“I read some notebooks, yes,” he confirmed. “Filled with some very interesting things, I might add.”
And this was what had bothered him over the last few days. He’d been waiting to bring this up, looking for the best moment to destroy me with the information.
“Things that weren’t for you to see.” I cursed silently. Then I cursed out loud. “How the fuck did you even get them?” I’d left them in the closet of my condo back home, boxed up so no one would find them.
“I had my wife’s belongings sent from her residence in New York to the one we share in London.” His breath at my neck had been arousing before. Now it felt menacing, as he surely meant it to.
“Oh, fuck you. The house we share in London?” The house I’d never lived in with him as husband and wife. The house he didn’t seem to ever intend to bring me back to. “Fuck you.”
I pushed my elbow back into his torso, hoping to throw him long enough to loosen his clutch on me, but my jab didn’t even make him wince, and he moved his hands to hold me at my forearms.
“You’re welcome,” he said with no hint of exertion despite wrestling with me. “It was rather thoughtful on my part. When I was unpacking your items, I came across a box full of notebooks. I had to see what they were to decide where they should be kept.”
“Sure, sure. That was why. Not because you’re a nosy asshole who doesn’t know how to mind his own business.”
He brought his face forward so his cheek was next to mine. “You are my business, Celia. Don’t ever doubt that.”
His words and inflection were so chilling, yet, also, somehow inviting. There was a part of me that wanted to tell him. Wanted to finally confess everything and maybe, maybe then I could begin to pay penance.
But I didn’t know how to say it. Didn’t know where to start, even when he’d given me the opening.
I shook my head, denying him once again. “They were fiction. Stories I made up. That’s all. No one was ever meant to see them.”
“They weren’t fiction. They were real.”
“Bullshit. You’re guessing. And you’re guessing wrong.”
“I can tell when you’re lying and these were honest. I don’t have to ask how long you’ve been doing this manipulation of innocent people—the dates were clearly written, which I found particularly helpful.” He barely hesitated, but when he spoke again, his words were raw. “Was that what I was to you? Another game?”
My eyes pricked. It was the first hint he’d ever given that he might have some sort of feeling for me, and it was revealed in an accusation of betrayal.
This couldn’t be happening like this. There was no way this could be how last night ended up.
“You already know what you were.” A tear fell down my cheek. I didn’t try to wipe it away.
“No.” The word was sharp and enraged. “I had a perception of the situation based on your deceit being a singular incident. These journals note that I was only one of a long list of lies.”
I craned my neck, turning toward him as much as I was able. “Is that what bothers you, Edward? That you weren’t unique?”
The eyes that met mine were hard and mean. “There is a hell of a lot that bothers me, and that’s not anywhere near the top. If you start explaining your gross form of amusement, perhaps I can point out my grievances as you go.”
I ground my teeth. He’d already judged me. Of course he had, and why shouldn’t he? I would have told him eventually, probably. Possibly. If things had continued the way they were. But not like this. I didn’t want him to know like this.
I looked forward again, unable to stare at those vacant eyes another second. “Is this a session? I’m supposed to tell you things freely in my own time. This is coercion.”
“You get to tell me your vulnerabilities when you’re ready. What I read aren’t accounts of your vulnerability—they are accounts of your cruelty.”
Every pore in my body oozed of shame. And that’s why he was wrong. This was the most vulnerable thing about me. It was the worst part of me, the worst things I’d done, the actions that no one would ever forgive. The reason I would never be loved.
How could I not be more exposed than that?
With a sudden surge of adrenaline, I yanked myself out of his grasp and stumbled to my feet.
Throwing my shoulders back, I threw him a bitter, forsaken scowl, and started to my room.
He was on his feet in a heartbeat. “Don’t you dare walk away from me. We are discussing this now.”
I swung back around. “This isn’t yours to have! We never bargained for this.”
“Clearly you weren’t paying attention because my bargain demanded everything.”
He’d told me he would break me down and that I would be his, and, if for a second I thought that hadn’t meant giving him everything, I couldn’t doubt it now.
But what was it all for? Give him everything so he could hate me? I already hated myself enough for both of us.
“Who’s A?” He was relentless.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“He sure seems to matter, considering how long the two of you played this game of yours. Did he know about this one? Is he waiting in the wings for an update?”
Oh, the irony of that accusation. Hudson had been the one to leave The Game—The Game that he’d taught me—and found the incredibly impossible person who could love him despite everything he’d done. Then, in a fit of envy and disgust and loneliness, I’d obliterated any future for our friendship by playing a scheme on him.
And what exactly was it that Edward was doing with me?
I pointed an angry finger at him. “What about your games? This shit you do to my head. The way you pretend you care and that these sessions mean something to you and then pull the rug out from me when I react to that. What about those fucking games?”
“This is not the same.”
He began to slowly circle around me, and I moved with him, keeping him in front of me. “Right, right, because you’re above scrutiny.”
Abruptly, I was caged against the table, his arms on either side of me. “This isn’t a game between us.” His mouth was so close I could kiss him with only a tilt of my chin.
My heart pounded so loud, I could hear it in my ears. “Are you certain about that? It sure feels like a game, and, believe me, I ought to know.”
His eye twitched as it glanced quickly at my lips then back again. “Tell me, or I’m leaving.”
He thought I was cruel? That threat was the cruelest of them all.
It was tempting. I wanted my freedom so badly that at times I was tempted to do anything to get it.
But the truth was, my telling him what he wanted to know wouldn’t change anything. He might even leave faster if I did. “You’re leaving anyway. Eventually.”
His lips pressed together in a tight line. A beat passed, and I could hear the gears whirring in his head, deciding his next move.
Finally, he stepped away. “You’re right.”
He turned around calling Tom out of the kitchen where she likely heard much of our argument, but showed no sign of it when she appeared. “Tell Lou to arrange my flight out today,” he told her, then, without giving me another glance, he strode toward his office.