Page 86 of Coercion

“Where are you going?” He calls after me.

“Someone has to take care of you.” I say walking away, grabbing the first aid kit that he’s produced so many times for me.

When I come back, he looks at it in my hands and smirks. “You’re playing nurse now, Ruby?”

“Do you want me to?” I tease. “Want me to dress up all sexy?”

His eyes drop to stare at my breasts. “Maybe later.” He smirks and I swear my heart flips at the fact we can be like this; relaxed, flirty, a normal couple.

I press an ice pack to his cheek, he’s got grazes all over his skin. I open an antiseptic wipe and start cleaning him up, inch by inch and he doesn’t even so much as wince but he watches every move I make like this is turning him on.

“My tough old man.” I murmur.

He catches my hand, squeezing it in warning. “Less of the ‘old’, Ruby.”

“It’s okay,” I tease, “Turns out I like my men to be older.”

Something flickers across his face, something I can’t quite read and it makes me still as flash of fear goes through me. HaveI gone too far? Have I offended him with my stupid, unguarded words?

“Tell me, Ruby,” He says quietly, “On our wedding night, you said you’d fucked loads of men. That was a lie, wasn’t it?”

I gulp, squirming, only his hands move to grab me, to hold my hips and force me to stay exactly where I am.

“What does it matter?” I whisper, dropping my gaze as my cheeks heat.

“And when you arrived in this city, you tried to run away with a boy…”

I can’t keep the gasp in. The shock that makes my stomach drop. How the fuck does he know that? How longhashe known that? Poor Finn, with everything else going on I’d barely thought about him. I’m truly a selfish piece of shit, aren’t I?

“It’s okay,” He reassures but I can hear the tone, I can hear the hint to his voice, he may be speaking the right words but there’s an edge to them.

“Who, who told you?” I stammer. Was it Gunnar? Is he in contact with him? Is he stirring the pot, making things worse for me? But why would he, if he thinks I’m spying for him… only, I’m not, am I? I haven’t replied to his messages, he’s lost all radio contact.

Perhaps this is his new game, turning my husband against me and forcing me to comply because I have no other option?

“It doesn’t matter.” Preston says. “I just wanted to hear it from you, to understand…”

“Finn was just a friend.” I gasp out quickly. “He wasn’t. We didn’t…”

He lets out a sound that could be relief or it could be annoyance, I can’t tell.

“They killed him.” I suddenly sob, as that memory flashes of him in a headlock, of that gun pressed into his face, and that guilt hits me. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t thought about him.Because I’d gotten him killed, I’d done nothing to stop it. “They killed him because he was trying to help me.”

He pulls me in, wraps his arms around me like I’m the battered person here, and I cling to his hard body, shutting my eyes so tightly.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Preston says, “He was the one you slept with.”

I know I should tell him the truth, I know right now is the perfect opportunity and yet I can’t do it. I can’t speak the words, I can’t admit it, and most of all I can’t bear to see the look in his eyes, the disappointment, the shame, the disgust when he learns what was really going on.

So I do it, I take the cowards option and I nod back. It’s a tiny movement, a tiny gesture, but I can feel the way it damns me all the same.

I expect him to react to my admission, to show his anger at my blatant disrespect but, instead, he just holds me, like I’m precious, like I matter, like he actually cares about me as a person and not just what I represent as a Holtz.

I love you.

I don’t even know where the words come from, where the thought comes from but as I force myself to look my husband in the eyes, I know it’s true. All these stupid feelings, all this stupid emotion I’ve been fighting, it’s no good, it’s utterly useless.

This man has broken down my walls, somehow, without even trying, he’s done it, he’s made mefeelagain.

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