least, they want to be. I’m certain my lingering company is the only thing keeping them apart.
That’s one of the reasons I hide when she arrives. I haven’t even met her, choosing instead to remain in my room, or in the secluded spot I’ve claimed on the back deck.
I’ve tried hard not to pry about the woman who keeps him company even though I get a sinking sensation whenever she arrives.
“I’ll leave you in privacy.” I keep clinging to my mug as I walk around the counter. “I’ll be in the backyard.”
I wish I could remain by his side. That I was whole enough to be a normal person, conversing and laughing whenever company arrived. Once, I even tried to imagine what it would be like to live here long-term. Like a wife. Just me and Luca. No outside world. No fears.
But those fantasies are for normal people. Unbroken women.
I’m nothing if not entirely damaged.
My only choice is to tread lightly and lessen the burden on a man who never wanted me here. I need to pretend I’m invisible and make sure I don’t provoke any unwanted reactions.
Just like I did when I was a slave.
2
Luca
The doorbell rings again as Penny creeps onto the back deck, closing the door gently behind her.
“Fuck.” I wipe a rough hand over the back of my neck, entirely out of my element. I don’t know what I’m meant to do with her. I’ve given her space. I haven’t pushed. But, goddamnit, all I’ve wanted to do is shove her into facing reality. She can’t heal when she continues to ignore her past.
“Luca,” Sarah shouts from the front yard. “Are you home?”
“I’m coming.” I stalk down the hall and yank open the front door to find her scowling, a clump of filled shopping bags hanging from her hands.
“What the hell took so long?” She slams her haul at my chest, making me struggle to grasp the bags as she maneuvers around me to enter the house. “The least you could do is open the damn door when you’re treating me like your little errand bitch.”
I wrangle the straps of the bags into one hand and kick the door closed. “And the least you could do is have some fucking patience when it’s barely nine o’clock.”
I follow after her, but continue down the hall when she diverts to the open living area. I take the bags to my room, doing a quick search of the contents after I dump them on the bed. The self-help books I asked her to pick up are all there. The titles on trauma and PTSD wait for a time when Penny will be ready to read them. There’re more clothes in there, too.
I keep buying shit in an attempt to help her… then can’t bring myself to hand them over.
She’s not ready for my input.
She has a process for dealing with her pain, and I have no right to mess with it.
I’ve gotta be patient—a fucking saint—while I watch her suffer.
I leave the bags in a pile on the mattress and return to Sarah in the kitchen, her hands already clasping a filled coffee mug.
My filled coffee mug.
“You know that’s mine, right?” I stalk for the cupboards to retrieve another mug.
She shrugs. “Yeah, I know. But things always taste better when they’re taken from someone you don’t like.”
Great. She’s in one of those moods. The combative, poking, prodding type which does my head in.
“So, how is she today?” She cocks her hip against the counter. “Any change?”
“Nope.” I play with the coffee machine, pressing buttons until it grumbles to life. “She’s exactly the same, pretending life is peachy when clearly it isn’t.”
“Have you given her any of the things I’ve brought over? The clothes? The books?”
“I gave her the cell.” I wait until my mug is filled, then walk around the island counter to reclaim my stool. “She didn’t even bother to open the box. It’s still sitting there. Untouched.” I jerk my head toward the plastic-wrapped package on the dining table. “Every day I offer to set the phone up for her, but she doesn’t want it. She has no interest in speaking to her friends. She says she’s not ready. Which might be a good thing seeing as though I’m struggling to get in contact with Benji.”
My brother was left in charge of taking care of the other women rescued from Luther’s mansion. The three of them—Abi, Lilly and Nina—will remain with him until he’s certain they’ve got