I don’t want to challenge him. I can sense that’s the wrong move. But I can’t spend any more time with him, either. It would be crazy.
Rather than rebuff him outright, I try a different tack. “I don’t understand why you’re even so interested in me, to be honest. Surely you have your pick of just about any other woman you want. You have plenty to offer.”
His lips tug up, but with hardly any amusement. “I know what I have to offer. I also know what I want, and right now, it’s you. It’s not like you have to agree to marry me, just a few more dates. Save yourself the trouble and say yes now, before I have to put in more effort.”
I shake my head. “I appreciate you arranging this date tonight and I won’t forget it. I won’t forget you, obviously,” I murmur, though less to appease him this time and more because I realize the permanence he will have in my memory. Some memories fade, but others have staying power. You can forget the man you had a bad date with, or even the man you had a great date with, but the man who does the things to you that this one has done to me…
He’ll be sticking with me, all right.
Bastard.
I don’t use that word since I remember how he responded last time I did, but that thought flickering through my mind dulls some of my appreciation for this extravagant evening he organized and makes it easier to finish succinctly. “But after tonight, we’re finished—just like we agreed. No negotiation, no extension. Just finished. That’s it. The end.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you, Hallie?”
“I do,” I say a touch stubbornly.
Pulling a disappointed face, he says, “Pity. I thought you were more intelligent than that.”
My eyes narrow at the insult. “I’m not sure what’s more intelligent than avoiding spending time alone with a rapist, actually.”
His eyebrows rise at my use of that word, but he doesn’t dispute it.
Instead, he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, making himself comfortable. “Let me explain something to you, sweetheart.”
Oh boy, here we go.
“I’m rich.”
I thought he might come out with some new threat, but I can scarcely keep the disdain off my face when that’s his argument for letting him have his way. “Congratulations.”
“No, that wasn’t the end of the story. I was also born very comfortable—not rich, exactly, but I wanted for no material things growing up. We had a nice house in a nice neighborhood, I got a brand-new car the day I turned 16. I went to private school and when I graduated, I had a bloated college fund waiting to pay my way through the best school I could get into.”
“It sounds like you’ve had a dreadfully hard life,” I say flatly. “I can see why you turned out the way you did.”
He shakes his head. “Still not finished. Now, my mom did society wife things—social engagements and fundraising benefits—but she didn’t have a dime of her own money. When she took my dad home to her parents and told them she was marrying him, they forbade her right there in front of him. They told her if she left with him that night, she was no longer their daughter. She did, and they disowned her. She hasn’t seen them since.”
My eyes widen. “Wow. That seems… harsh.”
“It was, but they knew what she didn’t—my dad was a fucking prick and he would treat her like shit for the rest of her life. I assume they either couldn’t watch it, or they wrongfully imagined if they literally stopped speaking to her, she would come to her senses and not marry him. That didn’t happen. My mom is a sweet, gentle woman and she was only 20-years-old. My father started controlling her the moment they met and never stopped. She didn’t know any other way.”
“That’s… terrible,” I murmur.
He nods casually. “If you asked my mother, she’d say he loves her. She lives in denial—not willfully, it’s just the way he has conditioned her all these years. He’s more intelligent than she is and she trusts him, so it’s not that difficult for him to trick her into believing things. If you asked him, he would insist he loves her, too. See, there’s a reason he’s such an asshole. When he was a kid, his mother was a difficult, often cruel woman. It seems she was senselessly capricious. Maybe it was mental illness, maybe she was just mean, no one I've spoken to knows, but what is known is how cruel she was to him. There was no physical abuse, but she picked on him so mercilessly that he would stutter anytime she was in the room. It was only when she was around. After he moved out, he never stuttered again until he saw her at his wedding.”