Pretty Little Wife(2)

His stuff. He viewed everything, even her, as his property.

For a few seconds, she stared at him and wondered why she’d ever agreed to that first date. He’d been charming, sure. All guy-next-door with his light brown hair and bright blue eyes. He was tall, but not threateningly so. Attractive in his confidence. His smile had won her over. He seemed . . . harmless. That’s what she’d craved. The benign.

Now she wanted to punch that mouth and keep hitting until silence blanketed her.

“Why are you just sitting there? What’s wrong with you?” he asked as he turned in a slow circle, taking in every inch of her rampage.

“I was looking for your shirt.” Her voice came out steady, amazing even her.

“The one you lost.” He said it as if that were a fact. “I appreciate the effort but you should have asked before you went rifling through my things.”

“I live here, too.”

“Okay, but you have to admit that this looks . . .”

“What?” She had no idea how he would twist his way out of this one.

“Unhinged.”

Oh, right. Of course he would say that. Blame her.

This time—this time only—he wasn’t wrong. She felt unwound. Held together by a thin thread of sheer will and nothing more.

“I found this.” She held up the new-to-her phone.

His expression didn’t change. His mouth didn’t so much as twitch. “What is it?”

As if he didn’t know. The lying asshole.

“Don’t do that. It’s yours, and we both know it.”

He let out a long breath. It came out as an exhausted sigh, as if he’d been stuck with her for too long and had grown weary. “Now, don’t get hysterical.”

Gaslighting. She heard it in the fake soothing cadence of his voice. In every syllable.

“I haven’t moved.” She forced her voice to stay flat. Sucked all of the emotion out of the words to prevent him from throwing them back at her.

He glanced at the phone then to her face. “But you’ve let your imagination run wild. I know you.”

He didn’t, but leave it to him to find a way to make himself the wronged party in this. “That’s not true.”

“Look at this mess.” He motioned toward the empty dresser drawers.

She tightened her grip on the phone. “You didn’t even use a different pin.”

“That’s enough.” The deeper they waded into the emotional morass, the more in control he sounded. That placating voice. He even held up his hands in mock surrender as if he needed to calm her down. “Listen to me.”

“Go ahead. Try to explain.”

“I shouldn’t have to.” He stopped the sentence there and held her gaze for a few seconds with an unwavering glare. “But the reality is it’s nothing. A practical joke by a couple of students that went sideways. Nothing to worry about.”

He thought she was an idiot. That was the only explanation.

Her muscles shook, but she forced her body up. Somehow managed to get to her feet and stay there. “I know what I saw.”

He sighed at her again, full of indignation and unsteady tolerance. “What you think you saw. Because I promise you’re wrong.”

More gaslighting.

The trick jumped out at her now. He formed sentences and revised history to make her think she was the unreasonable one. Turned and twisted the facts until she questioned her brain and her eyes. Dumped her in a place where she doubted everything except him.

Not this time. He’d done the one thing she couldn’t slap an explanation on, or let him weasel out of, or chisel down into nothing.

Her fingers clenched around the phone until the plastic dug into her palm. “Get out.”

All that fake civility vanished as his mouth curled in a snarl. “It’s my fucking house.”

He had never hit her, but maybe that had been a matter of good timing and a bit of luck. The right push and this could be it.

Every cell inside her screamed to move, but she refused to back down. She took a step closer, challenging him on the most basic level. Questioning what he insisted belonged solely to him. She lifted her chin higher. “The house is ours.”

His hand whipped out and caught her around the throat. “Say that again.”

She tried to swallow but couldn’t. Said his name, but it came out as a harsh whisper. Her spirit refused to break. “It’s ours. Mine as much as yours.”

Those fingers flexed against her skin. His palm pressed against her windpipe, daring her to push him past the brink. He didn’t squeeze, but the hatred pulsing off him told her he could and would never regret it. Pure disdain. There was no other way to describe it. As if he wouldn’t blink if she disappeared.

He leaned in until his mouth hovered over her ear. “Did you pay for the house, Lila? One mortgage payment? One tax payment? A water bill?”

He’d put her name on the title, but he viewed the property as his. He deposited money into the joint account to cover bills. Not a penny more. He let her write the actual checks, but he controlled every dime, every month, then looked like he expected her to thank him for being a great provider.

“You never gave me that choice.” She wanted them to be equals. That’s what she’d signed up for when they got married. It’s what they’d agreed to. But with each year he took more control and lessened her role. Turned her into some sort of dress-up doll he paraded around town.