61. Olivia

Chapter sixty-one

Olivia

M y voice cracks as my body spasms from the orgasm he’s been denying me. Victor pushes his fingers in me, knowing I love the fullness, and makes it more intense. He lies down next to me and I curl into him as overwhelming sobs rack through my body. Removing his fingers, he pulls me close as I curl into a ball and allow his large frame to engulf me. I can hardly breathe because of how hard I’m crying, but he doesn’t stop me.

He holds me close, rubbing his hand up and down my spine before dropping kisses on top of my head and forehead. “I know how hard that was for you, treasure. I’m so proud of you for telling me,” he whispers into my ear, making me cry harder.

What am I going to do when he’s not around anymore? I crawl even closer to him. He rolls over onto his back and allows me to take up residence on his chest as tears continue to stream from my eyes. He leans up slightly, grabbing the fluffy blanket at the end of the bed and pulling it over both of us. When I fall asleep, it’s to his soft voice calling me a good girl.

I wake up in the middle of the night still wrapped in Victor’s arms. I shift slightly and grimace. My eyes are swollen and puffy, and I can still feel the remnants of our love making between my thighs.

“How are you feeling?” Victor’s voice startles me and I pop up to look at him, but his face is blurry since my eyes are so swollen. He runs his hand down my hair. “Come on, baby. Let’s go take a shower, then we can talk.”

My heart beats rapidly at his endearment. I love when he calls me treasure or dolce ragazza , but this feels different. More intimate. He gives me a moment to go to the bathroom to relieve myself before coming in and turning the shower on. I think back over everything that’s happened today and pull my bottom lip between my teeth. I told him. I finally told him. When I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, he’s studying me as we wait for the water to warm up. I don’t know how to feel about that.

“Have you been awake this entire time?” I finally ask when the silence becomes too much and I need to hear his voice.

“I have,” he answers as he walks toward me and takes my hand in his. He guides me into the shower. I close my eyes as the heat from the water relaxes my muscles. Victor stands behind me and begins to massage my tense shoulders. “I want to kill him, Olivia.” His voice is so low I have to strain to hear him over the noise of the water. There’s a snap of him opening my body wash and moments later he’s washing my back.

“I should have been there. I should have stopped him,” he murmurs as he kisses my shoulder after rinsing the suds away.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I think back to that day. “Even if you had been around more, I don’t know if you could have stopped him. He was good at drugging my food and drinks. Sometimes I would go days without eating or drinking anything when he was around because I was afraid of what he’d slip into it.”

Victor pauses washing me as he listens. It’s like he knows this is his only chance. I’ll never be able to talk about this again.

“I used to think when I finally got away I’d have a big family and I’d make sure my children were taken care of and nothing bad would ever happen to them.” Emotion swells in my chest as my throat tightens. I have to swallow several times before it finally dislodges. “He took everything good from me. Including that.”

I lean my head back against his chest, and he wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. “That time I had gone almost a week without eating, but I couldn’t anymore. I was starving. I could at least drink water from the faucet in my bathroom. But with food…” My voice cracks as I remember. Ruth was dead. There wasn’t anyone left to watch out for me. “When he was in town, I wasn’t allowed to eat if he wasn’t present. Once I tried to sneak food and paid severely for that.”

Tears drip from my eyes. This time I don’t try to stop them. “So, I finally gave in. I was starving. He had dinner served for both of us and I scarfed it down. I kept thinking the worst he could do to me was what he’d already done. I was so wrong.” Victor turns me in his arms and cups my cheek.

“I should have been there,” he says again. I try to swallow; instead I hiccup from the tears that won’t stop.

“With what you’ve told me, I think what happened to me was around the same time as what Josie did.” His eyes widen in understanding, but I continue before he speaks again. “I don’t remember leaving the dining room. So, I was either drugged up so much that I don’t remember or I passed out. When I woke up, I was in a doctor’s office.”

Laying my forehead against his chest as I think back, I have to get this out quickly or I’ll never be able to tell him what happened. “I thought I had gotten sick or hurt and that’s why I was there. But this woman came in, followed by a doctor. The woman looked like she was enjoying everything about it, but the doctor was reserved and seemed almost sad.”

I take a deep breath, trying to forget the glee in the woman’s eyes. How could a woman be so callous toward another woman? “She told me I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant because the doctor had seen to it that I never would and now Donovan could do whatever he wanted with me and not be afraid he’d get me pregnant.” I take a deep shuddering breath and Victor’s arms tighten around me.

“I’m so sorry Olivia.” Victor’s voice is laden with sadness and regret. I finally look up at him and this time I can see him clearly since the water has helped get some of the grime out of my eyes.

“This has been a rough day. You telling me your fantasy about the motorcycle helped. Until I started thinking about what it would be like to carry your baby and it hit me that I never would.” I look away from him. “Maybe you don’t want that, but I’ll never get to decide for myself if I want to have kids or not. That choice was taken away from me.” I stop talking because I can’t keep going. Now he knows.

Victor surprises me when he drops to his knees in front of me. I glance down at him, my eyes wide as he looks back up at me. “You’re still perfect to me,” he says before kissing the scars along my abdomen. It reminds me of that day in my garden when he kissed all my scars. That’s when I realized how much I loved his beard. Like he’s reading my mind, he rubs his cheek along my abdomen, making goosebumps rise along my flesh.

He wraps his arms around my hips and places his cheek against me, holding me tight. I stare down at him, unsure of what to make of this. Instead of trying to figure it all out, I wrap my arms around him and hug him tight. How am I ever going to be able to let him go?

The rest of the week, I walk around completely out of it. I go to work, do what’s expected of me, then go to Victor’s house. The only thing that’s changed is now Leo drops me off in the mornings and Arden picks me up in the afternoons. I don’t question it because, honestly? I don’t want to care. I trust Victor to keep me safe. At this point, I’m grateful he’s in my life because if it were up to me, I’d probably have given myself over to Donovan already.

Friday when I get off work, Victor picks me up instead of Arden. When I walk out of the elevator and see him, I smile. “Hi, what are you doing here?” I greet him. He walks toward me and kisses me, surprising me.

“I left the restaurant early and asked the general manager to take care of things tonight. We’re going to go by your house to check on things, then head home. I asked Betsy to make us some dinner, and I thought we could watch a movie,” he says.

With a smile at him, I nod. I’d like a quiet night with him. When we get to my house, I spend some time with my flowers. I miss gardening the most, since staying with Victor.

Everything looks healthy and there’s not much for me to do, which is expected around this time of year, but it still makes me sad. As I stare out over all the different flowers, Victor walks out and stands beside me.

“I’m sorry I haven’t bought the supplies for you to do this at the house. Things have been crazy and hectic—”

“It’s okay,” I cut him off, not wanting him to say anything further. I won’t be there forever and while I’m sure he could hire someone to take care of what I plant, maybe he won’t want the reminder of me every time he steps outside. I know that would be hard for me.

“I’ve asked Grant to purchase some supplies the next time he goes to the nursery. He asked for you to give him a list of things you’d like him to buy.”

My mouth opens and I look up at Victor, surprised by this. “Oh, okay.” I don’t know what else to say because that’s not what I was expecting.

“You can give me the list tonight after dinner,” he says like that’s settled. We grab some more items from my house to bring to his and the entire time I keep questioning what this could mean.

Will I be around longer than I expected? Will he want me after we find and get rid of Donovan?