Even as she questioned me, I saw that she was starting to understand it, to believe.
"Everything with Tiffany was fake. Part of the arrangement I made with my mother. I agreed to a six-month engagement with her to keep you out of prison, but it was a ridiculous failure. I never so much as kissed her. I agreed to those pictures for the same reason, but it was all fake. I never touched her beyond what you saw.
She was backing away from me, hands in her hair, pulling.
She looked deranged and completely heartbroken.
I couldn't stand it. For every step she retreated, I advanced. We would get this out so we could work past it. It was as simple as it was hurtful, and I was determined to get it done. To put it behind us, if that were possible.
"Liar," she said, voice weak, tears running down her face.
I just stared at her for a beat, two, letting her see in my face my absolute sincerity. "I've told plenty of lies. I can't deny that. But I promise you I'm not lying about this."
She pointed a shaking finger at me. "Tiffany was one. One. I saw the others, too. Woman after woman you paraded in front of me. You think I forgot? You think I'd forget even one of them?"
I winced. It was a stretch to say I didn't have a lot of things to be ashamed of, but that petty revenge had been the most selfish. "Fake. All of them. I took them out, made sure you saw. Took them home. I was a perfect gentleman with every single one. You thought I'd betrayed you in the worst, most unthinkable way. You had an excuse for the things you did. And, while I was angry enough to want to hurt you, I could never make myself betray you fully. Not like that."
She studied my face, eyes moving desperately over every inch, seeking a lie, almost hoping for it.
She didn't find one.
I was closer by then, but that didn't work in my favor.
She lost her mind. Hitting, scratching, attacking me with blind determination and absolute abandon.
It was awful. I had to subdue her bodily, carry her inside. I pinned her struggling to the bed because I thought that she might hurt herself.
I was holding her down, trying to calm her, my voice soothing, as composed as I could manage.
But make no mistake. I was affected. By her pain. By my own. Shaken by it. Trembling with it.
Nothing seemed to help. I was at my wits end when I asked her in dismay, "Did you want me to be with other women?"
"Of course not," she almost screeched at me. "No. You don't get it at all. Don't you see, though, that it's so much easier to forgive your sins than it is to forgive mine? Do you think I needed another score against myself? Do you think I don't hate myself enough?"
I did understand something about that. Self-hatred was an old, familiar friend, and this night was rife with it.
I shut my eyes, touching my forehead softly to hers. She allowed me to for a moment.
"We'll get past this," I told her tenderly. "We'll work through it all. The worst is past."
That had her struggling anew. I was so caught off guard by it that she was up and across the room before I could react.
I'd barely risen from the bed when she slammed the bathroom door closed and I heard it lock.
Well, fuck.
I knocked and asked her nicely to come out. She ignored me.
I offered through a clenched jaw if she'd prefer that I break the door down.
"Fuck you!" she called back, the last word a sob. "I'm directly on the other side. If you break it down, you'll hurt me."
Well, fuck. Even when she was near hysterical, she understood well how to stop me in my tracks.
Because I was good at it, I quickly resorted to dirty tricks.
It only took me a minute to walk down the hall, snatch our sleeping kitten from its favorite spot, and carry it back to the bedroom.
I sat with my back to the bathroom door, the still sleeping kitten cradled against me.
I could feel her on the other side of the door, her body propped up against it.
"Diablo is trying to get to you," I told her. "She's crying. She misses you."
Her voice came muffled and forlorn. "No, she's not. I'd hear it if she was."
"She's so sad, tiger. Baby wants her mama."
For some reason, that set her off sobbing the hardest of all.
I turned, leaning my forehead against the door. Sometimes it felt like my whole life was this. Waiting on the other side of the door from her, hoping to be let in.
Diablo was awake by then, rubbing up against my stroking fingers and purring loud enough that I wondered if Scarlett could hear her through the wall.
"She's really upset, tiger," I tried again. "Don't you want to at least check on her?"
"You're mean!" she called back, sounding like a forlorn child.
It made my heart turn to a tender pile of mush in my chest.
"My white flag is up, tiger. I won't say one more upsetting thing tonight if you'll just unlock the door."
"It's not you I'm worried about," she said, dread in her voice.
Wasn't that the damn truth. "I can take it. What I can't take is a locked door between you and me. C'mon, angel. Let me in."
Diablo was a good wing kitten. Suddenly and loudly, as though she'd just realized Scarlett was close, she let out a loud and plaintive meow. And then another.