"Oh, God," he gasped in horror.
My mouth twisted unhappily. "His own homemade version of electroshock therapy, I guess. You see, he knew before I'd told him. He'd been doing some research, heard you could cure a person with the right brand of pain. Well, okay, I know that's not the science behind it, but that's how it felt at the time. What he did just felt like torture. My dad was no scientist."
"It was torture," Javier sobbed. "He tortured you." He said it like he couldn't believe, like it was too horrible to actually have happened to someone he knew. Someone he cared about.
Story of my life. Not many people could relate to the things I'd been through.
"Yeah, well, he called it curing me. It didn't work, obviously. I don't think even he believed that it would. I've since read up on it, and he wasn't even trying to use the usual methods. He just shocked me, over and over, and said awful things to me. He did it until I passed out again."
"I don't know who untied me, but when I woke up I was laying on the floor. I went inside the house, packed a bag. My dad tried to keep me from leaving. We fought again as I walked out the front door, but he finally got fed up and told me to leave and never come back. I left. I was on my own after that. A homeless runaway. Alone, until I met Bianca."
"I'm so sorry," Javier said, burrowing into me like he wanted us to merge. "I'm so sorry. I never should have pressured you. I didn't know. I didn't know."
I held him to me, let him comfort me, comforted him.
It was some time later when I spoke again. "The good news is, coming out this time has got to go better than the first time."
He didn't find that very funny.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MY PRIVILEGE
PRESENT
JAMES
I woke with a violent start.
A desperate sort of anxiety had a very firm hold of me. I tamped it down as much as I could, but it simmered, always, just beneath the surface.
I was alone in bed, when I shouldn't have been.
I had the foresight to throw on some loose athletic shorts before I headed into the courtyard. There were no security personnel inside the house at night, but there were several on the property, keeping a close eye on the grounds at all hours.
I stormed to the closest guard station, but a dressed down Clark met me before I reached it. He lived in a large guesthouse situated near the back of the estate. It was his home, but it also held the largest guard post on the property. I caught a glimpse of someone behind him whose presence and state of undress surprised me, but I made a point not to stare.
"She's with him," he said shortly.
I nodded, and taking a deep, steadying breath, I turned on my heel and changed directions.
I only knocked once on the door before Javier opened it.
"She's fine," he told me instantly. "They're both fine. I was just about to call you."
"Where?" I asked, still agitated from waking up alone and to a panic that I doubted would ever leave me completely.
"Our bedroom."
I moved past him, headed there.
It didn't even occur to me to ask permission.
Where Bianca was I had a right to be. This was the order of the universe.
Calm, the first I'd felt of it since waking up alone, filled me at the sight I found in their bedroom.
We found them curled together in a heap, Bianca burrowed into Stephan's na**d chest, his face buried in her soft hair.
They were beautiful together like that. It made my gut wrench to see it.
What was one's normal reaction to finding the love of your life in bed with another man? Well, I had no trouble picturing what it would have been, if that other man had been anyone else. But Stephan was, of course, the exception to all rules and boundaries.
"It's what we signed on for," Javier said quietly, eyes glued to them. "They're a package deal. There's no way we can claim we didn't have fair warning. And I'm not sad about it."
"Bianca wouldn't be Bianca without Stephan," I said softly, my voice succinct.
Javier nodded solemnly. "And clearly, he'd rather die than lose her."
"I owe him everything." It was debt that was so integral to my being now that I felt it deep, a part of me that resided in the very marrow of my bones.
"He doesn't see it that way."
This was a rare moment for us to talk. "I hope you know that anything I have is yours. Anything, any want or need that either of you have, anything on this earth, know it's yours."
"We know. Thank you."
"Those aren't just words. I mean them literally."
He smiled wide. "Oh I know. We're living in a mansion that you bought us. Doesn't get more literal than that. Aside from this, though, we're simple people. We don't need much to enjoy our lives."
"Well, never hesitate to come to me if you require anything."
He nodded, eyes back on them. "They need each other. I've never seen anything like it, but I know, for a certainty, that if one of them had died in that shooting, the other wouldn't have survived it. They met when they were broken and fixed each other. The things it took to fix them formed them together into something that can't, and shouldn't, be taken apart."
"Perhaps you guys should stay at the house for a bit longer," I said wryly.
They'd been staying at our house since the shooting. This was the first night they'd left our house for theirs. Clearly, that had been a premature development.
"You see, I can't be without her, either," I said softly. "There has to be a peaceful way to share, and her leaving my bed for his is not it."
Javier chuckled softly. "Yes, I can see that. So how should we do this? Shall we move back in tonight?"
I glanced at him briefly before my eyes returned to my woman, locked in another man's arms. I couldn't stand the thought of disturbing her rest. She needed it.
Javier sighed. "We can't just watch them all night. And that bed isn't big enough for four."
I didn't point out that there were lots of other beds. I was pretty sure Javier hated sleeping without his injured Stephan as much as I despised the idea of my bed without Bianca in it.
I was resolute, but not bitter or upset, not about this. I'd made the grievous mistake at the beginning, thinking that patience, and Stephan, were my lesson, the price to be close to her.