Mr. Right All Along. Jennifer Taylor
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how panicstricken she felt but he didn’t ask her what was wrong or offer suggestions to calm her down. He simply accepted her turmoil and for some reason she felt better because of it.
‘At least have a cup of coffee before you go. It’ll only take a couple of seconds to make it.’
He took a pair of mugs off a shelf and spooned instant coffee granules into them then topped them up with boiling water. The milk was in the fridge—the jug was orange—the sugar in a bowl that had multicoloured spots on it. He dumped everything on the table and sat down, leaving her to decide what she intended to do.
She could go or she could stay and it was all the same to him, he was trying to imply, only she knew it wasn’t how he really felt. Not inside. Ryan wanted her to stay. And he wanted her to stay because he cared. That was why he had insisted she should come home with him, but did she want him to care? That was the big question, the one she couldn’t answer now and maybe not ever.
‘Fancy a biscuit? Or how about some toast?’
He half rose but Eve shook her head and he subsided back onto his chair. Picking up his mug, he drank a little coffee, blowing on the glassy black surface first to cool it. Eve averted her eyes, not wanting to watch how his lips puckered as he sucked in air then blew it out in a soft little sigh that seemed ridiculously loud to her hypersensitive ears. She didn’t want her senses to stir from their slumbers again, didn’t want to feel attraction or anything else. She just wanted to be, with all that did and didn’t entail.
Silence fell as she sat down and unconsciously she started counting the minutes. How long would it last, this silence? One minute? Ten? She’d come to dread the silences when she’d been with Damien. When he wasn’t talking, he was thinking and she had learned to fear his thoughts as much as his actions. Damien could turn peace and quiet into terror in the blink of an eye so she had chattered on, inane comments aimed at soothing him, even though they had rarely worked.
Tears started to her eyes as the memories came flooding back and she stared into her coffee, wishing she could sink into its dark heart and disappear. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t brave enough to gather up the threads and learn how to be herself again.
‘Tell me, Eve. I can’t promise it will help but it might and that has to be better than this.’
Ryan’s voice was so calm, so patient, so free of threat that Eve felt a little of the fear trickle out of her. She shrugged, her hands cradling the mug because it was something to hold onto.
‘What’s to tell? I think you’ve guessed already, haven’t you?’
‘Guessing is one thing. Hearing about what you’ve been through is something else.’
He half reached towards her then stopped and pain rippled under her skin. He wouldn’t touch her again. He knew how she felt about being touched because she had made it clear. Maybe she should be relieved yet it was more proof of how much she had changed. Ryan had often put his arm around her in the past, often hugged her in a friendly fashion, and all of a sudden she missed being on the receiving end of his warmth and kindness, missed being normal. If she could learn to give and receive the odd hug, it would mean she was on her way to finding the person she had been.
‘I was in an abusive relationship. It took me almost two years to pluck up the courage to leave and I’m still getting over what happened.’
‘You did well to get out when you did. A lot of women never find the strength to cut the ties.’
His tone was level. There was no hint of censure for her or for her abuser but Eve wasn’t fooled. Ryan hated the thought of her being treated so badly and a little more fear trickled away and a tiny bit of warmth took its place.
‘I didn’t think I’d have the strength either, which is funny, really, because I always thought that I would never put up with being abused. We used to see women like that when we were doing our rotations, didn’t we?’ She carried on when he nodded, suddenly eager to explain why she had allowed it to happen to her. ‘I could never understand why they let their husbands or boyfriends treat them the way they did, but it’s different when it happens to you.’
‘I remember one woman telling me that she hated what was happening and hated herself even more for allowing it to happen, but she didn’t know how to stop it.’
His voice was still calm, uncritical, relaxed. They could have been discussing the price of fish for all the emotion he betrayed but Eve knew it was an act. Ryan cared. He really cared. She clung to that thought. ‘She loved her partner and couldn’t imagine a life without him, I expect.’
‘It’s all part of it, isn’t it?’ He shrugged. ‘The abuser makes his victim so dependent on him that she finds it impossible to imagine not being with him.’
‘Or her. There are men who are victims of abuse too.’
‘True, although not as many men suffer abuse as women do.’
‘No.’ Eve swallowed, feeling sick. It always happened whenever she had to admit that she was a victim of abuse. Oh, she might know that she was, but knowing it and admitting it were two very different things.
‘How did it start?’ Ryan prompted, and she forced the nausea down. Now that she had got this far, she wanted to carry on to the end, surprisingly enough.
‘Exactly as you read about it in all the textbooks.’ She gave a little laugh and he laughed too and it made her feel better, as though they were in this together. It was such a crazy idea that she immediately dismissed it. Ryan wasn’t part of this and he never would be. She was the one who had to learn to cope, to live, to forgive herself.
‘Damien was so charming, so funny, so sexy, and I was completely smitten. I never realised how controlling he was until it was too late.’ She shrugged. ‘I found it touching that he wanted to see me every night, that he hated me going out with friends, that he loathed us being apart. I thought it showed his vulnerable side and that’s something a lot of women find attractive. I certainly did.’
‘So when did you realise that it wasn’t vulnerability that was making him behave that way?’
Ryan’s voice sounded deeper and she shivered. Was her story getting to him? Was he really thinking how stupid she’d been to be taken in? She tried not to let the idea take hold but it was hard when it was what she herself believed.
‘It was a gradual process. Damien started to object whenever I said I was going out so, to keep the peace, I stopped making arrangements to see my friends. Then, because I always refused to go out with them, they stopped asking me.’
‘So he got what he wanted? He isolated you. Classic behaviour, as you said.’
‘Exactly.’ She managed a little smile. ‘I should write a paper on this, shouldn’t I? Only I doubt it would make any difference. Far too many women are as gullible as me.’
‘It’s not gullible to believe that someone loves you. It’s what everyone wants, to love and be loved.’
‘Is that what you want?’ she asked before she could think better of it.
‘Probably.’
‘But you never went out with anyone for more than a couple of months, did you? You had quite a reputation for playing the field.’
‘Did I?’ He shrugged but she knew that he had taken her comment to heart and wished she hadn’t said anything. She had enough to do with sorting out her own life without trying to find out what made Ryan tick.
The thought that there was something behind his behaviour was intriguing. She had to make a determined effort to dismiss it. ‘Anyway, once Damien had control of my social life, he set about controlling my working life too.’
Eve stopped and took a deep breath as the full impact of that statement assailed her. Losing her friends had been bad enough, but losing her career had been so much worse. She had thrown everything away, given in to the threats and the coercion because she’d been