The Original Sinners: The Red Years. Tiffany Reisz

weeks left…

      “Why do you stay with me?” William asked. With his fingertip, he traced the outline of a welt that ran shoulder to shoulder across her back.

      Caroline turned over in bed to face him. “Because of the Wives of Weinsburg,” she said as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

      “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the ladies of which you speak.” William ran his hand over her hip and she shivered at the sensation. For all the pain he inflicted on her, he resolved every day to inflict equal pleasure.

      “They may only be a legend. I like to think they were real. Once the city of Weinsburg in Germany was under siege. The enemy emperor was dangerous but not unmerciful. When it became inevitable that the city would fall, the men of Weinsberg pleaded for their women, that they be allowed to flee with their lives. The emperor relented and allowed the women to leave the city with only the valuables they could carry on their backs. The day came and the gates of the city opened and the emperor watched in shock as the women stumbled through the gates nearly breaking under the weight of their husbands and fathers who they carried on their backs. Their love humbled the emperor and he declared all would be spared.”

      “For these women who may or may not exist you stay with me?” he asked, laughing at her as usual.

      Caroline reached out to touch his face but pulled her hand back. He’d taught her so well not to touch him without permission. There were moments he regretted how well he’d trained her.

      “Every day you battle an enemy I cannot fight with you or for you. But if there is ever a chance for a reprieve, then I will bear you across the world on my back to see you finally at peace.”

      William smiled at the twenty-year-old child who loved him more than he could or would ever deserve.

      “But what if the enemy you think I fight isn’t the enemy at all?” he asked, reaching out to take her face in his hand. He forced her to meet his gaze and for a moment he let his eyes fill with all his darkest desires. “What if this enemy is only me?”

      Caroline didn’t flinch at what she saw. He had taught her that, as well.

      “Then I will save you from yourself.”

      Poor Wesley, Zach thought. Did that poor smitten lad have any idea that he was the inspiration for Nora’s latest hopeless, love-struck heroine? Did Nora even know it herself? I will save you from yourself…he could hear Wesley saying those very words to Nora. He hadn’t learned yet you couldn’t save someone who didn’t want to be saved.

      Zach wanted to be saved. He tried to conjure the image of Grace, six inches shorter than he and light as a sparrow, trying to lift and carry him on her back. She’d had the chance to save him once. That day he told her about the job at Royal House, that he would be moving to the States, she could have saved him with a sentence—“I’ll go with you.” She could have saved him with a word—“Don’t.”

      Zach opened his email. Nora—you cut half this chapter or I’ll cut half this chapter. Either way half of it is getting cut.

      He hit Send without remorse. Nora truly worked better when he was at his most brutally honest with her. He didn’t have to couch a criticism inside a compliment. She didn’t want compliments. She wanted her book to be better.

      Zach closed his laptop. Stretching out on his sofa he stared around his flat. Grace would be horrified by its austerity. If she ever saw it she would tease him that minimalist was not a synonym for empty. But when he’d come to New York he knew it was temporary. He’d have about eight months at the East Coast offices until the current chief editor in L.A. finished off the last of her projects and then he was off to yet another city. He saw no reason to have anything but the bare minimum—a sofa, a bed, a television that he only ever tuned to the occasional Everton football match, and a landline phone sitting on the floor. Why even bother with an end table for the living room? Just one more damn thing to pack.

      He picked up his lager and took a drink. Only seven o’clock on a Monday evening and he already felt so exhausted he considered just calling it a night. Only his masculine pride kept him from going to bed at such a geriatric hour. Even his sixty-six-year-old widowed father never went to bed before eight.

      Thoughts of his father stirred a fearful thought—Nora’s pills in the medicine cabinet. He still couldn’t believe that she was as ill as the bottle portended. Perhaps it was only a mild condition, an arrhythmia or something innocuous and treatable. He tried to talk himself out of his fear but couldn’t quite rationalize it away.

      Zach picked up a handful of Nora’s pages and skimmed the lines. Why do you stay with me? He had never spoken those words to Grace, though they echoed in his head almost every day of their marriage. Their marriage had begun in terror and shame and then in time changed into something he didn’t want to live without. Zach knew why he stayed. But why had she?

      Standing, Zach rubbed his neck and tried to think of something or someone else for a few minutes. But his only other thoughts were of Nora and that was an even more dangerous rabbit hole. Nora… It had been over a week since their drunken night of idiocy. He remembered how her mouth felt on his skin, how foreign it felt to be touched by a woman’s hands again, how strange it was to be awake and conscious and thinking of something other than losing Grace, not thinking about anything at all except that whatever Nora was doing he would be content to let her keep doing until the day he died. Only afterward did the guilt set in—the guilt that for a few minutes he let himself stop feeling guilty.

      Zach performed a quick mental calculation. Seven o’clock in New York equaled midnight in London. He knew Grace would still be up. A night owl in the worst way, she took long naps after coming home from school and then stayed up far too late reading.

      He picked up his phone and dialed. It rang once and no one answered. A second ring and still no answer. Zach’s heart dropped with every unanswered ring. Between the seventh and the eighth ring Zach whispered, “I miss you, Gracie,” and hung up the phone. On the floor next to the phone Zach sat with his head in his hands. Midnight and she wasn’t home. A school night and she wasn’t…

      For a horrible second an image of her with another man tore through his mind. But he knew he couldn’t be angry or jealous. After that night with Nora, he’d lost all right to be hurt.

      Nora…he remembered what she’d offered him when she’d come to his office last Thursday…a chance to see the world she lived in, to see what it was like to live free of guilt or restraint. He envied Nora her freedom. He wondered if her mysterious former lover, Søren, was the source of her vivacity. Nora said the first day they worked on her book together that Søren had owned her. He couldn’t even imagine what that meant, what such a relationship would be like. But perhaps only someone who had been a slave could truly appreciate the worth of freedom.

      Let me show you what life is like lived in the moment. No past, no future…no guilt…no shame…nothing to be afraid of…

      No guilt, no shame, no fear—he’d forgotten what it felt like to live without his three most constant and cruel companions. Could Nora really do that for him? Even just a few minutes of freedom seemed worth any price he had to pay.

      Zach looked down at the useless phone and his empty flat and made a quick decision. He stood up and grabbed his coat. He fled his building in one minute and hopped on the train in ten more. He wouldn’t turn into his father, he told himself. Not tonight.

      * * *

      On their third morning together, she woke up in his bed and found it empty. Slowly, she sat up, careful of her bruised and aching body. Last night had been the roughest yet, and she smiled at the memory of the sensual crimes he committed against her flesh. He’d spent two years mentally preparing her for what he would demand of her once they finally consummated their relationship. Although she’d known what was coming, had even watched him with others, she hadn’t truly known how much it would hurt until the first blows landed on her virgin back their first night together as lovers. Waking up the next morning with welts on her body and blood on her thighs