“Let me take your mind off of everything. You need this.” I massaged him. His iron will melted. Grabbing my biceps, he flung me around and threw me to the bed. I bounced against the edge, waiting for the inevitable—my pants ripped downward in a puddle at my feet. The tear of lace panty seams. My shirt whipped upward, discarded on the floor. My bra snapping against my back as he clumsily fiddled with the clasp. Then the unzipping of his jeans.

He’d always been careful not to leave bruising on my neck or arms, but tonight felt different. Angrier. Rushed. Careless. I closed my eyes, barely holding on to the string that connected me to earth as my mind lifted me into the inky sky. Tonight he didn’t care what marks he left behind, what physical bruises matched the ones on my soul as he pumped me raw until I silently wept.

When he finished, I winced as I slid back into my torn panties. There was no forehead kiss of gratitude this time, my payment for being an obedient little wife.

“Are we okay now?” I squeaked.

“I don’t know. I need time to think.”

Brood was more like it. And brooding only led to more anger.

“Let’s just sleep on it and consider the options tomorrow.” Please work, logic.

“Options?” He laughed flatly. “The options were stripped from us when Aria decided to get drunk. You know, the more I think about it, it’s clear both of you women are to blame for this. No common sense! She shouldn’t have put herself in that position, practically begging to get taken advantage of. What decent girl gets blind drunk unless she’s trying to be reckless? Trying to be a whore?”

I gasped in horror at the man’s chauvinism.

“As a husband and a father, you actually think that about women—that we’re asking for it when we drink too much or dress a certain way? That’s seriously your view of women?”

Why I was shocked to hear this from the man who ravaged me night after night—that was the real shocker. Yes, I was a proud Southern gal, but I’d always known chivalric honor à la Gone With the Wind was a load of crap. Southern or otherwise, some men wanted women to be maids in the living room, cooks in the kitchen, and whores in the bedroom. Owen’s devotion to this backward thinking made me want to throw up.

“I’m just saying that if you ever dressed like a slut or acted like one,” Owen said, “I would have never married you. Or I’d have put you in your place.”

“So by that logic, as long as a girl dresses conservatively, even if she sleeps around, she’s not a slut, right?”

“No, she’d be a slut too.” More blatant misogyny.