Be a Doll(70)

It was over anyway.

Maybe I would sleep with him again, maybe we would be able to be civil toward each other, but from now on I wouldn’t forget, even for the time that took my heart to beat twice, that I was no more than hired to be his wife. I wouldn’t forget that it wasn’t because he held a world of pain and grief inside him that I should try and do something for him that went beyond what was expected of me as a Carter Manor certified wife.

My phone buzzed between my fingers, drawing me out of my thoughts. I stopped on the sidewalk next to a cab parked playing music so loud it was a mystery as to imagine how someone could stand it inside. I fished out my phone and saw a text from Mathis.

Exhaustion slammed into me at seeing his name on the screen and the beginning of his text. I expected anger or shame at my reaction, but only exhaustion filled me.



You shouldn’t be wandering around the city on your own at night.



I turned off my phone without answering and turned back around from where I came from. It was useless to stay away. I couldn’t stay away all night long anyway and I didn’t need another fight with him regarding my whereabouts. I’d much prefer to get in bed and sleep, preferably in a bed I didn’t share with Mathis, but there again I didn’t hold any hope. He wouldn’t let me have that leeway. He needed his control, wanted to have some kind of power over me and what best than to keep me close even in sleep?

And the worst in all of that was that I had no idea if I would push him away if he tried to make a move to have sex with me again.

Before the end of that marriage I would hate myself from my lack of self-esteem and then I wouldn’t have anything, but a fat bank account.

I would have never thought my life would ever amount to this.

***





MATHIS


I ran a hand through my hair and tugged on a few strands with nerves and a bad case of uncertainty. In my everyday life I had everything in order. I was the one setting the pace in everything from my job to my private life and the only thing that didn’t fit that mold was my family, but with Lila it was something else.

She drove me fucking crazy.

I should have listened to Lucas when he told me I should put a tracking app on her damn phone, just to be sure if something happened to her. If I had listened instead of brushing him off, thinking that I didn’t care what she did every day unless it reflected badly on me. I would know now where she was and I could get her perfect round ass back here.

But no, it was better to let me stew here while I worried about her.

I worried about her.

God, that was such a foreign concept. The only women I worried about were my mother and sister, and even then I wouldn’t admit it aloud and nobody could see by just looking at me. With Lila? Anybody would know with one quick cursory look my way.

It’s been over an hour. Surely it was enough to calm down and come back.

“Fuck it,’’ I muttered to nobody and strode to the dining room table where I had left my cell phone, ready to dial Lucas so he would find Lila. The man knew people and I didn’t care who he contacted to find her.

I started swiping down in my contact list when the keys in the door stopped me. I twirled my head in the direction of the door and threw down the phone on the table when it started opening. Heart wild in my chest and electric shocks coursing through my muscles, I ran to the entry hall. A mix of anger and something else flared inside me as my eyes stared as the door opened inch by inch, revealing more of Lila’s body hidden under her long black coat.

“Where the fuck were you?’’ I blurted out as soon as she took a step inside the apartment. “And why didn’t you answer my damn text?’’

She stopped, stared at me, not with anger, but with a blank stare that made the hair on the back of my neck and forearms rise.

“If you want me to leave again, keep up the good work.’’

Then, she hung up her purse and coat in the closet near the front door and faced me again, her eyes still blank. I had never seen that look on her face and I didn’t like it. It was precisely the kind of look I had expected on seeing when I first walked in Carter Manor to find myself a wife. There was nothing but mild politeness or disinterest. The life I wanted to breathe in through me was nowhere in sight. Only a shell seemed to be standing in front of me in that hall.

The urge to shake her, to make her mad rose inside me. Anything to get a reaction out of her, to find the Lila I thought I knew, the Lila that fascinated me in spite of my better judgment.

“Adults don’t leave because they’re upset. Only children go to pout.’’

“Whatever you say,’’ she mumbled and sidestepped me, careful not to touch me and then she turned, without a doubt heading for the stairs to get to bed.

I was left to follow after her like some damn puppy and my anger became a tempest I craved to release, but the outcome couldn’t be any good. I could be destructive when feeling half like I was feeling right now.

“What is wrong with you?’’ I yelled after her, a question I knew she wouldn’t answer, but apparently when trying to keep the venom inside I craved to unleash inside of her veins, nothing smart came out in its stead.

“I’m tired and I would like to go to bed if you don’t mind.’’ Still with that bland voice, even and without any kind of emotion.

I lengthened my steps and grabbed her arm before she put a foot on the first step of the staircase. Under my fingers her bicep tightened for a second before it was gone. I held onto that tiny flex of a muscle to believe that she wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted to appear, but it was grasping at straws at best, so pathetic that I wanted to punch my own face for it.