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Zach put the contract down, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes

Maybe they should have bought more houses

An hour later Nora left the hotel and strode to her car cursing Søren under her breath the whole way She kept cursing, knowing if she let up on the fury for one second, she would collapse into tears It had beenshe could to avoid him Sometimes she saw him at the club and they only looked at each other across the room while bystanders subtly ht between two gunslingers Søren wasn’t on the attack today, however Worse--he’d wanted to talk

Nora ran over their conversation again in her mind The conversation, as all conversations with him were these days, was rather one-sided She’d sat on the bed like a child in trouble for staying out too late and ground her foot into the plush carpeting as he stood in front of her and ticked off, one by one, all her multifarious sins Nora had known hi how hteen years

And then near the end he’d revealed why he’d gone to the trouble of setting up thedifferent lately--quieter, angrier, desperate to work one day, reluctant the next She’d explained she was heavy into revisions on her new book, that her new editor was a hard-ass as giving her the chance and the challenge of a lifetiht be so him The hour he’d paid for finally up, Nora started to leave On her way out the door Søren had stopped her with a word--"Wesley"

Nora had turned around slowly Trying to keep her tone neutral she’d asked, "What about him?"

"Next time we meet, little one, ill have much more to discuss"

Her heart flinched when he’d used his old pet name for her But sheand left After all these years, all the practice, she was getting good at that Nora sat behind the wheel of her car and closed her eyes She said a prayer of thanks Søren hadn’t touched her That’s what had happened on their last anniversary She’d gone to his holass of wine They’d talked about ame of chess at the kitchen table he’d made brutal love to her on so et that she wasn’t his property anymore One curl had fallen forward across her face when she’d bent to move her bishop Søren had reached out and brushed it behind her ear He’d caressed her cheek with his thumb Within minutes they were in his bedroom and she was strapped to the bedpost He’d beaten her so hard that night she’d nearly gagged on her own tears And when he finally gave up on the pain, he’d untied her and let her collapse into his arms His darkness spent, he laid her in his bed and ain In the past when they were still together, he’d talk to her while inside her So detail the intensity of his desire for her So her his property, his possession That night as he e he fell into when his heart was its ht her soer It becaotten a lot of it in the four years they’d been apart, but she never forgot Jeg elsker dig It was Danish for "I love you" and he whispered it again and again into her skin

Afterward he’d stayed inside her and pulled thes wrapped around his waist; her arms twined around his shoulders He ran his hands up and down her beaten back as he kissed her bare neck She rocked her hips slowly, relishing having hi

"You miss your collar," he’d said--a statement, not a question She’d taken it with her when she’d left hiive hiain and he kissed her bruised lips If she pretended it was only today and that there was no yesterday and no tomorrow, she could stay with him forever

"You can come back to me, Eleanor Always"

"I can’t" She shook her head "They need you more than I do I can’t rip your life in half"

"It is my life," he’d reminded her "You tore my life in half the day you ran froht in her eyes Her chest heaved and she clung to hiernails bit into his skin "Don’t say I ran I didn’t run It wasn’t running and you know it You know I didn’t want to leave you I noI could never run frohed at her vehe, little one?" He pressed his lips to her forehead

"I crawled" She tried to sood at after all"

He wrapped his arhter around her She prayed he’d chain her to his bed and make her stay there the rest of her life But she knew he’d let her go at dawn He wouldn’t keep her against her will even if against her hat she wanted