Page 52 of Promises in the Dark

I shrug. “Hopefully somewhere far from here.”

“Did you…” She hesitates, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Did you love her?”

Now it’s my turn to be shocked.

I face her, arching a brow. “What do you think?”

She studies me carefully. “I think,” she says softly. “That any woman capable of abandoning Clara never deserved a single piece of your heart.”

Our eyes lock, my heart beating faster with every second.

The world beyond the deck disappears, everything blurring in the background as the only thing my eyes see is her.

Only her beneath the stars.

She shifts onto her side to face me fully. “Am I right?”

I hold her gaze for another heartbeat before nodding. “You are.” My finger drums against my armrest. “Can I ask you something?”

She smiles. “Of course.”

I hesitate because a part of me already knows I won’t like the answer. But still… I need to know.

“How did you end up with Garrett?”

Her smile immediately falls. She lowers her gaze to the arm of the chair, absentmindedly tracing the grain of the wood with the tip of her finger. “My parents cared a lot about money and very little about me.” Her eyes appear lost, as if she’s stuck in a memory. “I spent my life not realizing that I was being groomed for marriage by parents who only saw me as a profit and not their daughter. I was sent to boarding school and was always expected to have weekly hair and nail appointments. Facials. Cleanses. Teeth whitening. Tanning sessions. To look and be my best.” She shakes her head. “People would probably hear that and think it sounds like a dream, but all I wanted to do was be a normal teenager. Watch TV. Eat a damn cookie. Rebel by dyeing my hair some crazy color.” She laughs softly, but her smile fades almost as quickly as it appeared. “But perfection was expected.”

Her finger stills. “Garrett met me when I was only fifteen years old.” My stomach knots, not liking one bit where this is going. “My parents brought me to one of their charity galas. They told me someone important would be there and that I needed to make a good impression.” She stares down at her lap. “I thought they just wanted me to be polite.” Another long pause. “I didn’t realize I was being introduced to my future husband.”

Her words are barely above a whisper.

“That night, my parents sold me to the devil. And three years later, they walked me down the aisle and expected me to thank them for it. My wedding day was the last day I ever heard from them. I couldn’t even tell you where they are now.” She shrugs. “Probably spending every penny Garrett gave them for me.”

“And Garrett?”

She arches a brow. “What about him?”

My eyes meet hers. “What did he do to you?”

She swallows hard, her eyes connecting with mine. “What do you think?”

“I’m going to kill him,” I say matter-of-factly. “And I want to know everything he did to you so that I can drag out his death as long as possible. So that he feels every ounce of pain that you ever felt.”

Her lips part, but she doesn’t seem scared of that notion. More curious than anything else. Maybe slightly relieved that someone is going to finally destroy her husband.

“He liked to punish me,” she breathes. “Sometimes he’d drug me, have his way with me, and when I woke up, I would be chained to a bed in a small cabin. No food. No water. In the winters he left the heat off. In the summer, I’d sweat through my clothes.” A tear trails down her cheeks, but she brushes it away. “You saw the bruises on my body. Those were a normal occurrence throughout our marriage. He usually made sure they were in places I could keep hidden. If he got carried away and hit me in the face, I’d have to remain inside until they went away.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes dropping. “He liked to remind me that I belonged to him.”

My fingers tighten into fists as red inches into my vision. “Where is this cabin?”

“No idea,” she answers. “I was always drugged or knocked out before he left me there.” She leans back in her chair, wrapping her arms around herself. She goes silent for a moment, lost in her head, before she finally says, “Seeing your family gives me hope that I’ve never felt before. I’ve never seen people love each other the way all of you do. You argue. You tease each other. And yet… I’d bet every single one of you would burn the world down for each other.”

She isn’t wrong.

There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for any one of them.

“Maybe someday…” she says. “I could have something like that.”

“A family of your own?” I ask.