Chapter 6

Chapter 6

ADRIA

"I'll try harder," I said, forcing the words past the rage building in my throat. "I promise."

"I know you will." He finished with the ointment and wiped his hands on a towel he'd apparently brought from the bathroom. "You always do. That's what I appreciate about you, Adriana. You're willing to improve."

Willing to improve. Willing to shrink myself down to nothing. Willing to accept abuse and call it love because I'd convinced myself he was someone he'd never been.

Damien stood and held out his hand. "Come on. Let's go to bed."

I stared at his outstretched hand like it was a snake about to strike. "Bed?"

"Yes, bed. Where married couples sleep." He said it like I was being deliberately obtuse. "Unless you'd prefer the guest room?"

The guest room was where I usually slept when Damien bothered to come home. We'd shared a bed maybe a dozen times in eighteen months, and most of those had been in the first month of our marriage before he'd made it clear that my presence disturbed his sleep.

"No, I—" I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. "I just thought you might want your space tonight."

"Why would I want that?" He led me toward the stairs, his hand warm around mine. "You're my wife. You belong in our bed."

Our bed. The bed he'd bought before we got married, the bed he'd probably shared with Amber before she left for Paris, the bed I'd been slowly exiled from over the course of our marriage.

I followed him up the stairs, my mind racing. This didn't make sense. Damien didn't do spontaneous affection. He didn't do concern or care or tenderness unless there was an audience to perform for. So why now? Why this sudden shift in behavior?

Maybe his friends had said something. Maybe watching me stand there covered in soup had triggered some vestige of conscience he'd forgotten he had. Maybe this was his idea of making amends without actually apologizing.

Or maybe—and this thought made my stomach turn—maybe he was giving me hope on purpose. Maybe this was another game, another way to keep me dependent and desperate. Build me up just enough that I'd be grateful for scraps of affection, then tear me down again when I started expecting more.

I'd seen him do it before. The pattern was familiar: cruelty followed by just enough kindness to make me question whether I'd overreacted, whether things were really that bad, whether I should just try harder to be what he needed.

We reached the bedroom, and Damien released my hand to head into the bathroom. I stood in the doorway, uncertain. The room looked the same as always—impeccably clean, decorated in shades of gray and white that felt more like a hotel than a home. The bed was made with military precision, not a wrinkle in sight.

"Are you just going to stand there?" Damien called from the bathroom. "Get ready for bed, Adriana."

I moved mechanically to the dresser where I kept my sleepwear—modest cotton pajamas that covered everything from neck to ankle because Damien had once commented that my nightgowns were "too revealing." I changed quickly, wincing as the fabric brushed against my burns.

Damien emerged from the bathroom in his own pajamas, his hair damp from washing his face. He looked younger like this, almost vulnerable, and I hated that some part of me still wanted to see good in him.

"Come here," he said, patting the bed beside him.

I climbed into bed, staying on my side, maintaining a careful distance. The mattress dipped as Damien settled in, and for a moment, we lay there in silence, the space between us feeling like an ocean.

Then Damien reached over and pulled me against him.

I went rigid, every muscle in my body tensing. This was wrong. This wasn't how we worked. We didn't cuddle. We didn't sleep intertwined like normal couples. We occupied the same bed on rare occasions and maintained careful distance, like magnets with the same polarity.

"Relax," Damien murmured against my hair. "You're so tense."

Because you poured soup on me five hours ago, I thought viciously. Because you called me pathetic in front of your friends. Because you're sleeping with your secretary and planning to leave me for your ex-girlfriend. Because I've spent eighteen months in hell for a borrowed necklace.

But I forced myself to soften against him, to play the role of grateful wife receiving her husband's affection. His arm was heavy across my waist, his breath warm on the back of my neck.

"Better," he said approvingly.

I lay there in the darkness, listening to his breathing gradually slow and even out as he fell asleep. The arm across my waist grew heavier, more oppressive. I was trapped between his body and the edge of the bed, pinned like a butterfly to a board.

My mind churned through possibilities. Maybe Marcus had pulled him aside after I left, told him he'd crossed a line. Maybe even Kieran, who seemed to have slightly more conscience than the others, had said something about the soup incident being excessive. Maybe Damien was trying to smooth things over before I got any ideas about leaving him.

Or maybe this was simpler than that. Maybe he'd come home and found me gone, and some primitive part of his brain that viewed me as a possession had panicked. Not because he cared about me, but because he liked knowing where his things were.

I almost laughed at that thought, then caught myself. Damien was a light sleeper.

The burns on my chest and stomach throbbed, a constant reminder of what this man was capable of. Of what I'd let him do to me, over and over, because I'd been chasing a ghost.

Beside me, Damien shifted, his arm tightening around me briefly before relaxing again. He murmured something in his sleep—a name that might have been "Amber" or might have been nothing at all.

I closed my eyes and focused on breathing, on staying still, on not waking him. This would be over soon. I'd figure out which of his friends owned that necklace. I'd find the boy who'd actually saved me all those years ago. And then I'd burn this entire life to the ground and walk away without looking back.

The thought sustained me as I finally drifted off to sleep, Damien's arm still heavy across my waist, his breath still warm on my neck, the burns still stinging beneath my pajamas.

I dreamed of fire and freedom, of a version of myself who'd never seen that necklace, who'd never convinced herself that this man was worth destroying herself for.

When I woke up, Damien was gone. The sheets beside me were cold, and I could hear the shower running in the bathroom. Everything was back to normal, as if last night's unexpected tenderness had never happened.

I touched the burns on my chest carefully, feeling the raised edges of the blisters through my pajama top. They would heal. Scars took time, but they eventually faded.

Some scars, anyway.

I got out of bed and looked at my reflection in the dresser mirror. The woman staring back at me looked tired, worn down, defeated. But underneath that carefully constructed exterior, I could feel something else stirring. Something sharp and dangerous and absolutely done with playing small.

Soon, I promised my reflection. Soon you get to come back.

The shower turned off. I heard Damien moving around in the bathroom, and I quickly smoothed the expression from my face, replacing it with the bland, pleasant mask I'd worn for eighteen months.

Just a little longer. Just until I found out the truth.

Then Adriana Chen could disappear forever, and Adriana Salvadore could reclaim everything she'd lost.