Page 22 of The Billionaire's Angel

Slowly, I stood and went to the door, turning the lock. I wasn’t sure if I was locking Gage out, or myselfinside.

I didn't fall asleep until dawn. I wasn't afraid of the sound we’d thought we heard. By the time I'd locked the door of my bedroom, I’d convinced myself it had been nothing more than the overreaction of a guiltyconscience.

No, I couldn't sleep because I couldn't stop thinking about kissing Gage. Every nerve in my body was awake, alive. Needy. I'd never felt this before. Maybe a little in those long ago high school fumblings with boys I could barely remember. Had I felt this withAnthony?

If I had, the memory was lost, the pleasure of desire burned away by everything that had come later. I wracked my brain for memories of those first dates with Anthony, but of all the emotions that rose to the surface, none of them wasdesire.

I'd been awed by Anthony. He was older than I was, successful, wealthy, and he’d wantedme. He’d taken me out to elegant restaurants, opened the door for me, treated me with respect and care. I'd been too young, too inexperienced, to understand. To see beneath his good manners to the monster lurkingwithin.

Of all the things I’d felt with Anthony, I'd never desired him. Not like this. Not with every cell in my body, with a need that drove me so mindless I forgot where I was, who I was, and only wantedmore.

More of Gage. More of his hot mouth on my skin, his hands on my body. I was alive. For the first time in my life, every part of me was alive. Awake, and ripe, andready.

Even before Anthony, I’d felt as if my body were sleeping. I liked the idea of romance, of flowers and dates and kisses, but no one had really gotten to me. I'd never had a real crush, the kind that keeps you up at night, has you craning your neck to see if he's walked in the room, straining your ear for the sound of his voice. I thought there was something wrong with me, that I was lacking some essential element of being female. Of beinghuman.

After I married Anthony, I was convinced it was true. I felt desiccated, dried out like an autumn leaf. He’d told me I was beautiful, called me his perfect girl, but he didn't want me. Not like that. Not with his body. In another marriage, it would've been a tragedy. By the time I fully realized what was missing, I wasgrateful.

Our wedding night had been chaste. As chaste as you can get while still having sex. I'd expected romance. Wasn't I supposed to? He hadn't been cruel; he'd been indifferent. I'd waited for him in our bedroom in a silky black negligee I’d shyly bought for theoccasion.

Anthony's eyes had tightened at the sight of it, and he’d gently helped me into my robe before leading me to the bed. He lay me down on the side, pulling my hips to the edge of the mattress and gone to his knees between my legs. A moment later he touched me there. I remember jumping in surprise and his amusedchuckle.

Then pressure and a tearing pain, Anthony moving over me with quick hard thrusts. He'd stiffened, emptying himself into me. For one brief second, we were frozen—me in confusion and Anthony in release—before he'd withdrawn from my body, tucked himself away, and stood. He hadn't said anything, just nodded andleft.

The next day all of my nightgowns had been replaced with thick, white flannel that covered me from my neck to my toes. They were ugly and sexless, the kind of thing I imagined a grandmother might wear if she had terrible taste and was freezingcold.

Anthony came to my bed once a month. A doctor showed up a few weeks after our wedding to insert a birth control implant in my upper arm. They were supposed to last several years, but Anthony had the implant replaced every year, like clockwork, just in case. Anthony didn't want children yet. It never occurred to him to ask what I might want. The moment he decided to marry me, my wishes becameirrelevant.

Irrelevant to him. I still had plenty of wishes, for all the good they didme.

It didn't take long to realize that Anthony didn't want a wife. He wanted a possession. He alternately praised me, punished me, or forgot about me entirely, depending on how I fit into hisplans.

One night, he might inform me we were having guests and expect me to play hostess. He’d praise my cooking, and kiss my cheek and give the perfect impression of a loving couple. The next night he might pull me from my bed in the dark and come at me with closed fists, his eyes cold andempty.

I rarely knew why. Anthony was completely self-contained. Nothing ever showed through the mask he presented to the world. There were no cracks, no signs of what was coming. At dinner, he might thank me for ironing his shirts so perfectly and hours later beat me unconscious. I knew his job was stressful, though I didn't entirely understand what he did, and by the time we'd been married a month I knew better than toask.

Obedience was survival. I never knew what set Anthony off, but I knew he expected me to obey his every order. I thought if I did as I was told, I might be able to savemyself.

I tried. There was no escape. I thought about it constantly. Anthony played the part of a loving husband, but he knew what he wanted, and he was clever. We lived miles from anywhere, buried in the country. When we gave small dinner parties, Anthony's friends would tease us, commenting on a sophisticated young couple like us choosing such a rural setting. Anthony always pulled me close and said that we liked theprivacy.

His property was bounded by a tall fence, patrolled by well-trained dogs, and there was always, always a guard. They never spoke to me. The first time I tried to leave, the taxi had been politely turned away by the guard, and I’d been told to go back inside. I hadn’t yet understood that I wasn’t just Anthony’s wife, I was his prisoner. Anthony had punished me without a word, pulling me from my bed in the dark, the only sounds in the room his fists striking my body and my gasping promises never toleave.

I’d tried again when I worked up the courage. That time I made it as far as the fence before I was found and returned to the house. Anthony punished me that night with a white-hot rage I’d never seen before. I’d been sure he would kill me as he struck me over and over, kicking me when I fell to the floor. At the end, he dragged me up, his arm around my neck, and choked me until my vision went black and I passedout.

It was the only time he left a mark on my face. My eyes were swollen shut when I woke the next morning, my body so bruised I could barely move. Anthony had been there at my side, holding my hand. He spooned broth through my torn lips and, for the first and last time in our marriage, he explained why he wanted me. Why he couldn’t let mego.

“It grows in me,” he’d said, as calmly as if we were discussing the weather. “The darkness builds up, every day. Telling me to do things. Bad things. The darkness wants blood. You’re the only one who makes it go away. It likes you. So sweet and pure. If I give you to the darkness for a while, it leaves mealone.”

That was when I understood. Really understood. Anthony wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t mean. He was completely insane. He was a monster, hiding behind the mask of a normalman.

Only once did I work up the courage to ask what he’d done about the darkness before he found me. Once wasenough.

Anthony had shaken his head sadly and trailed a fingertip down my cheek, saying, “Sweet Sophie. If I told you, it would give you bad dreams. The darkness needs blood. It’s happy with just a little of yours. Anyone else, and it needs so muchmore.”

I never asked again. I didn’t want to know. Maybe I should have been glad that his beatings spared some other person a more horrible fate. I wasn’t. I didn’t want to sacrifice myself for the good of some stranger. I just wanted to befree.

Freedom was a dream. A fantasy. I ordered my clothes from catalogs, my groceries from a list I gave to the guard. Every few months a stylist came to trim my hair, working in silence while the guard watched usboth.

Once Anthony brought me home after our wedding, I never left that house until he died, three yearslater.