Unhinge - Calia Read Page 0,38

speedometer. He was up to 55.

“Are you cheating on me with him?”

My jaw dropped. What in the hell was he talking about? “No!”

I looked at the speedometer. He was at 65. I feared he was going to do something really stupid.

“Liar.”

I gripped my seatbelt with both hands. “I’m not! That’s the first time I’ve ever met him.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Wes turned his eyes on me. “You know how he was looking at you.”

“Wes,” I said very carefully. “Eyes on the road.”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” he screamed.

He was not rational or in control. I had no idea what was running through his head. I just knew that in this state of mind he was capable of anything. Up ahead was a bridge. I could see us driving straight off it.

Self-preservation made me react. I swallowed loudly and touched his arm. In my sweetest voice I said, “I love only you, Wes. So slow down. Okay?”

He clenched his jaw and I thought he was going to keep ignoring me. But then, out of nowhere, he pressed the brake pedal. The tires squealed. I jerked forward, my face inches from the dashboard before my seatbelt jerked me back.

I panted heavily and looked around. A car behind us honked and drove around us. I wanted to get out, flag the car, and ask the driver—a random stranger—to help me. At this point it felt safer.

Wes laughed. A loud, genuine laugh, as if my reaction was hilarious. I stared at him in disbelief.

And then his laughter faded and he smiled as if I was the most important person in his life. “You want to get something to eat? I’m starving.”

I blinked at him rapidly. How could he go from zero to sixty and then right back to zero?

“What just happened?”

“What are you talking about?”

I hooked a thumb behind me. “Back there. The accusations. The cheating.”

“You mean a conversation? That’s what you’re talking about?”

That wasn’t a conversation. That was mere seconds away before a murder-suicide. How he didn’t recognize that was beyond me.

My emotions were reeling. One second I was defending myself. The next I saw my life flash before my eyes. And then…nothing. My heart continued to pound at a rapid pace, showing no signs of slowing down. It was as though Wes’s stunt had left it in a permanent state of fear.

“So? How ’bout it?”

Slowly, I turned toward Wes. “What?”

“Dinner?”

I swallowed loudly and looked out the window. “Dinner sounds great.”

I wasn’t hungry, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

Wes did a U-turn and headed back into town. I couldn’t stop shaking.

He reached across the console, his hand curved around my kneecap. He gave me the same smile that had made me fall for him.

“I love you,” he said.

I think he believed what he said. I think he thought this was love.

At a red light, he shifted in his seat to look at me. “But don’t play games with me, Victoria.” His other hand curved around my jaw. When the pad of his thumb brushed against my cheek I shivered. He moved even closer so our lips were practically touching. His next words were soft but deadly. “You’ll lose every time.”

Then he kissed me. And I let him because my heart refused to believe that I could be married to a monster.

December 2013

Sinclair made good on his word and a month later, on an early Saturday morning, we were moving into our dream house.

I spent the weeks before the move packing up everything. They say moving is one of the most stressful things to go through, but the chaos around me—packing up boxes, going through everything—kept me distracted. There was no time to focus on the blemishes slowly appearing in my marriage.

No time at all.

Instead, I concentrated on what I knew to be true: Every couple has flaws. No one is perfect. Put two people together and it’s normal for those flaws to become even more apparent. Yes, that’s all this was.

We were a completely normal couple. Besides, Wes had been perfectly fine these last few weeks: no outbursts, no anger. He was back to being the same man I loved. He had just had a bad few moments. I kept trying to tell myself that, but at the end of the day I still had my doubts.

Wes parked the car on the opposite side of the street. As the movers backed the truck into the driveway, I stared at our house. Even though it was the middle of December, the weather