He places my keys on the table by the door and leans back against it, folding his arms across his chest. I watch his muscles flex. In the beginning of our relationship, I used to love how strong his arms looked. How safe they made me feel.

Now all I see is the power behind the pain. The fear they make me feel. The same fear that I grew up feeling because of a man exactly like him.

I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to feel this way.

Not now.

Not ever again.

It’s like clarity. Like my light has finally come on.

Why now? I’m not sure. But it has, and it’s like a weight off my shoulders. I’m never going back to how my life was. Whatever it takes, it stops now.

That knowledge pushes my backbone up. I stand a little straighter.

Forbes’ eyes are trained on me.

“Is she your girlfriend?” I ask, making sure to keep my voice clear and steady, even though my heart is beating so hard in my chest it’s almost painful.

He looks surprised. Of all the things I could have said, I don’t think he was expecting that. I wonder what he was expecting me to say.

“No. That privilege is all yours,” he replies through tight lips.

“Do you fuck her often?”

His eyes narrow. “Watch your mouth, Mia.”

“Sorry.” I smile, sweetly … antagonistically. “Do you have sex regularly with her?”

“No, she’s new.”

New?

“There have been others?”

“Yes.” He smirks. It hurts more than I was expecting.

Tears squeeze at my eyes. Not because of his betrayal, or the beatings, but because I’m angry with myself. Angry for being so goddamn weak.

“Have you used condoms with them?” He doesn’t with me.

“Yes.”

Thank god. I’m still going to get tested.

I can see the anger increasing in him. It tells in the dark of his eyes. The taunt skin across his cheekbones. The clenching of his fists by his sides.

My questioning is annoying him.

He actually has the audacity to be annoyed in this situation. But then, can I really expect any more from him?

Normally, when Forbes is this way, I will do anything to appease him. Anything to calm him. But right now my sole aim is to anger him more.

I don’t know why, or what I want out of this apart from him gone from my life for good, but I will do whatever it takes now to make that happen.

I tilt my head to the side, appraising him as I ask this question. I’m genuinely interested to know the answer because honestly, it doesn’t make sense to me.

“Forbes, you wanted to move in here with me. Wouldn’t that have slightly hampered your ability to have sex with other women?”

“No.” He’s smug in his statement. And it makes me feel less than worthless. He folds his arms across his chest. “It’s just simply time for us to move onto the next stage in our relationship. But my extra-circular activities will remain the same.”

God, I knew he was a cold-hearted bastard, but now I’m seeing a whole brand new bastard. I guess there are more sides to Forbes Chandler than I had realized.

I wrap my arms around myself. I need to feel some form of warmth. “So you have these girls and me. Why?”

He smirks. “Because I can. And there is no separate now, Mia. You will be a part of it too.”

My expression drops. “What?” The words wobble from my lips.

I’m pretty sure I know what he’s getting at—not that I know much about sex, but I’m not dumb. I just don’t want to believe it. He’s never shown any interest in anything like that before. We’ve always had straight forward vanilla sex. He’s never even taken me from behind like he did that girl.

“You. Will. Be. A. Part. Of. It.” He addresses me as though speaking to a child. “You’ll let me fuck them here in our apartment whenever I want. You’ll sit out here and listen to me fuck them. And sometimes…” He steps closer. “You’ll participate.”

No. No. No. No!

Hell no!

“I don’t think so.” Is that me speaking?

His features tighten. He takes a step forward. I can see his hands twitching by his sides.

I sidestep around the sofa.

“You will do as I tell you, Mia. You’re mine to do with as I want.”

The belt cracked across my behind.

“Who is in control here, Mia?”

“You are, Daddy.”

I lift my eyes to his face. Forbes might be handsome, but he’s never looked uglier than he does right now.

“Do you hit those girls like you do me?”

I see surprise flicker across his face.

Even though we are both very clear on the fact that Forbes hits me … I’ve never actually said the words out loud before. They feel odd to have said, but also empowering.

“No,” he answers, his voice cold.

And the empowerment I held so briefly dissipates and I want to cry. The ugly type of cry.

He beats me because he can.

Because I allow it.

Because I’m weak.

“Why me?” I ask. I know why, but the sadistic part of me wants to hear him confirm it.

He moves closer until he is right in front of me.

I don’t move this time. I stand my ground, even though my legs are shaking to the point that I’m surprised I’m actually still standing.

If my act of strength surprises him, he doesn’t let it show. He leans down, getting in my face. His hot breath burns my skin. I can still smell that girl on him.

I want to vomit.

“Because you’re mine, Mia.” His voice sounds like a hiss. “You belong to me. You’re my other half. My little … easily controllable … fucked-up other half.”

I might have known this already, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting. I hide the burning flinch of pain I feel because I don’t want him to have the pleasure of knowing.

He lifts his hand.

I flinch.

This pleases him.

Touching my cheek with the barest of touches, he runs his fingers across my skin and tucks my long hair behind my ear.

“You really are beautiful,” he murmurs, brushing his fingers through my hair and down my back. Then he roughly grabs a hand full of my hair, yanking my head back. My eyes water from the pain.

“You and I are the same, you know.” His voice is low and vengeful. “Pretty on the outside, but all kinds of fucked up on the inside. I wanted you, Mia, for the same reason you wanted me. Because like knows like. The abused becomes the abuser. Or, in your case, the abused just stays abused.”

A veil lifts from my eyes. How did I not see it before?

Stereotypical pattern.

Forbes has lived my childhood. To what degree, I don’t think I’ll ever know. But he’s lived through the pain.

Did his father beat him too?

I suddenly feel awash with sadness for him. An ache for the child he was. For the childhood that was stolen from him as mine was.

Then I look up at the man before me, and that sorrow instantly turns to rage. White hot rage.

He knows how it feels, yet he does it to me.

He could have stopped the cycle. Just loved me. I would have loved him back without question. I would have given him all of me. My heart. Together, we could have healed each other.

But instead, all he gave me was a co-dependent, hate fueled, abusive relationship.

And now I’m just left with an empty chasm, lined with that hatred, and bitter resentment.

I open my mouth to tell him this … then it hits me.

I could have walked away … maybe not walked, but run. I should have run.

The simple truth is that I took the only way I knew … I carried on being the old me. The one who Oliver created, instead of trying to find a new Mia. The real Mia.

Because I was afraid to try.

Anger for my own failings burst in my chest … swelling … compressing me from the inside out. I feel as if I’m going to explode under the pressure.

I somehow manage to find my voice. “I want you to leave.”

Cruel laughter bursts from him. “You breaking up with me, Mia?”

It takes everything in me, but I force myself to meet his eyes. “I’d say I’ve got good reason to, wouldn’t you?”

He grabs my face, pinching my cheeks hard, then shoves my head back. He wraps his hand around my upper arm, yanking me straight back to him. I collide hard with his chest.

“So, let me get this straight – I get to smack you around whenever I feel like it, but the moment you catch me with my dick in some cheap slut, you’re apparently done?”

I wince from the pressure of his fingers digging into my arm, but I speak through the pain. “It’s got nothing to do with you having sex with that girl. This is me finally waking up. Something I should have done a long time ago. I won’t continue to be your punching bag, Forbes. And I definitely won’t become your whore.”

He laughs in my face. His voice chilly, he says, “You’ve been my whore from the moment I met you.”

“What happens when you dress like a whore, Mia?”

I bit my lip through the lashing, unable to speak through the pain.

“Answer me!”

My body jumps from the force of his voice. Sweat trickled down the side of my face, like the tears I wanted to shed. “I-I get treated like o-one, D-Daddy.”

“Exactly right. You’re finally starting to learn.”

Something in me snaps.

I stare hard into Forbes’ eyes. “I’m no one’s whore! Now get the hell out of my apartment! I’m done with you!”

Rage engorges his features, making him barely recognizable. In all this time, I’ve never seen him this angry, this far gone.

I should be terrified. I’m not.

“Done with me?” he spits in my face. “You think it’s that fuckin’ easy? I’m going nowhere! And neither are you!”

He slams his lips against mine at the same time as he restrains my hands by my sides. The next thing I know, my back is pressed against the wall, his body hard on mine, caging me in.

I’m trapped.

I feel his quick erection dig in my hip, and my senses instantly tell me where this is going.

My heart plummets.

Oh god, no. Not this. Anything but this.

I’ve been degraded, humiliated and beaten. But never raped.

He’s not taking this from me. I have to fight back.

The laughable thing is, I don’t know how to fight back.

Fear is bubbling my blood, adrenaline spiking my senses, so I do the only thing I can think of. I bite down on his lip until I taste blood.

“You fuckin’ bitch!”

He slaps me hard. I expect it, but not the punch that follows.

My head ricochets off the wall. Pain explodes everywhere. Light swims my vision.

Forbes grabs me and lifts me off my feet, then slams me up against the wall. I cry out from the pain it sends hurtling through my already bruised ribs.

Shoving my skirt up, his hand goes down my panties while his other pins my throat, squeezing hard.

Fingers press painfully into my flesh. One violating me. The other stealing my breath. Yet all I can think is: Why did I wear a skirt this morning? Why didn’t I pick pants? If I’d picked pants, it would have made this harder for him. Maybe gave me an out.