‘Once the baby's grown, I might think about forgiving you.’
Cold sweat crawled down my spine in an instant.
Even with the icy wind pouring desperately into the room, I still felt like I was suffocating.
I forced down the nausea churning in my stomach and turned to look at Jackson.
‘I don't need your forgiveness. Let's just end it here.’
‘Jackson, let's get a divorce.’
The moment the words left my mouth, out of the corner of my eye I caught a flicker of glee in Naomi's.
Her bright eyes fixed on Jackson, brimming with hope.
‘In your dreams!!’
Naomi's expression darkened in an instant.
The hand Jackson pressed against my collarbone snapped me back.
‘Camila, I'm not divorcing you.’
‘I already told you. I'm going to torment you for the rest of your life!’
‘A lifetime means a lifetime. One day short doesn't count!’
As he spoke,
Jackson yanked Naomi into his arms and kissed her, deep and smothering.
The sound of their sweet, sticky kissing swirled around my ears.
Clutching my clenched stomach, I bolted straight for the bathroom.
But the second I turned, Jackson seized my wrist.
He pointed at the kitchen, his voice cold.
‘Go cook.’
Looking at the madman's glint in Jackson's eyes, and the kiss marks he'd just left on Naomi's neck,
a helpless despair rose up inside me.
If I refused, who knew what sickening thing might happen.
I slowly pushed Jackson's hand off my wrist and went to the kitchen alone.
The crackle of the stove couldn't drown out the sweet sounds coming from the living room.
Jackson held Naomi in his arms,
shelling sunflower seeds for her one by one,
slipping a straw into her can of soda with practiced ease.
These were all things he'd once done for me.
I knew he was doing it on purpose. Doing it to sicken me.
Over and over I tried to look away, but I couldn't stop myself.
By the time the meal was done, it felt as if my soul had been drained out of me.
Naomi, though, was thrilled.
Looking at the table full of steaming dishes, she pointed at the TV.
‘Jackson, I want to watch something.’
‘Sure. You're the sweetest. Whatever you want.’
Jackson gave Naomi's nose a doting little tap and switched on the TV.
Naomi tapped away at something on her phone.
The next second, a piercing scream ripped out of the television.
My head jerked up toward the screen in front of me.
It was playing the video from three years ago, the one of me being assaulted by that old vagrant……
My body started shaking uncontrollably.
I shot up from my chair and lunged to grab Naomi's phone.
But before my hand could even touch it,
Jackson caught my wrist.
He picked up a piece of fish, set it in Naomi's bowl, and didn't even look up.
‘Don't move. Watch.’
From the speakers Jackson had picked out himself came the sound of my clothes being torn, and my desperate screams.
In that instant, everything I'd lived through three years ago replayed in my mind like a film, over and over,
and I broke down completely,
using every ounce of strength to wrench the phone out of Jackson's hand.
‘Jackson, have you lost your mind?!’
‘Give me the phone! Let go!!’
‘I won't!!’
Jackson's voice suddenly rose.
He grabbed the phone and slammed it hard against the floor with a ‘crack’.
The phone shattered, but the video kept playing on the TV.
‘Camila, I told you. I'm going to grind you into the dirt!’
‘What? Not feeling so good?’
Jackson shot to his feet and seized me by the collar.
‘Camila, say you love me.’
