“Is this awful crap your trainer told you to eat?” Bull asked.
“You haven’t even tried it yet, and no, he didn’t. This is soup that I came up with myself.” She liked spicy food and had added in a whole lot of spice to help the veggies to pop. She sat on a stool she’d dragged into the bathroom while Bull lay in the tub surrounded by a load of bubbles.
She was pampering him.
“Well?” she asked.
“It tastes very good.”
“See, not everything I do is bad, and just so you know, Jase is no longer training me.”
“He’s not?”
“He doesn’t feel comfortable, and he thinks I need to talk to someone.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to talk to anyone, so I guess I will have to see what happens.”
“Maddie, you’re perfect the way you are,” he said.
“Don’t, Bull.”
“Damn it, I wish you could truly see who you really are.” He slammed his fist against the side of the bath and she winced.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t go hurting yourself.”
“Everyone else is fucking lying.”
“Bull, please, no one else is lying.”
“They are.” He ran fingers through his hair, and he looked so poorly and pitiful. She held up the spoon of soup.
“Don’t worry about it. Just enjoy your food.”
“Maddie, please.”
She offered him a smile. “I’m not upset.”
“If only I could get you to see…” He turned to look at her then took the soup. “What would you tell your daughter who looked like you?”
Maddie froze as she dipped the spoon into the bowl. “Bull, that’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair? You’d tell your daughter who looked like you that she’s what? Ugly? That she doesn’t measure up? Will you be exactly like that piece of shit who ruined your life?”
“No, of course not.”
He snorted. “You’re telling me you’d lie to her.”
“My daughter wouldn’t look like me.”
“But there’s a fifty-fifty chance she would. What would you do then?” he asked.
“This isn’t fair.”
Bull stood up, and she caught sight of his cock. He didn’t seem to realize he was completely naked as he grabbed her hand, and without any warning, marched her across his bathroom, to the bedroom, where there was a mirror.
His wet body pressed against her back as he grabbed her chin. His touch wasn’t hard, but it was firm.
“Look at your daughter. Look at her and you tell her that she doesn’t deserve love. You tell her that she needs to change to suit the needs of others. You tell her that even though a man loves her more than anything else in the world, she has no right to be with him!” The last part was said on a snap.
“Bull.”
“Tell her.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I would never tell my daughter something so horrible.” Tears filled her eyes, and she didn’t wipe them away, nor did Bull attempt to stop them from falling.
“Maddie, stare at your daughter right now, and you tell her, not yourself, you tell her with tears in her eyes, exactly what you would say to her when a bully tells her she is ugly, that she is fat, that she is not worthy.”
Bull knew what he was doing. There was no way she could be so cruel to her daughter, but she had to stop feeling this way. The Frenches were toxic people, and she needed to stop that line of thinking. She was trapped in a horrible cycle of negativity and pain.
Maddie didn’t see herself in the mirror, she saw her daughter.
“You’re beautiful,” she said. “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re anything but. You are beautiful, and people in this world are just spiteful, and they don’t see the true gift that you are.”
Bull’s arms were tight around her, and his lips were against her temple.
“Maddie, baby, thank you,” he said. “You are so much more than you even realize. You are beautiful, you are kind, you are everything, and I, for one, think you are the sexiest woman I have ever known.”
The tears fell thick and fast, and as they did, Maddie couldn’t describe it exactly, but it was like the weight of her body eased. She was no longer torn by the past.
It was time for her to move on, to be stronger, and to see that she had a lot more to give.
****
Christmas came and went in illness. Maddie was still taking care of him over the festive period and a few days after, which pissed Bull off.
It was a few days before New Year’s when he stood in his garage staring at the place, wishing Maddie was with him.
She hadn’t returned to work even though he’d offered her the job. She’d refused him.
“Hey, Prez,” Pat said. “The last of the cars has been collected. We’ve got nothing new to do.”
“Fine.”
Bull sat in the chair behind reception, fingering the velvet box he had for several weeks.