The Biker's Second Chance

Chapter Five: The Perfect Husband

Dean put his hand on my back the second we walked into the Whitmores' dining room, light and easy. Like a husband who couldn't wait to show off his wife.

"There she is," he said, smiling, walking me toward the table like I was something he'd been excited about all night. "Sorry we're late. Brielle couldn't decide on a dress."

Everyone laughed politely, I smiled the way I'd learned to smile…..the kind that doesn't really reach your eyes, but looks like it does if nobody's paying close attention.

"You look beautiful, dear," Mrs. Whitmore said, touching my sleeve. "Dean, you're a lucky man."

"I'm the lucky one," Dean said, smooth as anything, and kissed my temple in a way that looked sweet to everyone watching.

Under the table, his fingers dug into my thigh hard enough to leave a mark.

I didn't flinch. I'd learned not to.

"That dress is gorgeous," a woman across from me said. "Where'd you find it?"

"I picked it out," Dean said before I could even answer, laughing a little. "Brielle has terrible taste when she's left on her own. Somebody's got to keep her looking presentable."

The table laughed again. I laughed too, because laughing was safer than not laughing, because three years of practice had taught me exactly how much I could stay quiet before somebody noticed something was off.

I caught my own reflection in the dark window behind Mrs. Whitmore. A woman smiling at a joke made at her own expense, wearing a dress she didn't pick, sitting next to a man everyone at that table thought was the best thing that ever happened to her.

I barely recognized her anymore.

******

The second our front door shut behind us, the warmth just drained right out of Dean's face.

"You were flirting with him." His voice was flat and controlled. Somehow that was worse than yelling.

"What?" I set my purse down carefully, already bracing myself. "Dean, I don't even know who you're talking about…."

"Don't." He crossed the room in three steps. "Don't stand there and act like you didn't see the way you smiled at him. Everyone saw it."

"I smiled because he complimented my dress." My heart was climbing up into my throat. "That's it, that's all that happened."

He held his hand out. "Phone."

I hesitated for half a second too long, and he reached into my purse and took it himself, scrolling through my messages calm and careful, like he was going through a receipt, not my life.

"Dean, there's nothing…."

"Then you won't mind me looking."

I just stood there while he went through every contact, every message, every last little piece of my life that still technically belonged to me, then his thumb stopped scrolling.

He'd found it.

An old number, saved years back under just a first name, I never deleted it. I told myself I just forgot it was there but some stubborn part of me had kept it on purpose….one small thread still tying me to who I used to be before any of this.

"Ryder." He said the name like it left a bad taste in his mouth.

"It's an old contact. I haven't talked to him in years, Dean, I swear…."

He deleted it without even looking up at me.

"You don't need anybody else." He finally looked at me, and there wasn't anything warm left in his eyes at all. "You have me."

******

Over the next few years, it didn't happen all at once. Nobody warns you about that part….how slow a person can disappear if whoever's doing it is patient enough.

First it was the money, a joint account that somehow only he could touch without a conversation, then my phone, checked every night, no explanation given or needed, then the people I was allowed to still talk to, one at a time, each one disappearing behind some excuse he came up with.

He picked what I wore to dinners, corrected what I said at his mother's table, told me my laugh was too loud if it got too loud in public.

To everyone outside that house, he was exactly what he'd always been….charming and generous. The husband every woman at every dinner party told me I was lucky to have.

Inside that house, I turned into a woman who apologized for things she didn't even do, who flinched when a door shut too hard, who thought through every sentence twice before saying it out loud.

I started saving money the way people hide a bad habit, a little at a time. Careful. Scared of getting caught, five dollars folded into a stuffed rabbit, ten dollars tucked into a hidden spot I carved into an old jewelry box.

I memorized numbers I thought I might need one day. I studied Dean's routine the way you'd study the weather…. learning exactly when he left, exactly when he wasn't paying attention.

I waited, I told myself I was being patient.

Really, I was just scared, and patience was the nicer word for it.

******

One night, long after Dean had gone to bed, I sat by myself in the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror under that harsh light.

I didn't know the woman looking back at me.

She had my face, my eyes, my mouth, that little scar above my eyebrow from falling off my bike as a kid but everything behind her eyes was different….smaller and dimmer. Like she'd spent years trying to take up as little space as possible.

I touched my wedding ring, it felt heavier than something that small had any right to feel.

"Brielle!" Dean's voice came from the bedroom, sharp enough to make me jump.

I wiped my face fast, put my expression back to normal, and walked out.

He was standing by the bed, already dressed even though it was still dark outside, and he had something in his hand.

My stomach dropped before I even figured out what it was.

My passport.

"Why did you need this?" His voice was quiet….to quiet. Quieter than yelling ever was.

I didn't say anything, because there wasn't anything safe to say, a woman who hid her passport in the lining of her winter coat, just in case, didn't have an innocent explanation left.

Dean studied my silence the way he studied everything….patient, thorough. Like he already knew the answer and was just waiting to see if I'd lie about it anyway.

Then, slowly, he set the passport down on the dresser and walked toward me, and I braced myself for the cold anger I already knew from five years of marriage.

It didn't come.

Instead he reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. Gentle. Almost sweet and when he spoke again, his voice had gone soft in a way that scared me more than yelling ever could.

"If you ever try to leave me," he said, "I won't come after you."

He let that hang there for a second, watching my face, watching the fear show up right where he wanted it to.

"I'll come after the kids.”