“You are, Daddy.”
I lift my eyes to his face. Forbes might be handsome, but he’s never looked uglier than he does right now.
“Do you hit those girls like you do me?”
I see surprise flicker across his face.
Even though we are both very clear on the fact that Forbes hits me … I’ve never actually said the words out loud before. They feel odd to have said, but also empowering.
“No,” he answers, his voice cold.
And the empowerment I held so briefly dissipates and I want to cry. The ugly type of cry.
He beats me because he can.
Because I allow it.
Because I’m weak.
“Why me?” I ask. I know why, but the sadistic part of me wants to hear him confirm it.
He moves closer until he is right in front of me.
I don’t move this time. I stand my ground, even though my legs are shaking to the point that I’m surprised I’m actually still standing.
If my act of strength surprises him, he doesn’t let it show. He leans down, getting in my face. His hot breath burns my skin. I can still smell that girl on him.
I want to vomit.
“Because you’re mine, Mia.” His voice sounds like a hiss. “You belong to me. You’re my other half. My little … easily controllable … fucked-up other half.”
I might have known this already, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting. I hide the burning flinch of pain I feel because I don’t want him to have the pleasure of knowing.
He lifts his hand.
I flinch.
This pleases him.
Touching my cheek with the barest of touches, he runs his fingers across my skin and tucks my long hair behind my ear.
“You really are beautiful,” he murmurs, brushing his fingers through my hair and down my back. Then he roughly grabs a hand full of my hair, yanking my head back. My eyes water from the pain.
“You and I are the same, you know.” His voice is low and vengeful. “Pretty on the outside, but all kinds of f**ked up on the inside. I wanted you, Mia, for the same reason you wanted me. Because like knows like. The abused becomes the abuser. Or, in your case, the abused just stays abused.”
A veil lifts from my eyes. How did I not see it before?
Stereotypical pattern.
Forbes has lived my childhood. To what degree, I don’t think I’ll ever know. But he’s lived through the pain.
Did his father beat him too?
I suddenly feel awash with sadness for him. An ache for the child he was. For the childhood that was stolen from him as mine was.
Then I look up at the man before me, and that sorrow instantly turns to rage. White hot rage.
He knows how it feels, yet he does it to me.
He could have stopped the cycle. Just loved me. I would have loved him back without question. I would have given him all of me. My heart. Together, we could have healed each other.
But instead, all he gave me was a co-dependent, hate fueled, abusive relationship.
And now I’m just left with an empty chasm, lined with that hatred, and bitter resentment.
I open my mouth to tell him this … then it hits me.
I could have walked away … maybe not walked, but run. I should have run.
The simple truth is that I took the only way I knew … I carried on being the old me. The one who Oliver created, instead of trying to find a new Mia. The real Mia.
Because I was afraid to try.
Anger for my own failings burst in my chest … swelling … compressing me from the inside out. I feel as if I’m going to explode under the pressure.
I somehow manage to find my voice. “I want you to leave.”
Cruel laughter bursts from him. “You breaking up with me, Mia?”
It takes everything in me, but I force myself to meet his eyes. “I’d say I’ve got good reason to, wouldn’t you?”
He grabs my face, pinching my cheeks hard, then shoves my head back. He wraps his hand around my upper arm, yanking me straight back to him. I collide hard with his chest.
“So, let me get this straight – I get to smack you around whenever I feel like it, but the moment you catch me with my dick in some cheap slut, you’re apparently done?”
I wince from the pressure of his fingers digging into my arm, but I speak through the pain. “It’s got nothing to do with you having sex with that girl. This is me finally waking up. Something I should have done a long time ago. I won’t continue to be your punching bag, Forbes. And I definitely won’t become your whore.”
He laughs in my face. His voice chilly, he says, “You’ve been my whore from the moment I met you.”
“What happens when you dress like a whore, Mia?”
I bit my lip through the lashing, unable to speak through the pain.
“Answer me!”
My body jumps from the force of his voice. Sweat trickled down the side of my face, like the tears I wanted to shed. “I-I get treated like o-one, D-Daddy.”
“Exactly right. You’re finally starting to learn.”
Something in me snaps.
I stare hard into Forbes’ eyes. “I’m no one’s whore! Now get the hell out of my apartment! I’m done with you!”
Rage engorges his features, making him barely recognizable. In all this time, I’ve never seen him this angry, this far gone.
I should be terrified. I’m not.
“Done with me?” he spits in my face. “You think it’s that f**kin’ easy? I’m going nowhere! And neither are you!”