Chapter 5

Chapter 5

ADRIA

The pharmacy was one of those twenty-four-hour chains that dotted the city, fluorescent-lit and nearly empty at this hour. I walked through the automatic doors with my sweatshirt hood pulled up, avoiding the bored cashier's gaze as I made my way to the first aid aisle.

My chest and stomach still burned where the soup had scalded me. I'd checked in the storage unit bathroom—the skin was angry and red, blistering in a few places. Nothing serious enough for a hospital, but painful enough that I needed something to take the edge off.

I grabbed burn ointment, bandages, and on impulse, added a bottle of extra-strength pain relievers. The cashier barely looked at me as she rang up my purchases, too engrossed in whatever show was playing on her phone.

The drive back to Damien's house—I couldn't bring myself to call it home anymore—took another thirty minutes. It was nearly two in the morning when I pulled into the driveway, expecting darkness and silence. Instead, every light in the house blazed like a beacon.

My stomach dropped.

Damien's Mercedes was parked in his usual spot, which made no sense. He'd said he wasn't coming home. He was supposed to be with Adina, or Amber, or whoever was warming his bed tonight.

I sat in my car for a long moment, gripping the steering wheel, trying to calm the sudden spike of anxiety. Old habits died hard—even now, knowing what I knew, my body still responded to his presence with that familiar mix of dread and desperate hope.

No. Not hope. Not anymore.

I grabbed the pharmacy bag and headed inside.

The front door swung open before I could reach it. Damien stood in the doorway, still dressed in the same clothes from the club, his hair disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it. His eyes locked onto me with an intensity that made me freeze mid-step.

"Where the hell have you been?"

His voice was sharp, demanding, but there was something else underneath it. Something that sounded almost like... worry?

I blinked, momentarily thrown off balance. This wasn't the script. This wasn't how things usually went. When Damien stayed out, he stayed out. He didn't come home early. He certainly didn't wait up for me, pacing and worried.

"I—" I started, then caught myself, adjusting my posture into something smaller, more apologetic. The docile wife. The role I'd perfected over eighteen months. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you."

"I texted you over an hour ago." He stepped aside to let me in, and I noticed his phone clutched in his hand, the screen still lit up with our message thread. "You didn't respond. You always respond within seconds."

Because you trained me to, I thought bitterly. Because the one time I took ten minutes to reply, you accused me of ignoring you and didn't speak to me for three days.

But I didn't say that. Instead, I held up the pharmacy bag, letting confusion and contrition color my voice. "I had to get ointment for the burns. I didn't have my phone with me—I left it in the car while I was in the store. I'm sorry, I should have been more careful."

Damien's eyes dropped to the bag, then to my chest where the burns were hidden beneath my sweatshirt. Something flickered across his face—guilt, maybe, or something that looked like it from certain angles.

"Let me see," he said, reaching for the bag.

I handed it over, watching as he pulled out the burn ointment and examined it like he was verifying I'd actually bought what I claimed. Satisfied, he gestured toward the living room.

"Sit down."

It wasn't a request. It never was with Damien. Everything was a command, a directive, an expectation that I would comply without question.

I walked to the living room and sank into the armchair—my usual spot, the one farthest from where he typically sat, the one that let me stay small and unobtrusive. But Damien followed me and pointed to the sofa instead.

"There. Where I can see you properly."

My skin prickled with unease, but I moved to the sofa. Damien sat beside me, closer than he usually did, and held out his hand for my sweatshirt.

"Take it off. I need to see how bad it is."

Heat flooded my face—not from embarrassment, but from anger I couldn't afford to show. He'd poured that soup on me. He'd humiliated me in front of his friends, called me pathetic, told me to clean myself up. And now he wanted to play concerned husband?

But I needed to maintain the facade. Just a little longer. Just until I figured out which of his friends owned that necklace.

I pulled off my sweatshirt slowly, revealing the tank top underneath. The burns covered my chest and stomach in angry red patches, some already blistering. Damien's jaw tightened as he looked at them.

"Sit back," he said quietly.

I obeyed, settling against the sofa cushions while Damien opened the ointment. He squeezed some onto his fingers and began applying it to the burns with surprising gentleness. His touch was careful, almost tender, and I had to fight the urge to pull away from him.

This is a performance, I reminded myself. Just like everything else in this marriage. He's performing concern because that's what husbands are supposed to do. Or maybe someone said something to him. Maybe Marcus or Kieran told him he went too far.

"You need to get better at understanding what I need from you," Damien said as he worked, his voice taking on that familiar patronizing tone I'd heard a thousand times before. "If you had brought the soup at the right temperature, if you had been more careful, this wouldn't have happened. You understand that, don't you?"

My hands clenched in my lap, nails digging into my palms. He was actually blaming me for this. For him pouring hot soup down my front. For the burns that were currently making my skin feel like it was on fire.

"Yes," I heard myself say, the word tasting like ash. "I understand."

"Good." He applied more ointment, his fingers trailing across my ribs. "I don't like punishing you, Adriana. But you have to learn. You have to be better."

Punishing me. As if he was some benevolent teacher and I was a slow student who just couldn't grasp the lesson. As if pouring soup on me was a reasonable response to it not being hot enough for his mistress.