Behind Closed Doors(28)
‘Never!’ I spat. ‘I will never be your perfect wife. If you think I’m going to stay married to you after what you’ve told me, have your children—’
He burst out laughing, cutting me off. ‘Children! Do you know what the hardest thing I’ve ever done is? It wasn’t killing my mother or seeing my father go off to prison—both those things were easy, a pleasure even. No, the hardest thing I’ve ever done is have sex with you. How could you not have guessed, how could you not have seen through my excuses? How could you not have realised when I did finally have sex with you that I found it an effort, disgusting, unnatural? That’s why I disappeared last night. I knew you’d be expecting me to make love to you—after all, it was our wedding night—and the thought of having to go through with it just to keep up appearances was more than I could bear. So you see, I am not expecting you to have my children. When people begin asking, we will tell them that we are experiencing problems, and after that they will ask no more out of politeness. I need you to be my wife, but in name only. You are not my reward, Grace, Millie is.’
I stared at him. ‘Millie?’
‘Yes, Millie. She fits all my requirements perfectly. In another sixteen months, she’ll be mine and I’ll finally be able to have what I’ve had to deny myself for so long. Nobody, only you, will ever miss her. Not that I intend to kill her—I made that mistake once before.’
I leapt to my feet. ‘Do you honestly think I’ll let you harm a hair on Millie’s head?’
‘If I really wanted to, do you honestly think you’d be able to stop me?’ I ran towards the door. ‘It’s locked,’ he said, sounding bored.
‘Help!’ I yelled, hammering on the door with my fist. ‘Help!’
‘Do that one more time and you’ll never see Millie again!’ he barked. ‘Come back and sit down.’
Beside myself with fear, I carried on hammering on the door, screaming for help.
‘I’m warning you, Grace. Remember what I told you about putting Millie in an asylum? Do you know how easily I can arrange it?’ He snapped his fingers together. ‘This fast.’
I spun round to face him. ‘My parents would never let that happen!’
‘Do you really see them rushing over from their cosy lives in New Zealand to rescue her and take her back to live with them? I think not. There is no one, Grace, no one to save Millie, not even you.’
‘I’m her legal guardian!’ I cried.
‘So am I, and I have the paper to prove it.’
‘I would never agree for her to be put away!’
‘But what if you were also proved to be of unsound mind? As your husband, I would then be responsible for both you and Millie and could do as I wished.’ He indicated the door. ‘Be my guest—carry on banging on the door and screaming for help. It lays the foundation for your madness.’
‘You’re the one who’s mad,’ I hissed.
‘Obviously.’ He stood up, walked over to the bedside table, yanked the phone from its socket, took a penknife from his pocket and cut through the cord. ‘I’m going to give you a little time by yourself to mull over what I’ve said and, when I come back, we’ll talk again. Come and sit on the bed.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t be tiresome.’
‘You’re not keeping me locked up in here!’
He walked over to where I was standing. ‘I don’t want to have to hurt you, for the simple reason that I might not be able to stop. But I will if I have to.’ He raised his arms and, thinking he was going to hit me, I flinched. ‘And if you were to die, where would that leave Millie?’
I felt his hands on my shoulders and went rigid with fear, expecting them to move to my neck. Instead, he manoeuvred me roughly to the bed and pushed me onto it. As relief washed over me that he hadn’t strangled me, that I was still alive, the sound of the door opening spurred me from the bed. But, before I could get there, he slipped through it and, as it closed behind him, I beat my fists against it, calling for him to let me out. Hearing his footsteps disappearing down the corridor, I yelled for help over and over again. But nobody came and, distraught, I sank to the floor and wept.
It took me a while to pull myself together. I got to my feet and went over to the sliding doors that led onto the balcony, but no matter how hard I tugged on them I couldn’t get them to open. Craning my neck, I looked out over the balcony, but all I could see was blue sky and the roofs of some buildings. Our room was on the sixth floor at the end of a long corridor, which meant there was no neighbouring room on one side. Going over to the other wall, I knocked on it hard several times, but, when there was no corresponding knock back, I guessed that most people were out sightseeing, because it was mid-afternoon.
Needing to do something, I turned my attention to our cases on the bed and began to rummage through them, looking for anything that would help me get out of the room. But there was nothing. Both my tweezers and nail scissors had disappeared. I had no idea how Jack had managed to get them out of my wash bag without me seeing but as it had been in the hold, in my case, I could only presume he had removed them before we left England, probably at the hotel while I’d been in the bathroom. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes at the thought that less than twenty-four hours earlier, I’d been looking forward to starting married life with no inkling of the horror ahead.