I knew my answer was going to damn me, but I couldn’t lie to her. “Yes.”
She let out an anguish sob as she wrapped her arms around her waist. “You would have sent them to prison for taking the bait you set up for them?”
“Yes. If I couldn’t have you, then I was going to make sure I wasn’t the only one who was going to be miserable for the rest of their life. I had every intention of taking you down with me. I wasn’t going to settle for anything less than having you, Fiona, and if that wasn’t going to happen, well, then I wasn’t going to allow you to be happy without me.”
Her eyes flashed and the rage on her face was unmistakable. “Who the fuck do you think you are? What makes you think you can just play with people’s lives? Are you so selfish and so evil that it doesn’t play on your conscience at all to destroy people’s happiness just for the sake of winning?!”
I couldn’t help the beast arousing inside me. She did that to me. Only her. “It doesn’t when the prize of winning is you.”
That only seemed to inflame her fury. “I’m not some goddamn prize!”
I stormed over to her, grabbing her by her arm and yanking her towards me, locking her to my body, I stared down at her fuming and unguarded. “No, you’re not. But you seem to still be unaware of exactly what you mean to me, Fiona! You seem to think that when I say I’m obsessed with you that I’m exaggerating or throwing out common phrases that all couples use. Well, here’s the complete truth. When I say I love you, I don’t mean I love you in the traditional sense, I mean I love you like I can’t fucking breath with it. When I say I’m obsessed with you, I don’t mean I’m addicted to your body and I just want to fuck you. I mean that every thought, every action, and every emotion I have ever felt since I was five revolves around you. And when I say I will kill any man who touches you, I mean just that!”
She wasn’t hearing me. “You say you love me but all you do is manipulate and hurt me. How can you say you love me but lie and torment me? You don’t love me, Damien. You love the power you feel making another human being cave to you. You love the power you feel knowing you can play God with people’s lives…with my life.”
I threw my head back and the laugh I let out was as sinister as it got. “I play God every day at work, Fiona. I hold people’s financial futures in my hands. People cave to me all day, every day.” I got right into her face. “And none of it makes me feel a fucking thing! No one and nothing makes me feel anything except you. The only time I feel powerful is when I think of you, are seeing you and, Sweet Jesus, when I’m inside of you.” I shook her body, hoping it would make her finally understand the depths of my sickness. “And you’re right, I love the way it feels when you make me feel invincible and I’m not giving up that feeling for anything in the world!”
Fiona gasped and, wrenching her arm out of my grasped, stepped back from me. “You’re going to have to find a way to give it up because I want nothing more to do with you. Get the fuck out of my house!” She closed her eyes and really started sobbing.
I stuck my hands in my pockets to keep the beast from dragging her into the bedroom and not giving her a choice. My voice was quiet and lethal. “Look at me, Fiona.” She raised her sorrowful brown gaze to mine. “Do you really believe I’m going to walk out of this house and never come back?”
She was stunning in her rage. Fiona’s innocent always glowed, and her submission was powerful. But all the years she spent cowering underneath my bullying…Fiona was magnificent when she showed her strength. She was and always has been the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. “I’ll call the police then. I’ll get a restraining order against you. Just like you can excuse everything you’ve done by convincing yourself it was a necessity, I can do the same.”