Blue-Eyed Devil (Travis Family #2)(15)

I realized Nick had less interest in the baby itself than in its usefulness as a way to manipulate Churchill Travis. Would he feel differently when the baby was born? Would he be one of those fathers who melted at the sight of the small person he had helped to bring into the world?

As hard as I tried to imagine it, I couldn't see Nick summoning the patience to deal with a screaming infant, a messy toddler, a needy child. It frightened me, thinking of how tightly I would be bound to him, how dependent I would be once we had a baby together.

I went into the bathroom to get ready for work, brushing mascara onto my lashes, slicking on lip gloss. Nick followed, rummaging through the assortment of cosmetics and hair products I had set out on the counter. He found the round plastic container my birth control pills came in, and flipped it open to reveal the wheel of pastel-colored tablets.

"You don't need these anymore." He tossed the pills into the trash.

"I need to finish the cycle," I protested. "And usually before you try to get pregnant, you go in to get a checkup — "

"You're healthy. You'll be fine." He put a hand on my shoulder, forcing me up as I bent to retrieve the pills. "Leave them."

A disbelieving laugh bubbled from my throat. I had been conditioned over months to tolerate Nick's whims for the sake of harmony, but this was too much. I was not going to be forced into having a baby neither of us was ready for.

"Nick, I'd rather wait." I picked up a hairbrush and began to drag it through my tangled hair. "And this really isn't a good time to talk about having children, with both of us getting ready for work and — "

"I'll decide what we talk about and when!" The explosive intensity of his voice startled me into dropping the hairbrush. "I didn't realize I had to make a goddamn appointment with you to talk about our personal life!"

I went white with alarm, my heart kicking into a violent rhythm. "Nick — "

"Do you ever think about anyone or anything besides yourself?" Anger had knotted his throat and the tiny muscles of his face. "It's always about what you want . . . you selfish bitch, what about what I want?"

He leaned over me, towering and furious, and I shrank against the mirror. "Nick, I just . . ." My mouth had gone so dry, I could ha rely force the words out. "I'm not saying no. I just want . . . would like . . . to talk about it later."

That earned a look of soul-shredding contempt. "I don't know. It may not be worth talking about. This whole marriage may not be worth a shit pile. You think you did me some big f**king favor, marrying me? I was the one who did you a favor. You think anyone else would put up with your crap?"

"Nick — " Panicky and confused, I watched him walk to the bed room. I started to follow, but 1 hung back, fearful of maddening him further. The men in my family were generally slow to anger, and once they worked up to an explosion, it was over soon. Nick's temper was different, a fire that fed on itself, growing until its proportions had far outstripped the cause. In this case, I wasn't sure what the best strategy should be . . . If I went after him to apologize, it might pour fuel on his rage. But if I stayed in the bathroom, he might take new offense at being ignored.

I settled for hovering at the doorway, straddling both rooms, watching for a sign of what Nick wanted. He went to the closet and pushed through the clothing with quick, vicious movements, hunting for a shirt. Deciding to retreat, I went back into the bathroom.

My cheeks looked white and stiff. I brushed on some pink blush in light strokes, but the tinted powder seemed to sit on top of my skin, not blending. The brush caught at the mist of nervous sweat and made ruddy streaks. I reached for a washcloth, about to clean it all off, and that was when the world seemed to explode.

Nick had come back, cornering me, clutching something in one fist. Screaming. I'd never had someone scream into my face like that before, certainly not a man, and it was a kind of death. I was reduced to the level of an animal under attack, unable to slip beyond the whiteness of fear, frozen in mute incomprehension.

The thing in his hand was a striped shirt . . . I had ruined it somehow . . . a mistake . . . but Nick said it was sabotage. I had done it on purpose, he said. He needed it for an important meeting this morning, and I said no, I didn't mean to I'm so sorry but every word brought murderous heat to his face and his arm drew back and the world caught fire.

My head snapped to the side, my cheek blazing, and droplets of sweat and tears went flying. A burning stillness settled. The veins in my face felt huge and pumping.

I was slow to comprehend that Nick had hit me. I stood swaying, blank, using my fingertips to explore where the heat had turned to numbness.

I couldn't see through the blur in my eyes, but I heard Nick's voice, thick with disgust. "Look what you made me do." He went back into the bedroom.

No retreat. I couldn't run from the apartment. We had only one car. And I didn't know where I would go. I held the washcloth under cold water, sat on the closed toilet seat and held the dripping mass against my cheek.

There was no one I could tell. This was something Todd or my other friends couldn't comfort me about, couldn't say it was part of a normal relationship. Shame spread through me, leaking from the marrow of my bones . . . the feeling that I must have deserved it, or it wouldn't have happened. I knew that wasn't right. But something in me, in the way I had been formed, made it impossible to escape that spreading shame. It had lurked inside me forever, waiting to surface. Waiting for Nick, or someone like him. I was stained with it, like invisible ink . . . in the right light, it would show.