Strings Attached

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Open the door," I demanded softly.

No sounds. Not a single fucking word . Silence.

"Isabelle," I asked with more demand and knocked on the door again.

"Please, leave me alone." Her voice rang with suppressed fear and panic.

I was about to reason with her again, when my phone rang. I checked the screen and saw it was Emily. Cursing with frustration, I declined the call and threw the phone on the bed. The project escalation would have to wait. This was more important.

"If you don't open the door, I will break in," I warned softly.

The last thing I wanted to do was to start our trip by breaking down the door in a fucking hotel, but I sensed that was exactly what I was going to have to do if I wanted to get through to my wife. Moments passed by and the door in front of me remained locked.

"Isabelle, this is your last chance," I raised my voice, hoping she would listen. "Open the door."

To my relief, the door swung open, but I was not prepared for what I was about to see. Isabelle looked absolutely frightened and she pulled her arms over her face like she was trying to instinctively protect herself from an attack. A flashback from that time I'd hit her appeared before my eyes and I realized she was scared I might react in the same way. The knowledge that my wife cowered away from me in fear that I'd use my strength against her, made me feel like the lowest scumbag at the face of the earth because I knew her terror wasn't unfounded. 

"Isabelle," I whispered her name in a light tone, but she didn't face me.

Instead, she slowly stepped away from me as I tried to come closer. She kept backing away until her back was glued to the wall and she had no other choice but to acknowledge my presence. It was a game we had played so many times. It was a game she always lost. My fingers closed around her chin and I could feel her slight quivering. When I lifted her head, her eyes were filled with tears that I had no time to chase away because the moment she met my gaze, she started crying.

For a few moments, I was flabbergasted by the magnitude of her panic and even though I didn't understand what caused her to lock herself away from me, I knew it was somehow my fault. I shook my head, whispering under my breath. "I fucked up again, didn't I, sweetheart?"

Isabelle didn't hear me. She was lost in her own world of fear and pain. Seeing the woman I loved in such a broken state was the worst kind of torture and there was nothing I wouldn't do to make it better. I would have given up everything I owned at that moment just to stop those tears from falling.

In an attempt to offer comfort, I brushed my thumb against her cheek. Feeling the cold wetness of her tears on my own skin caused the actual physical pain in the center of my chest. Don't cry, angel. Yell at me. Hit me. But please don't cry because of something I have done.

Isabelle stared at me with a sense of deep sadness and her tears kept flowing down her face like she possessed no control over them. Even though I sensed any attempt to come too close would be rebuffed, I couldn't help myself and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into my embrace.

"No, don't!" Her voice rang with panic.

Now that I held her in my arms, I couldn't bring myself to let go so I lowered us to the floor, laying her small body on my lap. Blocking out her repeated protests, I started rocking her in my embrace and caressing her hair while her tears kept flowing like they would never come to an end. Her mascara was melting on my white expensive shirt and while I would normally  freak out about something like that, now I didn't give a damn. The shirt didn't matter...The upcoming negotiations with the client didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was offering comfort to the woman who had infiltrated my system to such an extent that for her, I wanted to become a different man.