Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 496

TASHA

I did not mean to slap her.

The sound stayed in my ears long after the door closed, that sharp crack of my palm against her cheek, and my hand still stung from the force of it as I stood in the middle of my room staring at nothing. I had no illusions about my strength next to Scarlett's. She had dragged me out of hell by the scruff of my neck and fought people I was too afraid to name, and if she had decided to hit me back in that moment I would not have lasted two seconds.

But that was not what terrified me.

What terrified me was her tears. The way she had wiped at them once, quick and almost angry, like she was ashamed of them, and then walked out of my room without another word. I had seen Scarlett cry before, but I had never been the reason for it until today. I had never been the one standing there with my hand still tingling from the impact, watching her leave because of something I had done.

And that surprised me. It surprised me that her tears could cut through me deeper than Sparrow's whip ever had.

The welts on my shoulder and my back, the ones he had carved into me had been burning ever since, a hot and constant reminder of exactly how little I meant to him. But somewhere between the crack of my hand on her face and the click of the door, that pain had gone quiet. All I could feel now was the shape of her face in the moment before she turned away, the hurt in her eyes, and the horrible hollow knowledge that I had put it there.

She mattered to me more than I had ever realized. Little by little, without me noticing, she had chipped her way into my heart, past every wall I had ever built, past the years of trusting no one, and I could not say when she had done it or how to get her out. The feeling that I had just lost the most important thing in my life pressed on my chest until I could barely breathe, and it would not let go.

I knew, the way I knew my own name, that the only way to make it stop was to go to her and apologize.

Was it a crime to fall in love with my own husband? All I had done was tell him how I felt. I had gathered every scrap of courage I owned, dressed myself up like the kind of woman he could not ignore, walked into his room, and offered him my heart and my body and my future. He had looked at me like I was a joke and then he had whipped me like I was an animal. Did he have to treat me like I was not even human?

I could not answer any of it from my room, staring at my own pale reflection, so I went down the hall before my courage could fail me.

I knocked on her door, did what I had to do and left.

Back in my room I sat on the edge of my bed and did not know what to feel anymore.