“I do love you,” he whispered into my ear. “I swear to God I love you, Harlow.”

All I could manage was a nod against his chest while I internally screamed, You’re a monster! You don’t know what love is!

“What I do, I do for us; to better our relationship, to better you as a woman and my wife.”

There he was . . . my monster. Still hiding, but there in Collin’s words. Always waiting, teasing me, lurking behind the perfect mask of my seemingly perfect husband.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured before his mouth was on my skin.

It took all my strength not to recoil when his lips brushed against my neck, and then again when he tilted my head back to brush a deceptively soft kiss to the hand-shaped bruise on my throat. His lips slowly moved up my neck, but just before they reached my own, he paused. Seconds passed as his breath mixed with mine, and I slowly let my eyes open. His blue eyes were narrowed into slits, and the sight didn’t match his broken words.

“You’re shaking. You’re scared of me,” he said softly, the last statement sounding more like a question—as if he didn’t understand why or how that was a possibility.

And if he hadn’t been right, and if I hadn’t been in his arms, I might have laughed. But I was scared of him; I was terrified of the man holding me. And I’d never been more terrified than I was in that moment. He didn’t apologize to me like this, he didn’t cry, and he didn’t worry about me not loving him. No matter how much I wanted to believe that things could change, that I could have a future without living in fear of what would come next from Collin, I knew it would be stupid and dangerous to let myself believe that the past few minutes were signs of change for us. I also knew that not answering this question would be a mistake, but my throat wouldn’t work as his blue eyes lost the life behind them.

Oh God.

My head shook slowly at first, then faster. “No, no,” I swore, and ran my hands through his blond hair.

Collin swallowed roughly, then did it again, and even though there wasn’t a change in his eyes, and his hands were starting to hold me tighter and tighter, I could tell in his expression that he was trying to remain calm.

“Yesterday?” he asked, and I hesitated in my reassuring brushes through his hair and against his neck while I waited for something more.

“Yesterday?” I repeated, and let my eyebrows slowly rise to hint that I didn’t know what he wanted me to say.

“You’re scared because of yesterday.”

I forced my gaze not to leave his even though I desperately needed that small break from his intense stare to attempt to gather myself. “Of course not.”

“Good girl,” he murmured, and his tight grip eased up. With a soft kiss to the corner of my mouth, he whispered, “You know I would never hurt you.”

I didn’t respond because it sounded like he was saying it more for himself than for me.

“So, what do you do on Tuesdays? What do you have to do today?” he asked, and I suppressed a relieved breath when I saw his blue eyes light up again, since I knew that for now, my monster was gone.

“Uh . . .” I blinked quickly, and tried to remember what he’d asked rather than focus on his eyes. “Tuesdays?” I asked warily. Collin never asked about my routine. “I clean; I cook dinner. There isn’t much else unless you give me your card on those mornings. I need to go to the grocery store. I was going to go yesterday after the, um . . .” I cleared my throat and this time my eyes did dart away from his for a moment. “After the appointment.”

Collin was watching me intently while I spoke, so it was impossible to miss the slight hardening of his stare when I mentioned the store. “The store? Do you need to go to the store?”

“Yes, I . . .” My voice died and stomach dropped when it hit me. There was no food in the house at all. Usually if Collin felt bad for a punishment, then he would cook, but we didn’t have food last night, and I’d slept through the afternoon and night. “L-last night. I’m so—I’m so sorry. There wasn’t any food. I didn’t—”

“I do know how to fend for myself, Harlow,” he said with a sly grin. “Why do you have to go today?”

I didn’t understand what he was trying to trick me into saying with these questions. I went every week; he knew I went. I had to go every week because of one of Collin’s forms of teaching, as he liked to call it. He threw away every item of food in the pantry and fridge on Sunday nights—not including spices and what was needed for breakfast on Monday. “You’re the one wasting the food, Harlow, since you can’t seem to figure out how to buy the right amount of groceries,” he always said.

I swallowed and tried to push down my irritation with him for making me explain something that he so often used against me. “Because I only buy enough food for the week when I go, so we don’t have any food.”

Collin’s eyes flickered to the side, like he’d just remembered that fact, then his eyes fell to my throat. “I guess if we have no food then you have no choice, but I’m going with you.”

My hand shot up to the large bruise on my throat, and it was then that I finally understood the questions, and understood how he could forget about our foodless house. Collin didn’t want me leaving the house at all because he’d left visible proof. He was going to the store with me to make sure I didn’t do something stupid, like tell someone.

“Get ready and let’s go.”

I tried to hide my confusion as he got off the bed. How long had I slept if he was able to go to the store with me now? I glanced at the clock, and my head whipped around to look at Collin again when I saw it was only eleven in the morning. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” My body tightened the second the question left my lips. It had been a simple question, and an honest one, but that wasn’t something I could ask Collin. I wasn’t allowed to question anything he did, and I couldn’t believe I’d done it just then.

Collin’s head slowly tilted to the side, and I wanted nothing more than to run from the dark, lifeless look he was giving me. A look of pain flashed across his face as he took the few steps back to the bed and knelt onto it. If it weren’t for his eyes—which were focused just under my chin—I would think he was about to beg for forgiveness judging by the expression on his face. His fingers faintly traced over the bruise before his entire hand was wrapping around my neck and he was slamming me onto the bed. My shocked gasp was cut off when he covered my mouth with his and, one at a time, tightened his fingers on my throat. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” he asked quietly against my lips.