe that? Celeste had to inform me that a husband can rape his wife.” She continued to cut his hair, using the sleeve of her white T-shirt to blot at her eyes. “He hurt me … during … it. He was rough, and I had bruises and pain afterward. I ended up running out and getting the morning-after pill the next day because I wasn’t on any birth control, and as much as I love my children, I couldn’t imagine having another child with that monster.”
“Did you report the bastard to the police?” Anger infused every one of his words, and his fists were now bunched and white-knuckled on the arms of the chair.
She shook her head again. “No. I didn’t know that I had any kind of a case. And even so, it would have been his word against mine. I told you how much he lied about me to try to get custody of the boys. He would have lied about that too. After he … ” She couldn’t even say it, not again. “After he did that to me, I had a long, hot shower and scrubbed myself. I wanted to rid myself of his smell, of his sweat, his spit and his semen. I washed away anything that could have helped a police investigation, had I known I even had a case.”
Scott’s eyes flared, his cheeks reddened and his mouth opened on a gasp at the same time he pivoted in his chair to face her. Thank goodness she wasn’t mid-cut, otherwise she could have done some serious damage to his gorgeous hair. “He lied about you to me too.”
A pit the size of Jupiter opened up inside her gut. Just like she feared, Todd had mentioned her to Scott. Oh God, what had he said? What lies had he filled Scott’s head with? How many other people had he lied to?
“He told me you were an alcoholic, a pill-popper and a kleptomaniac,” he said, more and more rage filling not only his tenor, but also the air around him. “And he was convincing enough that as much as I dislike the guy, I believed him.”
Of course he did, because Todd was a charmer. He was a pathological liar, a vapid narcissist, a psychopath and the devil’s spawn. But he was also incredibly convincing when he lied. It was part of the reason why she’d stayed with him so long. Each and every time she thought she’d worked up the courage to leave him, he’d go and convince her that he was a changed man, or that he would change, that he would do better by her and the kids. Or he’d convince her that somehow his anger was justified, that she deserved his ire because of her stupidity and poor choices.
She trimmed more of his hair, this time off the top. It took everything she had to keep her hands steady. “Now do you understand why I couldn’t come inside the bar? Why the thought of you two chatting it up like a couple of frat bros made my anxiety go through the roof?”
He nodded slowly.
“I couldn’t face you after knowing you’d just spent several hours with my ex-husband. It made my skin crawl just seeing you sitting that close to him, smiling and laughing.”
“Well, all my laughter was forced. The man is a crude pig.”
Now that was just an insult to pigs.
She combed her fingers through his hair, tugging slightly until he turned back around and faced forward. Their eyes locked in the mirror. “I’m sorry I didn’t text you. I’m sorry I didn’t call you back. I … ” She wiped the back of her wrist beneath her nose again and sniffled. “I just needed some time to think. Some space and to talk things over with Celeste … and my shrink. I saw her yesterday too.”
“Did it help?”
“It did. I was planning to come over and talk to you tonight after my client, actually. Clear the air and apologize.” Her bottom lip wobbled, and she shook her head, her lashes now spiked from all the tears. “I’m really sorry, Scott.”
Before she realized she was moving, she found herself hauled around the chair and in his lap. As she opened her mouth, he smothered her response by taking her lips roughly, plunging his tongue in and taking control. One hand fisted her ponytail, while the other held her jaw, angling her neck back so he had greater access and could push his tongue deeper into her mouth.
She melted against him, her body going lax and letting out its own sigh of relief now that she was back and safe in his arms. Where she was meant to be.
Her body temperature ratcheted up the longer they kissed, the more he pulled on her ponytail, and his pinky finger rested against the rapidly beating pulse in her neck.