I was in shock. I almost didn’t speak to Sarah for the entire duration of our trip back to Connecticut. We went straight to my old apartment.
It had been months since I last visited it. It was exactly the way it was when I’d left it. Sarah was kind enough to ask a maid to clean it up at least twice a month.
I saw Christian’s spare key on the table. He must have left it there when he found out I was getting married. He left a note for me.
Have a good life, Brianne. I hope he’s what you were looking for.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. I had a good life, all right. And Travis was everything I wanted and more. But I just didn’t know what to feel right now.
“The good thing about it is that it’s Travis,” Sarah said quietly.
“That’s not the point, is it?” I asked in a small voice. “Do you realize that I was drunk? I was not myself. I couldn’t even remember that night. Travis didn’t seem drunk. He signed the credit card slip perfectly well. If it was him…then he…took advantage of me.” Tears rolled down my cheeks. “And he promised he would never do that. Travis is the one person I trust. He was the last person I expected to take my clothes off and take me when he knew perfectly well that I was helpless to defend myself. And what’s worse…he didn’t tell me.”
“I’m sure he wanted to. Maybe he was just afraid you’d…react like this. And he was afraid to lose you.”
“We consummated the marriage before we even got married!” I muttered. “And he pretended to be a gentleman during our honeymoon.” I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “You don’t understand, Sarah. If it were any other man, I wouldn’t feel this betrayed. But this was Travis. He promised me he wouldn’t touch me, wouldn’t take advantage of me. And I knew how good he was with keeping his promises. I didn’t expect this from him at all.”
“Before you work yourself up, why don’t you talk to him first?”
I nodded.
The doorbell rang. Sarah looked at me wearily. “Well, I’m here if you need me,” she said. “Brianne, you have to remember that this is Travis. Not any of your past boyfriends. This guy was everything to you, even when you were not in love with him.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks. “And that makes it even worse, doesn’t it?”
Sarah bit her lip and then gave me a hug. “I’ll go. Call me anytime you need me.” Then she went to open the door. I heard her say hi to Travis.
“Hey! Thanks for keeping my wife company,” Travis said to her.
I didn’t listen to the little chitchat. At the sound of his voice, my heart swelled with love, and then, I remembered what he might have done to me before I’d gotten married, and my heart broke. I couldn’t help feeling disappointed and betrayed.
I was looking out the window. I knew Travis was behind me. Gently, I felt his arms creep around me. He kissed the base of my neck. I bit my lip to prevent myself from moaning.
“God, I missed you!” he whispered and pulled me to him.
I stared up at his handsome face, and I felt the cold façade I’d built slowly crumbling down. But then I remembered that he had taken advantage of me. And he hadn’t told me.
He smiled. “I love you,” he whispered. Slowly, he bent down and gave me a kiss on the lips.
I savored the kiss. It could be our last, I thought.
Tears rolled down my cheeks. Travis stopped kissing me when he realized that I was crying. He pulled back and studied my expression.
“What’s wrong, love?” he asked wearily.
I pushed him away from me. “Travis…I’m pregnant!”
He stared at me for a while, and then he beamed. “Sweetheart, that’s wonderful! I’m gonna be a father. Isn’t that a good thing? Why are you crying?” He stepped toward me again.
I held my hand up to stop him from coming any closer.
“I’m seven weeks pregnant, Travis!” I said to him. “We only started sleeping with each other last week.”
I watched his expression carefully. It went from comprehension, to weariness, to a look of pain, and then guilt. He didn’t have to admit anything after that. I could read him like a book, too, when he wasn’t so guarded.
“Brianne…” he started.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, shaking my head.
He took a step closer to me. He reached out for my hands, but I pulled them away. “Brianne…please. I didn’t mean for that to happen. But I wasn’t sorry.”
“Why, Travis? You said I could trust you.”
“And you can!” he said. “I’m only human, Brianne. I’d been controlling what I felt for you for years. Every day, every night for the last fifteen years I told myself that I couldn’t want you…because you were forbidden…I could not have you. Then one night, I slipped! I wasn’t able to hold back. My desire for you was stronger than I was. I let go of all control!”
“You took advantage of me!”
He shook his head. “I didn’t…or at least, I didn’t mean to…”
“There’s no excuse for what you did, Travis!” I said to him. “And you should have told me!”
“I got scared. For the first time in my life, I felt afraid. I was afraid to lose you…both of you…” He took a deep breath again. “The you that I have loved like family since I was a kid, the one that Tom left under my protection…and the you that I love with all my heart…the only woman I have ever been in love with! You see, Brianne? There was no other woman. It was you all along.”
In my mind, I remembered what he’d said to me…I made love…to an amazing, wonderful woman.
I sat down on the couch. “You still lied to me, Travis. You were the last person I expected to do this to me. Wanting me too much is not an excuse for what you did.”
Travis knelt down in front of me and took my hands in his. He kissed them desperately. When he raised his face to me, I saw the tears in his eyes. “I did not only want you. That night, I realized that I was in love with you. That I might have been in love with you all these years.” His voice was full of pain.
“You seduced me. I was drunk! And yet you touched me! I must have been unconscious the moment I hit the covers, Travis. I was helpless! I just lay there…and you took me!”
Travis stared at me, and for the first time that night, I thought I saw a flicker of anger in his eyes. “I…” He started to say something. Then he shook his head, stood up and turned away from me.
“What? Tell me! Lie to me!” I said angrily.
“I didn’t lie to you!” he raised his voice. “I would never lie to you.”
“Yeah! Be smart with me! You just chose to omit the fact that you raped me days before I married you. And how convenient it was for you! You already had the solution on hand, didn’t you? You were going to marry me anyway. So you figured you’d test the merchandise first?!”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’d already tested the merchandise a long time ago! Why would I need to do it again if that was my intention?”
“Then what was your intention, Travis?”
“I wanted you!” Travis said in low, cold voice. He was angry now, I could tell. But he was trying not to lose his temper. “I tried to stay away from you. I tried to control what I felt. That night…something was different between us! I wasn’t able to stop myself. If I knew…how it would all end, I wouldn’t have touched a hair in your body! It would be easier for me to take a million cold showers to calm my need for you than to betray your trust! Surely, you must know that.”
“Apparently, I don’t know you at all! You…were the beast you should have been protecting me from, Travis! You promised me!”
He closed his eyes in anguish for a second. When he looked at me again, I could no longer read the expression on his face. “Sometimes, you make me choose between protecting you and giving you everything you ask of me,” he said. “That night, I was helpless. I realized for the first time how much our relationship had changed. I realized what you really meant to me.”
“And so you just took me? Knowing that I was unconscious of what you were doing?”
He bit his lip to keep from saying what he really wanted to say. And I felt frustrated because I wanted him to explain everything to me. I wanted to understand him. I knew him…he was better than a man who would take advantage of a drunk, unconscious woman just because he had lusted for her for so many years. But he just looked down at the floor, trying to control his anger, trying to bottle it all up again.
“You should have told me before you married me!” I shouted at him.
“I shouldn’t have married you at all!” he roared back.
I felt like he had slapped me when he said that. It hurt like a shard of glass piercing through my heart. How could he say that?
Tears rolled down my face. He realized that he’d hurt me even more with what he’d said, but he didn’t say anything to take it back or deny it. Maybe he really did feel this marriage had been a mistake from the beginning.
“Did you…do that as part of your plan to win your battle with your father?”
He stared at me disbelievingly. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying your father wanted a grandson, didn’t he? Did you take advantage of the time I could not say no to you? You had to make sure you could get me pregnant, even if it meant you had to rape me!”
I think that threw him over the edge. He balled his hands into fists and he turned to the wall beside him, then he gave it a hard punch.
“Damn it!” he cursed. “No matter how hard I try, I lose with you, Brianne! I’m tired!”
Now I couldn’t understand what he was saying. “You’re tired of protecting me? Of the silly little girl your best friend asked you to take care of?”
“I’m tired of making things right for you, only to have it all blow up in my face! I’m tired of not getting a single thing right when it comes to you!” he said in a broken voice, while he leaned his forehead against the wall he had just punched.
“Then don’t!” I said angrily. “Just stop, Travis!”
He looked at me coldly. He didn’t say anything, but I realized how furious he was. Now, I was looking back at the same Travis I had known many months ago. Cold and ruthless.
“Do you really mean that, Brianne? Do you really want me to stop?”
My heart broke in a million pieces.
No! I want you to keep trying! Because I know, somehow, we will get it all right!
I bit my lip. “I…want you to stop fighting fate for me…” I said in between sobs.
He closed his eyes once again. He took a few short breaths, and then he stared at me coldly.
He headed for the door but then turned to me. “It will save us both if you remember everything that happened that night!” And with that, he stormed out the door.
I felt like all my dreams of having a happy family life had gone out the door, too. I was too confused and too hurt. I should have been happy that it was Travis who’d fathered my baby. I should have been happy that there was no other woman all along.
But, on the other hand, the bigger part of me that had complete faith and trust in Travis was also crumbling to pieces. Travis…the man who would never ever betray me…who would not dare touch me without my consent…who would rather hurt himself than take advantage of me. If I didn’t have him to believe, what did I have?
No matter how much I tried to justify his actions, I still kept thinking in my mind that he had violated me. And it wasn’t like him. Travis would never rape me…or any woman, for that matter. But why did he? If he really meant what he said, that he realized he was in love with me that night, then all the more reason he should have respected me, he should have protected me. And knowing that the only way he would win against his father was by having a son only made it more difficult to understand or forgive him.
I could not imagine how Travis could use me like that. And I don’t know how I could trust him after all this! Trust was the main root of our relationship. How could our love survive without that trust?
It had been hours, and Travis still had not returned. I was lying down on the couch. I wasn’t whimpering anymore, but it seemed like I had slipped into limbo. I felt like I was floating on air. I didn’t make a sound; I lay still. But it was inside that I was in turmoil. My emotions were going haywire. My soul was broken. My heart was shattered to pieces. It was like the pillar of strength that I’d had for years had crashed down to the ground.
Then suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. I tried to steady myself, but the pain was still there. I fiddled with the phone and dialed 911.
Then the throbbing pain became sharp, cutting through my abdomen like a knife. The pain was blinding, and I was afraid it would tear me apart.
Then things suddenly went hazy. I remembered being lifted somewhere. I remembered being sedated. I remembered being carried into an ambulance.
And then…there was nothing.