40

Callahan
“Why? Why are you being nice?”
“I’m a nice guy.” I give her a smile that’s more a baring of teeth than anything else.
“Or is it that you fucked your whore last night like you wanted, and you feel guilty?”
“What?”
That stops me.
“I heard the chopper go out. After you dragged me upstairs, I mean.”
“And you think I went off the island to find a whore to fuck?”
Is she fucking serious?
“Did you?”
“Would you care if I did?”
“I don’t want any diseases.”
I snort, put my mug down and go to her. “I didn’t fuck any whore. I didn’t even leave the island. That was two of my men who went to the mainland.”
She looks at me, studies my eyes. Maybe she’s trying to gauge if I’m telling the truth. Then she shrugs a shoulder like she could care less but I know better.
“I used my hand.”
It takes her a moment to catch on and her mouth falls open when she does.
I grin. “I used my hand to jerk myself off. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“More than I needed to know, actually. Spare me the details.”
“Virgin ears can’t take it?”
“You know what? Fuck you. Our marriage is just a front anyway. You can fuck anyone you want. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
She takes a step back, putting space between us, and picks up her mug to sip. That’s when I notice she’s not wearing the ring.
“Where’s your ring?” I ask urgently.
“I took it off last night. After you manhandled me up here and locked me in all for.”
“Where is the fucking ring, Portia?”
She looks confused but gestures to the bathroom.
I walk in to find it on the counter by the sink. Picking it up I return to the bedroom to take the mug from her hands, not caring about the splash of scalding coffee on my fingers. I push the ring back on her finger.
“Ow. You don’t have to be so rough.”
I squeeze her wrist. “Some girls need rough. You need rough.”
“Why are you so angry with me? What did I even do?”
I close my hands over her shoulders and walk her backward to the wall.
“It doesn’t come off again.”
“Fine.”
“Tonight, you’re going to be my wife. That means something to me.”
“It shouldn’t. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“No? Are you changing your mind?”
She stares up at me. She’s testing. “I’m just making sure you know I’m only doing it because I don’t have a choice, Callahan.”
I look down at her, at the expanse of skin exposed by the robe. Reaching down I finger the knot of the belt taking my time to undo it. I trace my knuckle over the center of her chest, up over her throat so she tilts her head back a little. I only stop when I have her chin in my grasp. I hold her at an angle that’s just short of comfortable.
“I know what they did to you,” I say.
She clenches her jaw, narrows her eyes.
“Your brothers. I know what they did when Fernando wanted a look.”
Pink flushes her cheeks, and her eyes go from indignant, to hurt, to accusing.
“They humiliated you.”
Tears well in her eyes but she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t attempt to pull free.
“While your uncle stood by and watched.”
Those tears begin their procession down her cheeks, thick and wet. But she still won’t look away. Good. She and I both need to look at things with eyes wide open.
“I could force you, Portia. I could humiliate you. Hurt you.”
I feel her swallow when she lowers her lashes, letting those tears rush out.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” she asks, voice quieter than usual.
“You don’t make this easy, you know that?” I let her go, step back, and run my hand through my hair.
“How did you know?” she asks, her voice tight.
“Your uncle told me.”
“Of course, he did. Did he tell you he tried to stop them? Because that would have been a lie.”
“I know the kind of man he is.”
Silence, then, “What do you want, Callahan? Why are you here? I’m going to do what you said, what we agreed. So why bother talking to me now after the way you treated me last night?”
“Do you remember what I said last night about my enemies?”
I see from her face she does. It was graphic. Overdone, I admit.
She nods.
“I need a friend, Portia. Just one friend.”
She studies me, confused. I get it. I’m confused too. Is this what I’d intended to say when I came in here?
She snorts then, shaking her head and wiping errant tears off her cheeks.
“Why do you do this?” she asks.
“Do what?”
“Mess with me. First there’s what happened last night. You almost kill me, then you… you kiss me and,” she pauses, breaking eye contact and pushing her fingers into her hair.
“After you do what you do, you order me out of your study like I’m used up. A piece of trash.”
“You’re not a piece of trash. I never said that.”
“It’s how I felt. How you made me feel.”
“Well, that wasn’t my intention. I was protecting you.”
“Protecting me?”
“Yes.”
She shakes her head again as if dismissing that. “Then you drag me upstairs practically pulling my arm out of its socket and lock me in here. Then this morning you come in here looking all guilty.”
“Guilty?”
“And manhandle me again, then ask me to be yor friend? Are you schizophrenic? Is that what this is?”
I chuckle. I shake my head this time.
“Have you gone off your meds, Callahan?”
“Be careful, Portia.”
“Because if you think I’m your friend, you’ve surely lost your mind.”
I fist my hands at my sides, force myself to breathe. This was a mistake. Saying what I just said – god what the fuck even possessed me to say it?
I need to get out of here before I hurt her because man does she know the buttons to push.
“You and me, we’re enemies. Enemies to the end,” she says, a new energy fueling her words.
“To what end?” My self-control is gone in an instant. Before I can think, I slap my hands to the wall on either side of her head so hard and so loud, I’m sure there’s a dent.
She jumps, deer-in-headlights eyes on me. There’s only fear in them now.
“You want to be my enemy, Little Kitten.”
I watch her throat work as she swallows.
“You got it. Enemies until the end. Know that you’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life.”
Only when I push off do I hear her audibly exhale.
She wobbles and slides down the wall a little before locking her knees to stay upright.
I fist a handful of hair to make her look at me. You just make sure you look pretty for me and you say those two little words. Because if you don’t, I’ll break your brother’s neck in front of your eyes and throw his broken body at your feet.
“Are we clear?”
She stares at me with terror in her eyes. Stares at me like she’s looking at the devil incarnate. And maybe she is.
“Are we fucking clear?” I scream and she whimpers, cowering.
Cowering away from me. And fuck me.
I release her, slam a fist into the wall.
I hate myself right now. Hate myself because what have I become? What kind of monster am I?
“Ah, fuck you Portia! Fuck you for doing this to me!”