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"It matters to me," I counter quickly. "It's my life. How did you find out?"

Our battle of wills takes place in silence, with only the crashing waves and the birds and the distant drone of nearby traffic to break our heated stares. I huff and turn my head as the answer slides into my head. Sully and his freaking Saints. "You had Chase do it, didn't you? You had a stranger invade my privacy."

"He didn't give me details," Sully says gruffly.

"He obviously gave you enough," I say, my voice carrying a bite I couldn't hold back if I tried. And I didn't.

"Why didn't you tell me? Huh? I thought— I thought we were getting close. I told you about Kelsey," he says again.

My heart pinches at his tone. His expression. At the way his voice emerges rough and gravelly and accusatory.

He's comparing us. Me and Kelsey. Our pasts. And he's scared. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to look at me the way you are right now, Sully. And then after you told me about your sister… I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to look at me and see her. Right now, you're doing both."

Sully huffs out an incredulous breath. The sound is forceful. Like I've managed a verbal sucker punch.

Or is it that I struck a very legit blow in my correct assumption? "You are, aren't you?"

"Trust me. When I look at you, I do not see my sister."

"You know what I mean. And I don't believe you. Not entirely, anyway. Not when it comes to our pasts."

He turns his tall, too-gorgeous body around to sit beside me on the swing, taking my hand in his. His hold is warm and rough from callouses. A tingle shoots up my arm.

"What happened? Tell me.”

I can't. I can't bring myself to say the words. To admit that I was ever that woman. The one so weak and needy and broken that I took every nasty word as my due punishment and believed the things Thad said to me. About me.

How I was nothing. How I would never have anything if not for him. How I wasn't sexy or a good wife. How thankful I should be that he put up with me. How he loved me but no one else ever would. Ever could because I was so lacking.

That I was unworthy of love because I was so bad at everything.

I feel Sully carry my hand to his lips, but I'm lost in the haze of the past. He kisses my knuckles and holds my hand there, his lips soft against my skin, the rough prickle of his jawline slowly pulling me back to the here and now.

"Baby, please tell me," he says, rasping the words like a drowning man.

I shakily inhale and brace myself to go there one more time. To unlock the cellar door and drag out all the painful things I'd thrown into the darkness in the hopes of never feeling them again. "He loved porn," I say softly. "He loved watching the videos, and then he'd come to me, and…I got tired of being an object rather than a wife, how he'd treat me. Like I could've been anyone. Like he pretended I was the women in those videos. That he could use me any way he wanted. We weren't in a good place in our marriage. I wasn't as receptive or responsive to his attentions, but he'd…never take no for an answer."

Sully curses under his breath, and I smile ruefully, shaking my head, because that? That wasn't the worst of it. The worst of me. Over time, I started rating his treatments on a scale from one to five. And that… Being forced into the act wasn't the worst. And because of that and my own stupid loyalty to the marriage vows we'd made, I stayed, accepting my fate because I'd agreed to marry him. I'd promised forever. I'd vowed till death do us part.

"There's more," Sully says without blinking.

I nod. And then I inhale again, the memories coming fast now, breaking me into jagged pieces all over again. "I guess he got tired of my lack of interest and demands that he…put forth some romantic effort. So he decided to try something new."

I pause here, embarrassed and humiliated even though I'm not the one to blame for his behavior. Rationally, I know this. But I stayed despite his treatment of me under some delusion that he'd change, that his excuses of stress at work made him behave the way that he did.

"Vi?"

"He drugged me. Raped me."

Sully's hold tightens on me, and I can't look at him. I watch the waves and pretend I'm there, letting them wash me away from all the bad things I'm saying. All the images and scents and awful things the man who promised to love, honor and cherish me had done to me. My fierce loyalty and love toward a marriage and a man I should have left immediately after the first red flag.

But I hadn't.

So now I sit, hoping those waves will carry the past into the depths of the ocean, never to be seen or felt again. Back to the cellar I mentally place beneath the seemingly infinite depths of the ocean. Because telling Sully? It isn't over yet. I have to tread the deep, dark water a while longer and hope I make it out. Hope I don't drown. "I was out of it at the time but aware of every single thing he did to me. The pain kept me aware, but the drugs kept me…uncoordinated. I felt him bruising me because I was dead weight. I felt him positioning me. Hurting me. I remember every single detail—but I couldn't stop him."

I take a shuddering breath, still avoiding his gaze. Wondering if I'll ever be able to look at him again. See his Hollywood-handsome face and not pity or disgust.

"I should've just packed up and left right then. But I was so traumatized by what happened, my body so…damaged, it took days for me to get out of bed. To be able to walk without pain," I say, whispering the words as though that will erase the horror and anguish I'd suffered.