A Price to Pay Read online

  I wanted to touch her so badly, wake her immediately, and set her straight about it all. But I didn’t want to startle her, and I knew that after my behaviour this week she might not want me to touch her anyway. So instead of leaning in and scooping her into my arms as I yearned to, I softly cleared my throat instead.

  Her eyelids fluttered, but then she seemed to drift back towards sleep again, so I repeated the action, coughing a little louder and watching as her muscles tensed and she blinked as she woke up.

  As she focused on me there was a second or two where Robyn was obviously still sleepy enough that she didn’t remember the events of the week, because her face filled with a smile and her eyes shone with happiness and love like they always did when we were together. Then a cloud of shock and anger swept her features, and as her expression turned to panic, she abruptly sat upright and shoved herself backwards on the sofa away from me.

  ‘Robyn, cariño, it’s OK, it’s me, we need to talk.’

  Her eyes were glassy as tears instantly built, and she shook her head rapidly. ‘You said plenty on the phone, Oliver, just leave.’

  ‘Fuck! I’m not going anywhere. The things I said on the phone were bullshit, they weren’t real. Let me explain.’ I tried to reach for her, but she let out a horrified squeak, scrabbled even further along the couch, and pulled her knees up to her chest in an attempt at making herself small and unreachable.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  A disgusted grunt left my lips as she tried to avoid my contact. She was mine, and I needed to feel her just as much as she did me. I shuffled closer until she had no further wiggle room and then clasped both of her hands in mine, letting out a small satisfied sigh as our connection sparked and fizzed between us like normal.

  Normal. Dios, I couldn’t wait until things between us were back to boring ol’ normal.

  I could see in her eyes that she felt the spark fire up between us, she always did, so it would be no different now just because she was angry with me. In fact, anger was no doubt intensifying her feelings. We didn’t argue as such, but dios, on the occasions that we’d had a disagreement the makeup sex was always incredibly potent and explosive.

  She tried to pull her hands from my grasp with impressive strength, but she could never out-tug me, and I held on tight and gave a firm shake of my head. ‘We’re meant to be together, Robyn. Nothing can stop me touching you.’

  Her face screwed up into a frown, and I could clearly see confusion as it began mixing with her anger. I understood perfectly well why – just a few days ago I had told her I no longer wanted her in my life, and now here I was declaring that we were meant to be together and grabbing hold of her hands. It must be quite a mind-fuck for her.

  ‘Robyn, I need to… oooff…’ My explanation was halted as the air was forced from my lungs on a sharp inhale. Robyn had thrust a leg forwards and kicked me in the chest. I was so shocked that my grip fell away from her hands as I clutched at my solar plexus, gasping for breath and completely winded. I watched in astounded pride as my feisty girl jumped up from the couch and stood in the furthest corner of the room, glaring at me.

  ‘I said, don’t fucking touch me. Don’t make me repeat myself again, Oliver,’ she spat, her entire frame bristling with determination.

  A choked bark of laughter left my crippled chest at her words – words that I had often said to her at the start of our relationship when I’d told her how much I hated repeating myself. But Robyn wasn’t laughing today so I sobered my expression and nodded once to signal my compliance.

  I stood with difficulty. My shoulder was now burning with pain, and my chest was still cramped and winded. One hand rubbed at my sternum in an attempt at helping my poor lungs get some breath back in them, but it was no good, I was still gasping and wheezing.

  Glancing at Robyn, I saw her wincing with guilt and hope flared in my chest. If she felt guilty about hurting me then that meant through all her anger and pain she still cared about me.

  In my mind everything was fixable as long as she still wanted me.

  I held out my arms to my sides and offered her a free shot. ‘Hit me again. I fucking deserve it for what I’ve put you through.’

  She frowned, her eyes briefly dropping to my torso and then slowly dragging up my body until she found my face. Normally it thrilled me when I caught her doing a slow perusal of my body – it was a nice little affirmation that she still found me just as attractive – but today I couldn’t for the life of me decide if she were thinking about ripping me to pieces or ripping my suit from my body.

  ‘No.’

  My heart cramped at the realisation that she didn’t want to hurt me, not even after all the shit I’d put her through. The kick had been a knee-jerk reaction brought about by her panic to break our touch, nothing more.

  ‘You can leave, or you can talk. Just don’t touch me,’ she whispered, before swallowing loudly. Her eyes clouded over, and she wrapped her arms tightly around her middle as if trying to shield herself from me and the pain I had inflicted. ‘I can’t cope with that.’

  Her words were far more agonising than any punch or kick could have been, and I accepted her demand with a sad nod of my head and moved across the room. I stopped dead when I was about three paces from her and she held up a hand to tell me that I was close enough.

  We stared at each other in silence for at least a minute until she raised a hand and gave a tired rub at her temple. ‘Oliver, I’m so confused…’ Her voice was pleading now, the anger in her tone had evaporated and her eyes were latched on mine as if she were totally adrift and had no idea what to do. It seemed she was looking at me to lead the way, which was just fine by me, because I certainly had some explaining to do, and the quicker I did it, the quicker I could have her in my arms again.

  ‘This is going to sound like utter bullshit, but you have to trust me, Robyn. Every word I am about to say is God’s honest truth.’

  She stayed silent, but I saw a minute nod of her head to indicate that I should start. With a grimace, I cast my mind back to Saturday morning and began.

  ‘Saturday morning, while I was waiting for you before the start of the wedding, I got an email. It was from an unknown sender, which I would usually ignore, but the subject of the email was your name.’ I paused and ran a hand through my hair. ‘I was curious, so I opened it. It contained a video, a phone number, a list of email addresses, and a simple message: “watch this and then call me. If you don’t call me I will send this video to every email address listed. ”’

  So far so good. Robyn was still listening to me, but her eyes reflected the confusion I had felt when I’d first pressed “play” on that despicable video.

  ‘It was a video of you and me having sex,’ I stated bluntly, watching as her eyes widened in surprise. I still had no idea how Alex had got that footage, but it appeared to be from one of the rare occasions that we’d had sex at Club Twist. I’d be checking all the private rooms for hidden cameras as soon as we got home, that was for sure.

  ‘Both of our faces were clear, and at the start of the film a caption came across the screen that said…’ I drew in a breath, knowing that Robyn wasn’t going to like the next part. ‘It said, “See what Oliver does to Robyn when he fucks her.”’

  Her frown deepened, and she tightened her arms around her chest. ‘What?’

  I saw her bite her bottom lip and had to fight every urge in my body not to reach out to her. ‘After showing a brief video of us, the clip changed to a man beating the shit out of a woman. Obviously, it wasn’t us, but the camera angle made it look so much like us…’ I shook my head, the violent visions still engrained in my memory. ‘They were in the same room, and both were naked. She was tied to a bed, and he was…’ Dios, it repelled me so much I could barely even say it. ‘He was using whips and floggers on her body until she was crying and bleeding and then…’ I swallowed, and tasted bile in my mouth. ‘Let’s just say that as things progressed it didn’t seem consensual.’

 
Robyn’s eyes were bulging with horror, but I needed to make it very clear for her, so she understood why I’d taken the actions I had on Saturday. ‘He raped her, Robyn. Brutally and repeatedly, and the whole thing looked like it was me doing that to you.’

  After her loud gasp, shocked silence hung heavily between us, then she shook her head. ‘That’s… that’s awful. But why did it make you call off the wedding? I don’t understand.’

  My eyes held Robyn’s the entire time I spoke, desperately hoping that she could see I was telling the truth. ‘The author of the email told me to call off the wedding and go to her, or else she would send the video out to a whole load of people.’

  ‘She? Who was it?’

  ‘Alexandra.’ Lowering my head, I let out a long sigh and then joined my gaze with Robyn’s again. ‘Seems you were right when you said she still wanted me. Once I had watched the video, I called the number in the email and she answered. I couldn’t believe it at first, but she got straight to the point, saying that she wanted me for herself.’

  It was clear from the clouded expression on Robyn’s face that she still didn’t quite grasp the whole story.

  ‘If I didn’t call off the wedding she was going to send the video out to all the email addresses on her list, and at the top were your parents.’ Robyn gasped at my words and I softened my tone as I continued. ‘Alex was also kind enough to remind me about your father’s weakened state of health since his heart attack.’

  Robyn was finding it difficult to breathe now, and all I wanted to do was hold her and comfort her, but I refrained, knowing that she must be struggling to straighten this mess out in her head.

  ‘You thought it might give him another attack…’ she guessed quietly.

  I nodded slowly, glad that she was latching on to the important details. ‘I did. Honestly Robyn, when I first saw the video, even I thought that both the clips showed you and me… Except obviously we never do anything violent and non-consensual like that. If I could confuse the two of us with the people on the tape, then the chance that your parents might was too great to risk. If your father had suffered a heart attack because of the shock of that tape I would never have been able to forgive myself.’

  ‘It was really that bad?’ she asked softly.

  My face contorted to a grimace. ‘It was. Honestly, it was so brutal that it’s actually in a police evidence locker right now.’ Robyn seemed to be accepting what I was saying, and I felt the days of tension starting to slowly release from my shoulders. ‘I decided to go and meet Alex as she had demanded, and I was planning on overpowering her, deleting the video, and then returning to the wedding. Unfortunately, she had considered that I might do something like that and when I arrived she turned a gun on me.’

  Robyn sucked in a breath so rapidly that it hissed through her teeth, and in response I felt my gunshot wound give a pulse of pain as if reminding me of how bloody lucky I had been. ‘I’d never in a million years expected her to have a weapon, so I ended up trapped there.’

  ‘What was she expecting? That you would just give up on your life – on me – and settle down with her?’

  I ran my hand along my jaw, still unable to get my head around what exactly Alex had been thinking. ‘I think that’s exactly what she hoped for. She told me we would be happy together, and that if I didn’t put in the effort the video would be sent out to not only your family, but my parents and my colleagues in the accountancy world. In short, she was willing to risk your father’s health, my family’s opinion of me, and my career to get what she wanted.’

  I could see shock in her face, but confusion, too, and I realised that she hadn’t fully grasped what I was getting at. ‘If I couldn’t prove it wasn’t me in that tape I would have gone to prison for violent assault and rape, Robyn.’

  Robyn shivered as my words sunk in.

  ‘With the gun in her hand and her threats on the table I had no choice but to comply with her demands until I got the opportunity to overpower her.’

  ‘So, she was with you when I phoned?’ Pain flashed in her eyes as she mentioned my hurtful phone call on the day of our wedding and I immediately wanted to set her straight.

  ‘Yes. I couldn’t try to pass any message to you, or tell you it was all a lie, because she would have sent the video out. I’m so sorry for what I said. For the record, they were her words, not mine. She wrote down exactly what I had to say to you.’

  ‘She wrote it down?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied grimly. ‘After your first few calls Alex realised that you weren’t going to stop phoning until you spoke to me, so she wrote down what she wanted me to say. Told me if I deviated from it at all she would press “send” on the emails.’

  Robyn nodded slowly and puffed out a sigh. ‘I can’t deny that I’m relieved to hear that… I… I can’t stand the thought of you with other women.’ Her eyes dropped away from mine. ‘Hundreds of other women,’ she added in a pained whisper. It was immediately obvious that Robyn had been dwelling on what had been said between us, and even though I’d told her they weren’t my words she was still bloody well lingering on it now.

  ‘Hey. Enough. I haven’t been with hundreds of women, cariño. Like I said, that was just spiteful talk Alex made up. She knew it would hurt you to think that, so she made me say it.’ In truth, that total probably wasn’t far from the mark. I’d certainly led a far from salubrious life before I’d met Robyn, fucking anything that had taken my interest, but that was all in the past now, and dredging it up wasn’t going to help put the sparkle back in my girl’s eyes.

  Robyn silently absorbed everything I’d said so far and then a deep frown creased her brow.

  ‘So you were with Alex for two days, and she wanted you for herself… Does that mean you and she…?’

  My heart sunk as I realised I was going to have to confess what had happened between Alex and me.

  As much as I wanted to lie to reassure Robyn and help me feel like less of a shit, I knew I couldn’t keep it from her. Our married life would not start on a bed of secrets and lies; no good would ever come of that.

  Keeping my voice level, I stared at her and prayed that she would hear the truth in my words without pushing me to actually say it. ‘I did what I had to do to keep you safe.’

  Robyn sucked in a small breath and stared up at me. ‘You fucked her,’ she stated softly, her eyes widening with obvious pain.

  ‘No…’ It was technically the truth, but I still felt the weight of this explanation weighing heavily on me.

  ‘Oliver, just tell me,’ Robyn demanded. ‘It’s OK if you did. She had a gun and she was threatening both you and me… I might not like it, but… but I get it.’

  ‘She tried repeatedly to initiate it, but I swear I didn’t have sex with her, Robyn. Eventually she started to threaten your life and that was when I realised I couldn’t avoid it any longer so… so I… I used my hand to get her off. Tried to fool her into thinking that I was coming around to the idea of being with her. It seemed to keep her satisfied and bought me a little more time.’

  Robyn’s jaw had tensed so much that I could see a muscle jumping along it, but I persevered with my confession, determined not to keep anything from her. ‘I’m so sorry. I hated doing it because I knew it would hurt you, but at the time I couldn’t see any other option.’

  Robyn stayed silent, but eventually I saw her give a small nod of acceptance. She’d thought I’d had full sex with Alex, so perhaps the reality was a bit of a relief. ‘I stayed fully dressed, and if it makes you feel better my dick was as soft as a marshmallow the entire time.’

  She gave a small, dry laugh, but kept her eyes lowered away from mine as if she were struggling to take it all in and I started to panic that I was going to lose her all over again. ‘You’re the only one I want, Robyn. I had to do it to keep you safe.’

  Pulling in a wheezy breath, Robyn nodded. ‘I understand. It’s OK.’ Her words sounded sincere, but her gaze was still lowered, and a little crinkle between her eyeb
rows indicated her continued uncertainty.

  ‘Look at me, cariño.’ My voice was firm, and her head immediately popped up as if she were unable not to follow my command, a reaction which I fucking loved and instantly aroused me. ‘You are the only woman I want. You are the only women I will ever want. Understand?’

  Deciding that I’d had enough of her no touching rule, I took her by surprise and pulled her towards me. I tucked her into my chest and wrapped my arms around her tense frame until I finally felt her relax against me.

  Thank God she was accepting my touch. I’m not sure what I would have done if she’d tried to fight me and push me away again.

  We stood like that for several silent seconds, and then, without saying a word, Robyn took hold of my wrist and pulled me towards the small en suite bathroom attached to the office. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing, but from the intent look on her face she had something in mind, so I kept quiet and watched with curiosity as she unbuttoned my right shirt cuff and began rolling it up.

  Once my sleeve was neatly tucked up by my elbow she tugged me towards the sink and silently began soaping up my hand. She washed each finger with care until my entire hand was surely the cleanest it had ever been, but I was still in the dark about what she was doing.

  ‘Was it just that hand?’ she asked quietly, staring down at my fingers and chewing on her lower lip.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean. Was what just that hand?’

  Robyn raised her head and looked at me with a determined gleam in her eyes. ‘That you touched her with. Was it just that hand?’

  Ohhh. Now it all made sense. Robyn was cleaning me up, removing the traces of Alex and claiming me back as hers. Was it wrong that her little show of possessiveness really turned me on? Probably, so I tried to hide my growing arousal by turning my body, and then nodded. ‘Yes, just that hand.’

  Her eyes drifted from my gaze and settled upon my mouth. She frowned and lifted a thumb up to graze across my lips. ‘Did… did you kiss her?’ she asked, her voice coming out in a dry croak.