Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
When he came in, he grinned at me. “How’s your bum?”
“Sore as hell.” I laughed. “I am going to be sitting down carefully, for a while.”
He sat beside me on the bed and took my hand, pulling it to his lips. “You know that I love you, don’t you?”
It was such a weird question I had to push myself up to answer him. “I hope you do. We’re married.”
“I know.” He looked a little sheepish. “I worry sometimes, when… I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“You’ve been doing this a lot lately,” I said softly. “You’re, like, weirdly guilty after we play. If it’s bothering you—”
“No, no—” he began, and I cut him off.
“We’re doing that thing where we try to be polite when we should be honest.” I squeezed his hand. “Tell me what’s going on in your head.”
He sighed heavily. “I’m concerned lately, because I’ve been thinking more about my experience. You know that I never want to do anything without your express consent. But I worry that I’m pressuring you, somehow. That you may be doing some of this to please me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, all those orgasms. Gross.”
“No, don’t joke,” he said, and the softness of his voice caught me off guard. Neil always sounded so sure of himself. It wasn’t something I figured he could drop by accident; in my short acquaintance with the fabulously wealthy of New York, I’d learned that people shed a lot of insecurity when their bank accounts swelled. That proved true outwardly, at least.
“Do you think some of this sudden doubt might have to do with the whole—” I waved my free hand in limp circles, “—with the foundation? Maybe it’s bringing up some not-nice memories?”
I was right, and he knew it. I saw his internal war in his eyes. He didn’t want to admit that his rape wasn’t a subject his emotions had put entirely to bed. Neil didn’t like it when things were out of his control, when so much control had been taken from him that night. He’d given his trust over to a man he’d loved, and that man had betrayed him in the most devastating way possible.
Finally, Neil nodded and said, “Being in the public eye with this foundation seems to have brought up a lot of unresolved issues. Which I should have expected, I suppose.”
“You put off dealing with what happened to you for, like, thirty years. That’s a long time. It’s not like you’re going to be magically healed, all of a sudden.” I sat up and forced myself not to wince at the pain that even our super soft bed caused. “I can’t fix any of that for you. But I promise, I will never just go along with what we do because I think you want me to.”
“Thank you for that reassurance,” he said, looking down at our still-joined hands. Left and left, our wedding rings close together.
“Besides, since when have I ever done anything I didn’t want to do?” I asked with a laugh, and that got a smile out of him, finally. The silence that fell in the next moment was warm, not tense. It was as if all he’d really needed was to hear what he already knew.
“I’m really proud of you,” I said. “The work you’ve been doing with Doctor Harris. You’ve made so much progress.”
“I’m glad you can see it. I certainly can’t,” he said with a self-effacing scoff.
I leaned forward and put my arms around him. “I’ll always see the best parts of you, eshkan min.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Sophie, elskan mín, your Icelandic is still atrocious.”
CHAPTER TWO
The Elwood Rape Crisis Resource Center had started off as a bank. The headquarters for a bank, actually. They’d used some of their sweet government bailout money on a swanky new office complex, and Neil had snapped up the old one for a price tag that had almost made me vomit.
Then I’d remembered that we would never be able spend the stupid amount of money we had, and that throwing some at a good cause wouldn’t bankrupt us.
That was the weirdest part of being wealthy, and one that I hadn’t gotten used to, even after three years of living with a billionaire. Our money seemed to be in never-ending supply. And it made me weirdly cheap. I’d gone to Target with Penny and Holli a few weeks before and spent three-hundred dollars. Sure, Holli had done the same thing, but she’d lamented it. I’d just been totally confused as to how I could walk away from a twenty-five-dollar lamp that was super cute, then come home to think it was no big deal that my husband had bought yet another car.
No car, no matter how fast or street legal it might have been, could possibly make Neil prouder than the building we stood in now, the culmination of years of anger and deeply internalized pain.