When she was eight years old, her parents
had allowed her to spend a week during a school holiday with a
friend in the country, at her friend’s grandparents’ ranch. She’d
been there, learning to ride horses and playing
gaucho
, when
her parents and brother died in a car crash.
The months immediately subsequent to that
day were almost entirely a void in Sabina’s memory, but she’d ended
up living in Providence, with her paternal aunt, Tia Valeria. They
hadn’t known each other well at all—Sabina’s father had married
later in life, and his sister was older than he. She had moved to
the United States and become a citizen long before Sabina had even
been born. But she’d been Sabina’s only living relative.
Living in the States had been terrifying at
first. Sabina hadn’t spoken much English, and the pace of life here
was much different than she’d known. But her aunt had been a warm,
loving woman. She’d adopted Sabina, making her a citizen and giving
her stability, and they’d made a life together, the two of them.
The second phase of Sabina’s life had been happy and comfortable,
too.
Her aunt had not been remotely social,
though, and their life had been small, just the two of them. When
Valeria fell ill, Sabina’s life had shrunk more, as she turned from
her few high school friends and took care of the woman who’d taken
care of her.
Valeria died a month after Sabina’s high
school graduation, and Sabina had found herself truly alone in a
world she had not yet completely understood.
But she’d made her way. Her aunt’s tiny
house had been paid for and left to her. She’d secured a job at the
men’s accessories counter at an upscale department store in
Providence, and she’d done a little modeling—until a supposed job
modeling swimwear became another kind of job entirely, and Sabina
had fled that job and then the idea of modeling altogether. She’d
taken community college classes in the evenings, and she’d worked
during the day. She’d kept to herself and stayed focused on
building a life on her own.
It was at the department store that she’d
met James Auberon.
He’d come to the counter, clearly in a rush,
holding a wad of silk in his hand. His crisp, white dress shirt was
buttoned to the neck, but he was without a tie. Sabina deduced
quickly his problem and smiled. “May I show you a tie, sir? Yours
has been damaged, I think?”
His brilliant green eyes had sharpened at
her words, and his expression had shifted from irritated impatience
to pleasure. “Where are you from, miss?”
Of course she’d known what he was really
asking, but she found that question rude when it came so early in
an acquaintance, as if her accent were the most interesting thing
about her, and she had a pat response. “I live in Manton, sir.”
He’d cocked his head. “You know that isn’t
the answer I want.”
“Yes. May I show you a tie?”
He’d grinned, and Sabina had been dazzled.
She’d never met a man more physically perfect. “The customer is
always right, I believe, miss. You should answer my question.”
It had been hard to keep her voice steady.
He was flirting with her, she could tell, and she was captivated.
But she stayed strong. “I will answer any question you have about
ties
, sir. Of course. It’s your most pressing concern now, I
think, yes?”
He’d cast his wadded tie away to the sales
counter. “You know, I don’t think it is. Not anymore.” His eyes had
dipped to her nametag. “Sabina. Lovely. I’m James.”
“James. May I help you with a tie?”
After a desultory look into the case on
which he was leaning, he’d pointed down to a deep blue Hermès. With
a smile more sincere than her usual retail version, she’d pulled
out his selection and held it out to him. He’d caught her hand in
his—perfect hands, like a model’s hands—and then lightly looped the
silk tie around her wrist. “How does that feel?” he’d murmured.
“It’s good silk, isn’t it? The best. Gentle on delicate skin.”
“Excuse me?” Her face had gone hot, and
she’d known she was blushing. Between her aunt’s illness and her
tenuous life on her own, Sabina had not dated much at all. She
could have counted the number of times she’d kissed a boy on one
hand. But the stranger before her was exuding sex so strongly that
even her naïve senses could tell.
With a gentle tug, he’d pulled the tie from
her wrist. “I’ll take this one.” He’d dropped a black American
Express card on the counter. They’d been new at the time, these
‘Centurion Cards,’ and even at this store, she’d only seen two
others. “And I’d like to take you to dinner when your shift ends
tonight.”
As she’d run his purchase through, she’d
shaken her head. “I’m sorry, sir. I think I shouldn’t—”
He’d cut her off with a sharp twitch of his
hand. “I’ll be waiting out front. Black Jag. You join me or you
don’t. But I’ll only wait five minutes.”
“How do you know when my shift ends?” She’d
handed him his purchase and his fancy charge card.
He’d only smiled and pulled his new tie over
his neck.
He’d been waiting at the curb when she left
the store. They were married four months later.
During the four months of their courtship,
there had been signs, Sabina understood later, about who James
really was. It had been crucially important to him that she was a
virgin. In 1999, perhaps that should have been a point worth
examining, but twenty-year-old virgin Sabina had thought it
charmingly old-fashioned. He was moody, and when his mood went
dark, the air around him was toxic. Sometimes, when she’d said or
done something he didn’t like, she’d seen him literally shaking
before he responded in a rational way, his eyes belying his calm.
He’d been severely possessive and jealous, but, since she’d had no
friends or even many friendly acquaintances, no one for him to
chase from her life, his jealousy had manifested itself in ways
that had not alarmed her—he’d glare at men who noticed her or who
spoke too long to her in the line for coffee or sitting next to her
in the theater. She’d understood these as little more than quirks,
and, it later shamed her to realize, she’d interpreted them as
expressions of his love for her.
Three times, he’d lashed out jealously in
some way and scared her. But control was extremely important to
him, and those instances were rare. What had made her concerned at
all was that he’d shouted at her, grabbed her, for something
someone else had done—the man in the coffee line or in the seat
next to her. The drunk at the benefit, who’d grabbed her ass. That
was the only time, before they were married, that James had
physically hurt her. He’d spanked her. And then he’d kissed her
bare, inflamed cheeks, thanking her for her understanding.
As scared and hurt as she’d been that night,
it had been the most erotic experience she’d ever had. That night,
when the danger signs around her were flashing furiously, was the
night Sabina was most ashamed of. That was the night on which
perhaps she might have made herself free of him. But she’d turned
in his arms and held him while he told her about his childhood,
neglected by his wealthy parents, abused by the nanny when he was
young, then raised in boarding schools, finally left alone when
they died overseas. He’d told her he couldn’t stand the thought of
anyone else having what was his—having her. She’d cried and held
him and told him she understood. She understood the erratic life of
the orphaned child. She’d been orphaned twice. She’d told him she
loved him. He’d proposed. Her skin still hot and sore from his
abuse, she’d accepted.
And now, fifteen years later, here she
was.
“Good morning, darling.”
Those years of living with a monster,
anticipating him, had given Sabina a strong constitution. She did
not startle easily. Now, she barely blinked, despite the fear that
had flooded her veins. “James. I’m surprised.”
“I expect that you are. Why are you sleeping
in here?”
She had taken the downstairs guest
suite—because it was only her, and it was more convenient to the
rest of the house; because it was smaller, and she’d always found
it cozier than the expansive master suite; and because she had
never shared this bed with James.
“It seemed simpler, since I am alone this
week. I was, I mean. Are you here for long?”
James smiled, and in that rigid slash across
his face, Sabina knew that James knew everything. She had been
reckless. She had been intentionally careless. And he very likely
thought he knew things that were not true.
He stood, walked over to the bed, and sat at
her side. He was wearing his beach attire: crisp khakis, a light
blue cotton broadcloth shirt, tucked in, but the cuffs folded and
the throat open. Gucci loafers without socks. His Gucci belt with
the ringed buckle.
“I’m not sure how long I’m here. Have you
been enjoying yourself?” He raised a hand and brushed her cheek
with the knuckle of one finger.
“Yes, thank you. The weekend was quiet.”
“Quiet? You did nothing? Met no one?”
As her mind tore in a panic through her
head, trying to understand the right course of action, trying to
anticipate him, she kept up with the ruse, being as honest as she
could but pretending that she didn’t know, and that there was
nothing he could know. Carmen had told her she’d be her ‘cover.’
She hadn’t understood completely at the time, but she did now. “I
went into town a few times. Out onto the beach, also. I met a woman
who lives on the beach, not much far.”
“Oh? And who is this new friend?” He hooked
his finger through the lingerie strap on her silk nightgown and
lifted it up, but did no more.
“Her name is Carmen.”
He smiled again, and this was more
terrifying than the last—more terrifying, perhaps, than any other
expression she’d seen on his face in fifteen years. There was real
malice and triumph in it.
“Ah, yes. I know her. Carmen Pagano. She has
an older brother, doesn’t she? Carlo. You know him, too, don’t
you?”
Sabina changed tacks. What she wanted was
freedom. She only cared to soothe this beast if it made room for
her to get away from him. But she saw no reason to mewl at his feet
or to try to convince him that he was wrong. He wasn’t wrong. She
and Carlo had not had sex, but only because Luca had come in.
Sabina was done here. Knowing full well that he would not simply
let her walk out the door, and that he could do her real damage,
physical and otherwise, before she could get away from him, she
found that she was simply done playing his game. Carlo had told her
that his uncles would help her, but it seemed that James had
discovered her intent before they could. That was her fault. And so
it was her sole responsibility to make her way to the door if she
could.
“James.”
“This is where you tell me it’s not what I
think?”
“No. It is what you think. It’s enough what
you think, yes. I’m leaving you.”
He chuckled. “You’re fucking that
guinea.”
She’d never heard James speak like that. The
coarseness of it surprised her more than anything he’d done or said
yet this morning. “No. I would. I want to. But I have not yet.” A
bold statement, but she wondered what she had left to lose.
“You’re lying.”
Moving quickly, he grabbed her hair in one
fist and shoved the other between her legs. She didn’t wear
underwear beneath her nightgown; she never had. She didn’t like the
way it tended to bunch while she slept. His fingers pushed into
her, roughly and too many. She was dry, and it hurt, and when she
grunted, he added more. He was stretching her, tearing her. Mother
Mary—he was fisting her. Dry.
She fought, trying to push him away, pull
herself away, but he wrapped her hair more tightly around his fist
and leaned into her, pushing her down on the bed, nearly
immobilizing her. “Am I going to find him up here? Is he still
inside you?”
He’d never hurt her like this; this was more
than she could take. But if she cried out, if she begged, he would
feed on it and hurt her more. So she stopped fighting and tried to
breathe. She tried to take it.
He eased up almost as soon as she stopped
fighting him. When he pulled his hand out of her, she closed her
eyes and bit back her scream. When she opened her eyes again, she
saw him examining his hand. It was bloody.
His eyes shifted to hers. He put a bloody
finger into his mouth and sucked it. When he pulled it out, he
said, “After all this time, darling, you should know better. You
don’t do anything unless I say you may. You may not leave.” He
sucked the blood from another finger. “It’s interesting. I thought
I was bored. I thought I was done with you.”
“You were going to have me killed this
week.” The words came out as gasps while she fought pain for
breath, but she wanted him to know she knew. It seemed very
important to make sure he knew that he hadn’t surprised her.
“What a smart little miss. Yes. But now, I
realize that I was bored because I had stopped being creative. We’d
simply fallen into a rut. That happens in marriages. Fifteen years,
darling. It’s quite an accomplishment.”
“I’m leaving you, James. I am leaving.”