Scream For me

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“Your wife was having an affair?”

“She was.”

“I’m so sorry.” I plant my palms against Weston’s chest, his hands on either side of my neck, his thumbs brushing against my jaw.

“Nothing for you to be sorry about. It was my fault; I don’t blame her at all. In her defense, she tried to get me to choose her instead of work. She begged me to be more present, to be a better husband.”

“But she didn’t leave?”

He shakes his head. “She got sick pretty quickly after I found out about it. Truthfully, I don’t know for sure if it was just her attempt to get my attention but somewhere along the way she fell in love with him or started to at least. Sometimes I wonder if I should have let her go, then she could have spent her final months happy, with the man she loved. I’ve always heard that mourning someone who is still alive is the hardest kind of grief you can deal with, but it’s not. Losing someone to death slowly while they fall out of love with you is.”

It breaks my heart to hear this. I had no idea he experienced this kind of pain. It’s hard enough losing your spouse but losing them before they’re even gone is something I can’t imagine. “You can’t think like that. If she wanted to go, she would have. I’m sure she wanted to be with you and Daisy. Maybe it was her way of getting your attention, as painful as it was, but I’m sure she loved you.”

He looks down at me, kissing the tip of my nose softly. “I worried I wouldn’t know how to be a father on my own. I also worried I would grow to resent Daisy because every time I looked at her, I saw Mira, but the exact opposite happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“I grew to resent Mira… for leaving the two of us, for not getting to see Daisy grow up, for missing out on so many memories with her. I know it’s irrational and probably emotionally immature because she didn’t choose death, but it was how I coped. I felt sorry for Daisy for not having a mother, for not having that bond that other young women have.”

My heart aches for him. “Death and loss make us irrational. It’s total bullshit that people expect us to grieve or cope in any one specific way. It makes me sad for Daisy too. The bond I had with my mom was everything which made losing her all that much harder. I did have a conversation with Daisy the night I babysat her. I meant to tell you and honestly, it slipped my mind. She asked me where my parents were and I said I lived alone. That’s when she told me her mom had died. I wasn’t sure what to say, what you’d told her about death, but I told her that my mom had died too. I tried to get her to talk about her mom, but she said…” I hesitate, turning away because I don’t want to make things worse.

“She said what?” He turns my face back toward him.

“She said she didn’t remember her mom.”

He nods. “I know she doesn’t. She was just two when her mother died. I think that’s why seeing you with her, the way she responds to you, the way you look at her, I know you love her and it just made me realize that what you and I have, is a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. The fact that Daisy feels so open with you and comfortable, she isn’t like that with anyone else besides me and my parents. I’ve struggled lately with how busy I’ve been, how I’ve been absent from Daisy’s day-to-day, but I won’t live like that. I worried that I would do the same thing to you. I convinced myself that you made the right choice running away because I already ruined Mira’s life and you deserve far better than what I could give you.”

I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Is that how you feel now?”

“No. You and Daisy are my world.” He presses his forehead to mine for a brief moment, taking in a breath. “I regret that I couldn’t see what I had with Mira when I had it, but it taught me how valuable and short life can be. I don’t want to live for work. I want to spend as much time as I can with you, Daisy, and hopefully our family. I know that asking you to step into Daisy’s life in that capacity is a lot, but I won’t live with regrets any longer.”

I look up at him and I feel what he’s saying. I feel the love that we have between us growing and burning with every passing minute it feels like. “What are you going to do about Mr. Fein, his brother, and Steve?”

“Do you want to know or do you want me to just handle it and let you know when you can go back to work?” He doesn’t smile and I know he’s not joking.

“You think I’ll get my job back?”

“Are you questioning my ability to make things right, Daphne?” He gets that look in his eyes.

“No.”

“Good.” He picks me up, wrapping my legs around his waist as he walks us toward the stairs to his bedroom. “Because I’m not the kind of man who takes lightly to threats, especially against you. If you thought for one second I wouldn’t tear this fucking world apart come hell or high water to defend you and protect you, then you don’t know me very well.”

“I think I know you pretty damn well, Mr. Vaughn,” I whisper against his ear before running my tongue over it.

“Well, then you know that I will make sure all three of those pieces of shit are fucking destroyed.” I slide her down onto my bed so she’s sitting on the edge, staring up at me. “There is no mercy when it comes to you, no second chances for people who try to fuck over my family. And I’ll get a lot of joy out of ruining them. Do you understand me?”

I nod my head, his hand coming down to wrap delicately around my throat.

“I don’t want there to be secrets between us. I want you to know exactly what kind of man I am. I will be loyal to you and honest. I want to say that if you need more space and time, I’ll give it to you, but I don’t think that I can, Daphne. I don’t think I can spend one more fucking second without having you as mine and if I do have to, I’m prepared to burn the world down so you have no other choice but to crawl back to me.” His eyes are dark, and his voice is practically a growl as he stares down at me.

“I want to be yours. I don’t want to run any longer.”

“That means you belong to me.” He squeezes my throat a little tighter. “You are mine and mine alone. You don’t get to run away again. You don’t get to live life without me. Every fucking inch of you is my property.”

It might be messed up, and I’m sure there’s some psychological explanation that I don’t want to delve into, but when he speaks to me like this, telling me who I am to him, my insides melt, my pulse quickens, and I feel a need start to burn inside me that I know only he can satiate.

“You’ll move in with me tomorrow. We’ll tell Daisy… And you’re going to stop taking your birth control. No negotiations. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mr. Vaughn.”

A devilish grin tugs at the corner of his mouth as his thumb slowly slides across my lips. “Such a good girl. You deserve to be rewarded. What do you want, baby?”