Page 51 of Safer Together
~ Chapter Twenty-One ~
Angela
I try my hardest to forget any of the nights I spent with Dylan. It just brings back bad memories. But more than anything, I don’t allow myself to go back to the night that everything changed in my life. I don’t go back there for many reasons, especially when re-living the worst night of my life leaves me feeling like it was only yesterday.
It was the night that I realized that living inside of Dylan, the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, there was actually a monster, lurking underneath his skin just waiting to come out, hiding beneath well-formed manners and loving embraces. Somehow, he had managed to cage some sort of animal, who not only wanted to hurt me, but enjoyed it immensely at the same time. Going back to that night makes me regress and I feel as though no time has passed at all. That night gave me recurring nightmares, and worst of all, it had made me look at every single man as an enemy, tarring them all with the same brush as Dylan. But not anymore, I couldn’t let it tar the man I was head over heels in love with, who I had agreed to marry, knowing that this time I would not be treated the same way.
So, when I had confessed to not being a virgin because I had been raped, and Elliot guessed correctly that the man who had raped me was Dylan, I agreed. My ex fiancé. The very same Dylan who is currently a foreman working for Sands PTY LTD. Elliot wanted to know what happened, and sure, I wanted to tell him; however, I was able to get away with not telling him right then. Instead he took me to his bedroom and laid with me, cuddling me until we fell asleep.
In that moment, the closeness between us was so comforting. Here he was, snuggling up close to me, without me even providing so much as an explanation. It broke me the way he just cared and left me to make the decision on when to tell him, with no pressure to do it immediately. Not forcing me to tell him when he asked, waiting for me to open up to him in my own time.
I knew that I had to give him details. I would have to answer his questions, not just because I knew it was the right thing to do, but because I wanted him to know everything. And to be perfectly honest, there was no way our relationship could ever move forward properly without him knowing everything. What scared me the most was the fact that I wanted the future I had spoken about with him. A normal relationship, a happy marriage, possibly even a family of our own. A wonderful relationship that was based on honesty, and not keeping any secrets.
He woke, still curled around my body. When his eyes met mine, I stared into his beautiful blue eyes and sucked in a large breath to prepare myself. Finally, after seeing him give me a small smile, I let my eyes glaze over and I started the tale of my past.
With my final exam under my belt I could finally begin to relax. I felt good about all the answers I had written down on the thirteen-page examination, and with any luck, in a couple of days’ time I would receive a phone call letting me know that I was now a full-fledged real estate agent.
Instead of going home, I drove the short distance to Dylan’s apartment, where I had moved some of my things a couple of months ago. I parked beside his silver pickup. I bounded up the steps and slipped my key into the lock, flinging the door open as I walked through. “Babe, you here?” I called out. I walked around the hallway corner to find Dylan sitting at my computer at the makeshift breakfast bar he put together with two by fours and a sheet of plywood.
He jumped up, as if he had been bitten by a snake. “Hey Angie. I’m glad you’re home. I only just got home myself, thought I’d check my emails before jumping in the shower to get rid of today’s dust.” He came over to me and pressed his lips against my forehead in a kiss. “Back in a jiffy,” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared into his bedroom. Shutting the door behind him.
I hadn’t given much thought to catching Dylan at my computer much at first, he had given me an explanation that made sense, he was checking his emails. Something he often did when my computer was out, however, something nagged me about the way he jumped up and closed the screen.
After setting my bag beside the computer, I took the seat Dylan was previously occupying and opened the laptop. While he was busy showering, I logged into my computer and opened the browser history. It didn’t show that he had been checking his emails at all, what it did, in fact, reveal was that he had been logged into my emails. He had been reading the correspondence from my grandparent’s lawyer, Mr. Hawksbry, about my inheritance that I had just received from my grandfather’s passing, and at the same time, on a second screen, was the website for my bank. I felt a rock form in the pit of my stomach. He had been trying to access my bank accounts.
The email correspondence alone didn’t fully reveal the amount of money that I had been left, except that it did advise I was also left several properties, all of which had no mortgage owing on their bricks and mortar anymore. My grandparents had put every single penny into their property portfolio, and in the last few years of their life they finally owned everything and were able to enjoy the money that they received in income from renting them out.
Knowing that Dylan had tried to hack his way into my bank account didn’t sit well at all with me, knowing that somehow, he was trying to take what was mine, behind my back and without even asking. I mean, we were planning on getting married in a few months’ time. What was mine was also going to be his. So why would he try to access it without my knowledge, and then instead of owning up to it, try to make me believe he was innocent, saying that he had just been checking his own emails?
When he came out of his bedroom with just his boxers on, his wet hair evidence of the shower he had told me he was going to have. I looked closer at the man who I loved. Really, I should have pretended I knew nothing, changed my email passwords, and left it at that, but I have never been the type to leave well enough alone. “Why were you looking at my emails, Dylan?” The slightest flash of uncertainty flew across his face, knowing that he had been caught. As soon as it appeared, he concealed it with one of the smiles that normally melted me.
“I wasn’t babe, I told you, I was checking my own out. Maybe you forgot to log out last time?” He wandered towards me, his arms outstretched, wanting me to run into his muscular arms, something I would usually do with a bounce in my step. Not that day, though, not before I knew the truth, no matter how hard it was going to be to hear.
“I always log out of my emails, Dylan, and I sure as hell never leave my banking information up on an unprotected browser. What were you doing?”, pre-empting his excuse of needing money I cut him off, “and don’t tell me you need to borrow money. I have already paid your rent this month and fed us both. What’s going on?” Instead of a look of guilt, a mask appeared over his features. He wasn’t going to tell me what I wanted to know, was he?
“Why haven’t you told me about your inheritance, Angie? I thought we promised to always be honest with each other. When something happens to you, it happens to me.”
“I told you that the inheritance was still being settled, there isn’t anything to discuss as yet,” purposely leaving out the part about the properties, trying to catch him out on his lies, claiming he knows nothing.
“So, the fact that you have inherited several properties, and who knows how many millions of dollars, doesn’t concern me? Is that how this is?” And with that very statement he just ensnared himself in my trap. Willingly admitting he knew about the email, knew about everything he claimed not to.
Pushing off the barstool, I stood in front of him with my hands fisted at my sides. “How do you know about any of that, Dylan?”
“That doesn’t matter, Angie. What matters is that you didn’t tell me. What’s yours is mine. You have my ring on your finger. I own you and I sure as hell own everything that you do.” His voice was huskier than I had ever heard it, malicious even. Claiming to own me. Nobody owns me. Nobody.
“You don’t own me, Dylan. Nobody owns me. And what’s more, how dare you breach my privacy like that!” I tried to push past him but his hand reached down and captured my wrist, holding me tightly, almost painfully. “Let me go, Dylan.” Even though I wanted to sound scary, it barely sounded any different from my usual voice.
He leaned down and snarled into my ear. “That’s where you are wrong, my dear, sweet, innocent, Angie. You are mine, and that means I own you.”
He straightened back up to full height, staring down at me. Normally I would run from a fight, but not this one, not with the man I have shared the past two years with. Not from the man who only a couple of months earlier had asked me to marry him. “What the hell has gotten into you, Dylan? You aren’t acting like yourself.”
A sadistic smile appeared on his lips, I didn’t breathe. This couldn’t be good. “That’s where you are wrong, I’m finally being myself. Here is how this is going to go, Angela. I’m not going to wait for the wedding for everything to be signed over to me. Every single fucking cent that is yours is now mine. Every property you own is mine too, got it?” His voice was so full of venom it scared me. I wanted to run away and never see him again.
“This isn’t you at all, Dyl. C’mon, it’s me you’re talking to. I know you. Tell me what has changed, what has happened to make you talk to me this way?” He didn’t reply, only cocked an arrogant eyebrow, daring me to defy him, and then I replayed what he said to me, not wanting to wait till the wedding to own everything I did. Was he using me? He had to be, what other reason would he need to get what I had, he came from nothing, I didn’t. I came from money, and now I had plenty of my own, way more than anyone else I know. He wasn’t going to get any of it. Not. One. Damn. Penny.
“You’re not getting anything of mine, ever again”, I reach down with my free hand to my captured wrist and pulled my engagement ring free from my ring finger, holding it up to him. “You can have this back. I never want to see you again.” He didn’t make any attempt to take it from me, not at all. With my temper starting to get the better of me, I pulled hard and he let go of my wrist, I threw the diamond across the floor and turned to grab my handbag.
I didn’t get there, I felt his hands on my hair and he pulled, hard. A scream left my lips. “Where the hell do you think you are going? You’re not leaving me. You’re mine, Angela, and I am about to show you what happens to what’s mine.”
