Part 1 - Nick Dunne
1 YEAR, 3 MONTHS, 2 DAYS SINCE THE RETURN…
I told myself months ago that I’m finally a match for Amy, and I am. I’m as distorted and twisted as she is, even if I’ve never murdered anyone or framed a loved one’s murder for revenge. Because I pretend to love her and she pretends to love me, and we’ve been doing it since I realized I was trapped with her, forced to be the man she’d always wanted me to be, to maintain. She wanted the man who was her equal and now finally I was.
It’s not that the love isn’t real. It’s that we aren’t real. She’s pretending to be the woman I married and I’m the man that stood up to be worthy of her. I can’t let myself be the me I really am because then I’ll be disgusted and scared of her and I won’t be able to raise my son the way he needs to be raised. I won’t be able to protect him from the brainwashing my psychotic murderess wife will do.
My son. The only thing keeping me going. He is the most precious thing in my life, and Go, despite the situation, dotes on him like the most perfect godmother and aunt she is. Amy lets her be that, and I’m grateful.
It’s so hard sometimes though, to pretend. I can’t allow myself to stop and think about it too much or else I’ll just be miserable. I’m playing a character and becoming so engrossed in it that I actually believe it’s me and I ignore my wife’s horrific past actions so that the me I’m pretending to be can really, truly love her.
Cool Amy.
That’s what she was. That’s who she was. I could do almost anything and she’d brush it aside. She was laid-back. She was perfect. But she wasn’t. And she hated that I couldn’t see that. And I hated that she wasn’t who I thought she was. But for some reason that is beyond me, my lies that I loved her made her love me again, whatever love is to her, and her vendetta against me turned into a full drive to keep me hers forever.
I said that she was changing me, and she has. It’s hard to pretend, but one day – very soon I suspect – I won’t be pretending anymore. I’ll be the man she married without having to try so hard, because I will genuinely be in love with her. She pulls me to her like a moth to a flame, especially when deep down I don’t want her to. She’s my Amy, as psychotic and demented as that sounds.
And I realize as I say this that I want to love her, really love her. That’s how far into madness, how close to Amy, how matched for her I am now. I don’t want us to be stuck with each other because she could destroy my life if I left. If she will be my only wife, and I suspect that very much is the case, I want to love her the way she always deserved. Cool Amy was easy, just like Andie was easy. But life isn’t easy. The things worth really cherishing aren’t easy. I look into my son’s beautiful blue eyes and I know that 100%.
Every now and then I think I’m seeing the real Amy. She doesn’t show it often and, despite her righteous indignation that she holds the ultimate key to my undoing, again, she pretends because she wants us to look like a normal, happy, in love couple. And the only time she’s ever known me to be in love with her was when she was pretending to be someone else, the person I fell in love with.
There’s a part of me that wonders if even with her sociopathic mindset, if I can love the woman beneath all those layers – the real Amy. Not the sociopath that emerged because I didn’t love her for who she was and she resented me for it. But the girl she was before all that. The real Amy Elliot who I could have gotten to know but didn’t. The girl who intrigued me in the very beginning, because I know that girl was real.
I think I will. I think I can really love her. It scares me to think that, but I do. Because even if she might not have held as much allure as the laid-back “Cool Amy” she pretends to be, everything she’s done, maybe especially the evil is incredibly twisted and maniacal proof that she wants us more than anything. Even if it means she has to pretend to be someone else. Her love, even if it’s just for the idea of us, is something that is so incredibly attractive. She’s dedicated her life to it, and I know she won’t let me loose when our son turns eighteen. Besides, eighteen years is a very long time to go on pretending.
These thoughts burning in my mind since our son was born, I’ve been trying to put into words my feelings to Amy. I haven’t expressed anything real to her since before all of this happened, back when I thought Cool Amy was the real one. I haven’t let my guard down completely at all, even if I have found it remarkably easy to fall asleep with her again. There’s still enough tension for me not to trust what could come in the post-coital glow after love-making. I used her delicate condition as an excuse not to have sex with her, even if pregnant women are supposedly the horniest.
But the time is coming when, according to the doctor, it will be “safe to have intercourse” again. Healthy even. I can feel her plotting her seduction, since I won’t have the pregnancy to distance myself with. As her match, it would be so very satisfying to beat her to the punch. Maybe it will be what will make us one. If she can be psychotic, so can I. Enough to love her as she is if she’ll show it to me. Despite her determination to hold us together as a pretend, in love, picture perfect family, I know it will go so much more smoothly if she just lets me in. If she lets her guard down completely, lets her be vulnerable in a way she never has, maybe I can too and just maybe we’ll be at peace.
It’s a shot in the dark, but Amy is determined to make it last, so I’m willing to risk some reality here. A good portion of my life has lost the reality, the ingenuity of anything. Maybe this is all it takes to bring some of that back. Something fresh and forever.
Tonight I stood in the doorway of the nursery, watching Amy gaze down at our child. Our almost two-month old that we ironically named Oliver – Just one more olive. A sentiment to the beginning of our story, the real one.
After what felt like eternity, I knew she became aware of me, because she tensed, then removed her hand from our child’s cheek, turned her pristine face and looked up at me. I didn’t move, but I smiled a little.
“I didn’t see you there,” she said, almost sounding gruff and I knew I’d caught her off guard, caught her being herself.
“I like watching you,” I said, moving into the room.
Her tension seemed to shake off and I knew she was pretending. I almost fell into the pretend mode myself, almost forgot why I had decided to smoothly sneak up on her. It was so easy to start pretending most of the time, those times when I wasn’t longing for something real.
She slipped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the lips. I let her. I let her do that sometimes, since I wouldn’t let her fuck me. She could have that at least. That little victory.
“What are you doing up?” she asked lightly. “It’s past midnight,” she said, by way of explanation.
“I heard you,” I said, my hands sliding down her back till I was squeezing her hips gently.
“I wasn’t making a sound.” She smiled devilishly, and I knew she was waiting for a clever remark. A smug smile nearly inched itself onto my face, but I only let it make it halfway.
“Amy,” I said.
“Nick,” she replied, eyes twinkling.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“And that would be?” she asked coyly, letting her fingers slip through my hair, not worried in the least.
“There’s a question actually that I need to ask of you.”
“Well, don’t keep me hanging Nick, love.” She nearly giggled.
“Why did you pick me?” I asked, almost a whisper. I’m not sure if I was pretending to let my guard down or if I was actually doing it, but I had to let her see my soul. A glimpse or the whole thing did not necessarily matter. She just had to see it.
She hesitated for the briefest of seconds.
“Because I love you, silly.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, but this time I didn’t let her. A challenge danced in her eyes but an equally devilish reassurance sparked in mine. I wasn’t leaving. I just wanted to see her.
“Why did you pick me?” I said again.
Now I could see her eyes searching mine, wondering if I was still pretending.
“Nick…” she warned.
“I’ve had months to become accustomed to our…little arrangement.”
Her fingers tensed in my hair.
“I’ve gotten very good at pretending, and as per usual, you do it flawlessly.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” She let her hands slide out of my hair and smooth across my shirt-covered chest.
I covered her hand with my own.
“That’s not really true though, is it?”
She smiled, amused.
“Not for you, it isn’t,” she said. “I know you inside and out.”
“Better than I know myself.”
“I’m glad you finally agree.”
Now her teeth showed, sparkling white. She glittered.
“I don’t want to pretend anymore,” I said. Might as well get it out there in the open.
I can see the wheels in her head moving, grinding against each other, trying to figure out if she needed to threaten me again, make it clear that she could ruin me and would do it in a heartbeat if I so much as contemplated walking out on her. She would be even more furious now that are son was born, and in the same room no less.
She cleared her throat delicately and tried to remove her hands from my chest, but I held them steady.
“What are you trying to say, Nick?”
She stared at our hands. I moved mine over hers snugly, warming her. I tucked the tips of my fingers over the outlines of her hands.
“I’m saying I want to love you.” She looked up at me, fast, eyes wide, not pretending. Good. “Really love you.”
Her lips parted in bewildered surprise.
“I can’t do that if you pretend. And I don’t want to pretend either. Maybe I fell in love with this dream girl that wasn’t really you all those years ago-” She tensed again. I smoothed my hand over hers again, in reassurance, hoping luck was on my side. “That doesn’t mean that I won’t love the real you.” I sighed, for a moment torn on how to convince her. “I need this to be real, Amy.”
She tugged a little and I let her hands drop.
“You just had to push, didn’t you?” Her eyes narrowed angrily. My mouth twisted in regret and a hint of panic. “You couldn’t just let it happen. You couldn’t fall in love with me all over again the way I am now. You have to break the—”
“Illusion?” I offered up, quite strongly I might add.
“We were perfect. We are perfect. We are the perfect family and we are in love.”
“It’s a lie.”
“Only if you shatter it.”
I stared at her, gaping.
“Take it back,” she demanded. “Take it all back.”
“Why can’t you be real with me?” I asked, disbelief coloring my every word. It was written all over my face. “You don’t even know how I’ll react.”
“I do,” she barked. Then, aware of her surroundings, dragged me out into the hall to our bedroom where our baby had no chance of overhearing in his sleep.
“I watched you,” she said. “I saw the look of disgust on your face when Cool Amy unraveled. I wasn’t who you thought you fell in love with it and you despised me for it. That broke me, Nick. Completely. Because I always loved you, exactly as you were. But I grew to hate you because you were so dissatisfied with me. And then you cheated on me because I didn’t respond the way you wanted. You couldn’t see that I had only become a cold, angry, distant bitch because you couldn’t accept me as I was. Whether I’ve got another framed murder as a back-up plan or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to go through that kind of hell again.”
I stared at her intently. She was breathing heavy. Her eyes were close to tears. And I knew that for this rare moment she was brutally honest and vulnerable with me. The pull was still strong, as I suspected it might be. For all our sweet moments and little apologies in the early years of our marriage, she had never broken down like this. She hadn’t let herself.
I knew then beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would love her.
“Do you forgive me for cheating on you? For becoming distant? For everything you just said?”
I held my breath.
“No,” she finally said. “I will never forgive you for any of that.”
I swallowed.
“You framed me for murder, and then you killed someone to keep me from the death sentence.”
“I had a reason for both those things. This is in the past. We live in the future and in the now. We’re starting fresh.”
“We’re not starting at all unless you’re honest with me. Otherwise, we’re just playing a game.”
She stepped away from me, and I swear my heart broke.
“It’s a game I can live with.”
It’s a story I can live with.
Thoughts I’d had only months ago when I’d accepted my fate with Amy, the willingness to do what had to be done and do it well; for the greater good, whatever that might be.
“If I’m honest and vulnerable and real with you, Nick, then I would have to forgive you. I can’t do that. Just as the real you can’t forgive me, no matter how justified I was; even if you can’t see it.”
With murder? I wanted to say, but I didn’t. It would only prove her point.
“I won’t leave you,” I said.
She smiled her brilliant smile again, catching me off-guard when I should have seen it coming.
“I’m aware of that, and I’m so very glad you came to your senses and realized we were meant for each other. Meant to have a family.”
It was what I had been stressing, but it wasn’t the same thing. The topic was no longer open for discussion. I had been shut down and I couldn’t see an opening to restate my case without inflaming her further.
“Time for bed I think,” she announced, starting to turn away.
I did the only thing that came to mind. I was brutally honest one more.
“I’m not afraid of you, Amy.”
She turned back to me and cocked a brow.
“Aren’t you?” I stared at her, not speaking. “You should be.”
“I’m not afraid of sleeping with you,” I clarified. “Really sleeping. Eyes closed and all.” That gave her pause. I closed the distance between us. “I’m not afraid of being alone with you. I’m not afraid you’ll kill me in my sleep or run off with my son.”
“We’re a family,” she said. “I wouldn’t run off. I’m the reason we’re here.”
“Right,” I agreed. “And this conversation? This is all me.” She opened her mouth, but I kept going. “This, right here, this is me stepping up. This is me being the man you wanted me to be all along. Your match. Your mate. My best self has always been me being in love with the person you pretended to be. But part of you was in there all along. Don’t you think there’s even the slightest possibility that now that I know everything, I can love the real you – all of you?”
I was menacing hovering over her that she had trouble forming words. I knew if I let this moment slip by in the morning she’d be pretending again and I would be obliged to continue and I’d never get a chance like this again because she’d more cautious than ever.
I was about to kiss her, to make love to her finally, in that daring, dashing way her mind always romanticized me as, as it did in her recent memoir that had me tamping down my temper whenever it was brought up. The tours would be the death of me, but it would be a million times easier if I wasn’t just doing it because she was holding another framed murder over my head.
“If you hurt me again, there won’t be any warnings,” she said. “You’ll lose everything. I am justified in whatever I do, Nick, no matter how psychotic everyone will claim I am if they knew the truth. And maybe I am a sociopath, but you’ll stay married to me, and it will be a hell of a lot easier if you just keep pretending. You can feel the love if you don’t stop and think about it. You’re almost there. I can feel it.”
“Can you?” I dared.
“I know you better than anyone,” she said and I smirked.
“You think so?”
“I know it.”
My eyes heated and I moved in on her, a deep passionate kiss that stole her breath away. I hadn’t kissed her like this in years. I hadn’t wanted to and she hadn’t let me. But now I wanted her. I wanted to be worthy of her psychotic self, because before she had gone off the rails this was the guy she deserved.
When I finally pulled away, she didn’t speak. She was breathing heavily again and I relished in that fact. When she looked at me several moments later, there was no pretense, no well-acted flirtation.
“Did you know I can put you first?” I asked, breathing a little heavily myself. I ran my hands along the sides of her body. I moved closer till our lips were almost touching. “I can make you feel as alive as you’ve made me feel right from the beginning, just by being you.”
I could tell the notion overwhelmed her, because she still couldn’t speak. So I kissed her again, in the gentlest rough way I could muster.
“Amy,” I murmured in her ear, and she moaned. My hand drifted down her silky covered stomach, still curvy in its post-pregnant state.
She gasped when I nibbled her earlobe and moaned again when I slipped my hand between her thighs. I sensed her eyes open suddenly and knew she’d been craving my touch. Whatever came in the morning I wouldn’t let her forget this.
After a full minute of sensual torture, I picked her up, carried her to the bed and worshiped her body until she fell asleep in my arms.
I told myself months ago that I’m finally a match for Amy, and I am. I’m as distorted and twisted as she is, even if I’ve never murdered anyone or framed a loved one’s murder for revenge. Because I pretend to love her and she pretends to love me, and we’ve been doing it since I realized I was trapped with her, forced to be the man she’d always wanted me to be, to maintain. She wanted the man who was her equal and now finally I was.
It’s not that the love isn’t real. It’s that we aren’t real. She’s pretending to be the woman I married and I’m the man that stood up to be worthy of her. I can’t let myself be the me I really am because then I’ll be disgusted and scared of her and I won’t be able to raise my son the way he needs to be raised. I won’t be able to protect him from the brainwashing my psychotic murderess wife will do.
My son. The only thing keeping me going. He is the most precious thing in my life, and Go, despite the situation, dotes on him like the most perfect godmother and aunt she is. Amy lets her be that, and I’m grateful.
It’s so hard sometimes though, to pretend. I can’t allow myself to stop and think about it too much or else I’ll just be miserable. I’m playing a character and becoming so engrossed in it that I actually believe it’s me and I ignore my wife’s horrific past actions so that the me I’m pretending to be can really, truly love her.
Cool Amy.
That’s what she was. That’s who she was. I could do almost anything and she’d brush it aside. She was laid-back. She was perfect. But she wasn’t. And she hated that I couldn’t see that. And I hated that she wasn’t who I thought she was. But for some reason that is beyond me, my lies that I loved her made her love me again, whatever love is to her, and her vendetta against me turned into a full drive to keep me hers forever.
I said that she was changing me, and she has. It’s hard to pretend, but one day – very soon I suspect – I won’t be pretending anymore. I’ll be the man she married without having to try so hard, because I will genuinely be in love with her. She pulls me to her like a moth to a flame, especially when deep down I don’t want her to. She’s my Amy, as psychotic and demented as that sounds.
And I realize as I say this that I want to love her, really love her. That’s how far into madness, how close to Amy, how matched for her I am now. I don’t want us to be stuck with each other because she could destroy my life if I left. If she will be my only wife, and I suspect that very much is the case, I want to love her the way she always deserved. Cool Amy was easy, just like Andie was easy. But life isn’t easy. The things worth really cherishing aren’t easy. I look into my son’s beautiful blue eyes and I know that 100%.
Every now and then I think I’m seeing the real Amy. She doesn’t show it often and, despite her righteous indignation that she holds the ultimate key to my undoing, again, she pretends because she wants us to look like a normal, happy, in love couple. And the only time she’s ever known me to be in love with her was when she was pretending to be someone else, the person I fell in love with.
There’s a part of me that wonders if even with her sociopathic mindset, if I can love the woman beneath all those layers – the real Amy. Not the sociopath that emerged because I didn’t love her for who she was and she resented me for it. But the girl she was before all that. The real Amy Elliot who I could have gotten to know but didn’t. The girl who intrigued me in the very beginning, because I know that girl was real.
I think I will. I think I can really love her. It scares me to think that, but I do. Because even if she might not have held as much allure as the laid-back “Cool Amy” she pretends to be, everything she’s done, maybe especially the evil is incredibly twisted and maniacal proof that she wants us more than anything. Even if it means she has to pretend to be someone else. Her love, even if it’s just for the idea of us, is something that is so incredibly attractive. She’s dedicated her life to it, and I know she won’t let me loose when our son turns eighteen. Besides, eighteen years is a very long time to go on pretending.
These thoughts burning in my mind since our son was born, I’ve been trying to put into words my feelings to Amy. I haven’t expressed anything real to her since before all of this happened, back when I thought Cool Amy was the real one. I haven’t let my guard down completely at all, even if I have found it remarkably easy to fall asleep with her again. There’s still enough tension for me not to trust what could come in the post-coital glow after love-making. I used her delicate condition as an excuse not to have sex with her, even if pregnant women are supposedly the horniest.
But the time is coming when, according to the doctor, it will be “safe to have intercourse” again. Healthy even. I can feel her plotting her seduction, since I won’t have the pregnancy to distance myself with. As her match, it would be so very satisfying to beat her to the punch. Maybe it will be what will make us one. If she can be psychotic, so can I. Enough to love her as she is if she’ll show it to me. Despite her determination to hold us together as a pretend, in love, picture perfect family, I know it will go so much more smoothly if she just lets me in. If she lets her guard down completely, lets her be vulnerable in a way she never has, maybe I can too and just maybe we’ll be at peace.
It’s a shot in the dark, but Amy is determined to make it last, so I’m willing to risk some reality here. A good portion of my life has lost the reality, the ingenuity of anything. Maybe this is all it takes to bring some of that back. Something fresh and forever.
Tonight I stood in the doorway of the nursery, watching Amy gaze down at our child. Our almost two-month old that we ironically named Oliver – Just one more olive. A sentiment to the beginning of our story, the real one.
After what felt like eternity, I knew she became aware of me, because she tensed, then removed her hand from our child’s cheek, turned her pristine face and looked up at me. I didn’t move, but I smiled a little.
“I didn’t see you there,” she said, almost sounding gruff and I knew I’d caught her off guard, caught her being herself.
“I like watching you,” I said, moving into the room.
Her tension seemed to shake off and I knew she was pretending. I almost fell into the pretend mode myself, almost forgot why I had decided to smoothly sneak up on her. It was so easy to start pretending most of the time, those times when I wasn’t longing for something real.
She slipped her arms around my neck and kissed me on the lips. I let her. I let her do that sometimes, since I wouldn’t let her fuck me. She could have that at least. That little victory.
“What are you doing up?” she asked lightly. “It’s past midnight,” she said, by way of explanation.
“I heard you,” I said, my hands sliding down her back till I was squeezing her hips gently.
“I wasn’t making a sound.” She smiled devilishly, and I knew she was waiting for a clever remark. A smug smile nearly inched itself onto my face, but I only let it make it halfway.
“Amy,” I said.
“Nick,” she replied, eyes twinkling.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“And that would be?” she asked coyly, letting her fingers slip through my hair, not worried in the least.
“There’s a question actually that I need to ask of you.”
“Well, don’t keep me hanging Nick, love.” She nearly giggled.
“Why did you pick me?” I asked, almost a whisper. I’m not sure if I was pretending to let my guard down or if I was actually doing it, but I had to let her see my soul. A glimpse or the whole thing did not necessarily matter. She just had to see it.
She hesitated for the briefest of seconds.
“Because I love you, silly.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss my cheek, but this time I didn’t let her. A challenge danced in her eyes but an equally devilish reassurance sparked in mine. I wasn’t leaving. I just wanted to see her.
“Why did you pick me?” I said again.
Now I could see her eyes searching mine, wondering if I was still pretending.
“Nick…” she warned.
“I’ve had months to become accustomed to our…little arrangement.”
Her fingers tensed in my hair.
“I’ve gotten very good at pretending, and as per usual, you do it flawlessly.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” She let her hands slide out of my hair and smooth across my shirt-covered chest.
I covered her hand with my own.
“That’s not really true though, is it?”
She smiled, amused.
“Not for you, it isn’t,” she said. “I know you inside and out.”
“Better than I know myself.”
“I’m glad you finally agree.”
Now her teeth showed, sparkling white. She glittered.
“I don’t want to pretend anymore,” I said. Might as well get it out there in the open.
I can see the wheels in her head moving, grinding against each other, trying to figure out if she needed to threaten me again, make it clear that she could ruin me and would do it in a heartbeat if I so much as contemplated walking out on her. She would be even more furious now that are son was born, and in the same room no less.
She cleared her throat delicately and tried to remove her hands from my chest, but I held them steady.
“What are you trying to say, Nick?”
She stared at our hands. I moved mine over hers snugly, warming her. I tucked the tips of my fingers over the outlines of her hands.
“I’m saying I want to love you.” She looked up at me, fast, eyes wide, not pretending. Good. “Really love you.”
Her lips parted in bewildered surprise.
“I can’t do that if you pretend. And I don’t want to pretend either. Maybe I fell in love with this dream girl that wasn’t really you all those years ago-” She tensed again. I smoothed my hand over hers again, in reassurance, hoping luck was on my side. “That doesn’t mean that I won’t love the real you.” I sighed, for a moment torn on how to convince her. “I need this to be real, Amy.”
She tugged a little and I let her hands drop.
“You just had to push, didn’t you?” Her eyes narrowed angrily. My mouth twisted in regret and a hint of panic. “You couldn’t just let it happen. You couldn’t fall in love with me all over again the way I am now. You have to break the—”
“Illusion?” I offered up, quite strongly I might add.
“We were perfect. We are perfect. We are the perfect family and we are in love.”
“It’s a lie.”
“Only if you shatter it.”
I stared at her, gaping.
“Take it back,” she demanded. “Take it all back.”
“Why can’t you be real with me?” I asked, disbelief coloring my every word. It was written all over my face. “You don’t even know how I’ll react.”
“I do,” she barked. Then, aware of her surroundings, dragged me out into the hall to our bedroom where our baby had no chance of overhearing in his sleep.
“I watched you,” she said. “I saw the look of disgust on your face when Cool Amy unraveled. I wasn’t who you thought you fell in love with it and you despised me for it. That broke me, Nick. Completely. Because I always loved you, exactly as you were. But I grew to hate you because you were so dissatisfied with me. And then you cheated on me because I didn’t respond the way you wanted. You couldn’t see that I had only become a cold, angry, distant bitch because you couldn’t accept me as I was. Whether I’ve got another framed murder as a back-up plan or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to go through that kind of hell again.”
I stared at her intently. She was breathing heavy. Her eyes were close to tears. And I knew that for this rare moment she was brutally honest and vulnerable with me. The pull was still strong, as I suspected it might be. For all our sweet moments and little apologies in the early years of our marriage, she had never broken down like this. She hadn’t let herself.
I knew then beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would love her.
“Do you forgive me for cheating on you? For becoming distant? For everything you just said?”
I held my breath.
“No,” she finally said. “I will never forgive you for any of that.”
I swallowed.
“You framed me for murder, and then you killed someone to keep me from the death sentence.”
“I had a reason for both those things. This is in the past. We live in the future and in the now. We’re starting fresh.”
“We’re not starting at all unless you’re honest with me. Otherwise, we’re just playing a game.”
She stepped away from me, and I swear my heart broke.
“It’s a game I can live with.”
It’s a story I can live with.
Thoughts I’d had only months ago when I’d accepted my fate with Amy, the willingness to do what had to be done and do it well; for the greater good, whatever that might be.
“If I’m honest and vulnerable and real with you, Nick, then I would have to forgive you. I can’t do that. Just as the real you can’t forgive me, no matter how justified I was; even if you can’t see it.”
With murder? I wanted to say, but I didn’t. It would only prove her point.
“I won’t leave you,” I said.
She smiled her brilliant smile again, catching me off-guard when I should have seen it coming.
“I’m aware of that, and I’m so very glad you came to your senses and realized we were meant for each other. Meant to have a family.”
It was what I had been stressing, but it wasn’t the same thing. The topic was no longer open for discussion. I had been shut down and I couldn’t see an opening to restate my case without inflaming her further.
“Time for bed I think,” she announced, starting to turn away.
I did the only thing that came to mind. I was brutally honest one more.
“I’m not afraid of you, Amy.”
She turned back to me and cocked a brow.
“Aren’t you?” I stared at her, not speaking. “You should be.”
“I’m not afraid of sleeping with you,” I clarified. “Really sleeping. Eyes closed and all.” That gave her pause. I closed the distance between us. “I’m not afraid of being alone with you. I’m not afraid you’ll kill me in my sleep or run off with my son.”
“We’re a family,” she said. “I wouldn’t run off. I’m the reason we’re here.”
“Right,” I agreed. “And this conversation? This is all me.” She opened her mouth, but I kept going. “This, right here, this is me stepping up. This is me being the man you wanted me to be all along. Your match. Your mate. My best self has always been me being in love with the person you pretended to be. But part of you was in there all along. Don’t you think there’s even the slightest possibility that now that I know everything, I can love the real you – all of you?”
I was menacing hovering over her that she had trouble forming words. I knew if I let this moment slip by in the morning she’d be pretending again and I would be obliged to continue and I’d never get a chance like this again because she’d more cautious than ever.
I was about to kiss her, to make love to her finally, in that daring, dashing way her mind always romanticized me as, as it did in her recent memoir that had me tamping down my temper whenever it was brought up. The tours would be the death of me, but it would be a million times easier if I wasn’t just doing it because she was holding another framed murder over my head.
“If you hurt me again, there won’t be any warnings,” she said. “You’ll lose everything. I am justified in whatever I do, Nick, no matter how psychotic everyone will claim I am if they knew the truth. And maybe I am a sociopath, but you’ll stay married to me, and it will be a hell of a lot easier if you just keep pretending. You can feel the love if you don’t stop and think about it. You’re almost there. I can feel it.”
“Can you?” I dared.
“I know you better than anyone,” she said and I smirked.
“You think so?”
“I know it.”
My eyes heated and I moved in on her, a deep passionate kiss that stole her breath away. I hadn’t kissed her like this in years. I hadn’t wanted to and she hadn’t let me. But now I wanted her. I wanted to be worthy of her psychotic self, because before she had gone off the rails this was the guy she deserved.
When I finally pulled away, she didn’t speak. She was breathing heavily again and I relished in that fact. When she looked at me several moments later, there was no pretense, no well-acted flirtation.
“Did you know I can put you first?” I asked, breathing a little heavily myself. I ran my hands along the sides of her body. I moved closer till our lips were almost touching. “I can make you feel as alive as you’ve made me feel right from the beginning, just by being you.”
I could tell the notion overwhelmed her, because she still couldn’t speak. So I kissed her again, in the gentlest rough way I could muster.
“Amy,” I murmured in her ear, and she moaned. My hand drifted down her silky covered stomach, still curvy in its post-pregnant state.
She gasped when I nibbled her earlobe and moaned again when I slipped my hand between her thighs. I sensed her eyes open suddenly and knew she’d been craving my touch. Whatever came in the morning I wouldn’t let her forget this.
After a full minute of sensual torture, I picked her up, carried her to the bed and worshiped her body until she fell asleep in my arms.
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