PlotlumeFor eight years, Grant Fletcher and I had tormented each other over a love I wanted for myself alone.
In all those years, he had never yielded to me, not even when I smashed every piece of china in the house.
Yet when Hailey Marsh, the new receptionist, merely scraped her skin, Grant panicked. He abandoned a merger worth over a hundred million dollars to take her to the hospital himself.
Disillusioned, I asked to break up.
Grant’s face darkened. He gripped my chin coldly.
“Paige, mad people like us are destined to stay entangled for life. But Hailey is different. She’s a normal girl who can’t handle a fright. Don’t turn the madness you use on me against her.”
Once again, his forcefulness cowed me.
Until today, when I went to his private house to collect some things and discovered the basement had been emptied. The broken antiques from our fights, the shattered frames—all gone.
The property manager said ingratiatingly, “Mr. Fletcher said Miss Marsh scares easily, so he had all those frightening things thrown away.”
I felt as though I had plunged into ice.
He had refused to yield because I was never the normal girl who could make him put away his fangs.
Without going inside, I threw my car key into the trash.
I had had enough of this sick tug-of-war.
1
“How much longer are you going to keep this up?”
Grant opened the door, bringing the early autumn chill inside.
He tossed his suit jacket onto the sofa and loosened his tie.
His face showed undisguised exhaustion and the helpless irritation of someone dealing with a madwoman.
“It’s a car key. Did you have to throw it away and make the property manager come complaining to me?”
I sat in the dim living room without turning on the lights.
I watched him walk to the bar, pour ice water, and drain the glass in one practiced motion.
“Paige, I’m truly exhausted today.”
He approached and stood over me.
“There’s a problem with a merger worth over a hundred million, and Hailey’s been on edge all day because of your last outburst at the office.”
“All I did was have that broken junk cleared out of the basement so she wouldn’t be frightened when she visited.”
“Must you demand my attention this way?”
He sighed and softened his tone a little, with habitual condescension.
“I brought you lobster bisque from that place on the south side. Isn’t it your favorite?”
He pushed the takeout container toward me.
“Eat while it’s hot, and we’ll put this behind us. You’ll still be Mrs. Fletcher. Just leave Hailey alone.”
I looked at the exquisitely packaged lobster bisque.
Eight years.
He remembered that Hailey needed a hospital for a scrape, yet forgot shellfish gave me a full-body rash and could even send me into shock.
Once, I would have hurled the bisque at him in hysterics and demanded to know whether he wanted me dead.
He would have stood there coldly and let me, then calmly smashed something of his own to outdo me.
Through that cold performance, he would force me to soften and give in.
But today, I had no strength left.
“Why aren’t you speaking?”
My lack of response made Grant frown harder.
Suddenly, he seized my wrist, gripping so hard I thought my bones would break.
“Paige, I told you. Don’t inflict the madness you use on me on other people!”
“Do you think staying silent will make me let you keep hurting Hailey?”
He picked up the crystal vase from the sideboard.
The kind of thing we always ended up breaking.
He held it out at arm’s length.
Without hesitation, he let it drop.
It burst against the floor, and shards skittered across the expensive carpet.
“Is that enough?”
Pale-faced, he stared at me with disgust and estrangement.
“Every time you go mad, isn’t it because you want to see me break? To see me bow to you?”
“Well, there it is. Are you satisfied?”
“If you’re still angry, break another.”
He took a second vase from the shelf and offered it to me, his voice ice-cold.
“But afterward, you must apologize to Hailey.”
“She’s a normal girl. She can’t bear a fright, much less a lunatic like you tormenting her.”
I looked at the glittering mess at his feet.
The basement had been full of messes like this one.
Over eight years, he had made them to stop my tantrums or to force me to compromise.
Once, I thought all that wreckage proved his love.
Now I understood it was simply how he controlled me.