Poison - Jade West Page 0,88

front door, turned off the intruder alarm and hung his jacket up. He tossed the keys on the kitchen counter and I watched him. I watched him ignoring me with that same scowl on his face he’d had since I ordered the prosecco at the bar.

“Did you take your meds?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I took them before the club.”

“No seizures?”

“None,” I said.

“Well, that’s a fucking blessing, isn’t it? Considering you asked for one with your fucking drinking.”

He poured me a glass of water, and slammed it on the counter. I sipped it as quickly as I could.

“Bed time,” he said. “At least you can get something fucking right with your ill fucking brain.”

I hadn’t even taken my coat off, but he didn’t notice, just stormed on by me and headed upstairs. My hands were shaking as I took off my heels and got ready to follow him. My legs felt bandy as I climbed the stairs, my heart still thumping as he finished brushing his teeth with the bathroom door open.

He jammed his toothbrush back in the holder and stomped across the landing to the bedroom, and I brushed my teeth with my hands still shaking, praying I could be the person I needed to be to make this work all over again.

He was still undressing when I joined him in the bedroom. He tossed his cufflinks down onto the dressing table and tugged his tie loose.

I watched him cast it on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you like me to be careful, and I know I shouldn’t be drinking, but I like a prosecco now, just one every now and again. Just to loosen up a bit.”

He sneered at me. “Sure you do. And I guess you need to puff on some filthy fucking cigarettes to loosen up a bit too, do you?”

I didn’t have an answer to that, just stood hovering awkward and feeling disgusted with myself.

He stepped up closer, and sniffed at the air. “You smell revolting, Anna. What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?”

I hated him like this, after too many drinks out at Oscars. I hated the way his ego grew, and his self-righteousness grew along with it. And it was sad, because he wasn’t like this, not in regular life when he was caring, and trying, and wanting to save me from my own failing brain.

“I just smoke sometimes now,” I told him, and shrugged to try to lighten it.

His eyes were full of rage, and I didn’t blame him for that. I knew I was asking a lot for him to pick up the pieces. I knew I was asking a lot for him to treat me like the woman I used to be before I’d walked out and left him behind.

“This is his doing, isn’t it?” he spat. “This is that piece of shit’s influence on you all over again?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, but I felt my cheeks burning up.

“Don’t think I don’t know about you diving right back into that filthy pit with that filthy cunt, Anna. I know all about what you ran back to, with those slutty little legs of yours spread wide and begging.”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that.”

He laughed in my face. “Oh, believe me. I know what it was like. I pulled you up from the wreck of it last time around, remember?”

I did remember.

I remembered and I was grateful, and I would be again, but he looked so spiteful and so wronged that I couldn’t find the words to tell him so.

“He ditched you for that other bitch again, didn’t he?” he laughed. “Like you didn’t learn your lesson first time around.”

We’d had this conversation over a nice meal, and a heart to heart, and me offering a million apologies and telling him I was eager to try again. I thought we’d covered it. He’d told me we had. He’d told me he’d accepted that I’d had a blip in my sanity and was ready to try again.

He’d said he wanted that too.

“Please, let’s go to bed,” I said. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

I took off my necklace and dropped it on the bedside table, and tried to ease into our night time, but he was right up and at me, spinning me around by my arm and putting his face up close to mine.

“We’ll talk about it whenever I fucking want to talk about it. We’ll talk about it with your filthy