Hold Me Tight

Prologue.

Sitting on the hospital bed like a broken piece of old furniture, Anna was forced to listen to her husband kissing and cuddling with his young secretary on the sofa. Like usual, the scent of her black orchid perfume made Anna want to vomit. Neither her eyes that were hidden behind black glasses nor her dry lips twitched even a bit at the thought of where they were touching one another. She already knew that Everett had been f*****g Piper in his office behind her back, but now he did not need to keep up the act. 

“Why did you come here today?” She asked. She had been admitted to the hospital over three months ago but not once had he come to check on her. 

“To divorce you, of course,” Everett rolled his eyes, placing the papers in front of her. Anna clenched her fist under the quilt, barely able to stop the smile from coming over her lips. 

“The almighty billionaire Everett Rathbone appears to be afraid of the consequences of his actions.  After he raped and attempted to murder his own wife with his new wife,” Anna remarked, poking at Everett’s sorest wound. 

“Since when did making love to your own wife become illegal?” He grabbed her face by the cheeks tightly and gritted his teeth. “Only an air head like you would call it a marital rape and go to the media like a crazy woman to expose me. You should’ve known better that money talks, Anna. Only money, it's all that matters,” he shoved her face away.

Anna stayed calm. She had not known that the man she loved for three years would turn out to be a sickeningly obsessive man right after they married. After he delivered the first slap to her face at an award function, she knew that she had committed a grave mistake by marrying that man. She wanted a divorce but Everett always refused. He locked her up in his house, beat her, and released his anger on her though s*x. 

Whenever he would return home, she could clearly smell women's perfume on his body. It was clear that he was cheating on her but he would not let her go. 

When Anna stubbornly continued asking for a divorce and to leave the house, no matter how badly he beat her, his Mother came over to strike a bargain. She had hidden Everett’s mental illness from her before the wedding. Anna pretended to compromise in order to win back Everett’s trust so that she could run to the police and media for help as a way of assuring her security. But just as Everett said, money talks. The police forced her to sort out things with Everett. They closed her file claiming that her complaint was a small argument that occurs between all married couples. He also bribed the media to stop showing her claim on the news. In the end, Anna was defeated. She was locked in the house again and beaten even more severely. It seemed that no matter what she did to ruin his reputation, it did not work. 

As a punishment, he brought his secretary to live with them as his second wife. Piper wanted to become the only wife so she plotted against Anna and made her fall down the stairs and threw some kind of chemical in Anna’s eyes to make her blind. 

Anna barely survived, she lost her eyesight and broke both her legs. That scared Everett. The media outside his hospital room was a threat to his business and future. He could not let her speak to the media again. To hide his true nature, he decided to divorce Anna. 

The papers that she had been waiting a whole year of her marriage for, her freedom. 

“Babe, can you make her sign them quickly? This room is so hot,” Piper pouted, revealing her inner thighs and black panties to Everett. 

“Did you hear my wife, Anna? Stop wasting our time. We’ve got to catch a flight for our honeymoon. Quickly sign these papers and give me my freedom,” Everett demanded in annoyance. 

“Babe, how can a blind person write their signature? Please help your ex-wife,” Piper smiled. 

“Ugh, so bothersome,” Everett forced Anna to pick up the pen and forced her to sign the papers. “It’s so embarrassing to even call you my ex,” he sneered before snatching the papers away from her. 

“You used to say that my face was the most beautiful you had ever seen. So beautiful that you used to c*m in your pants”, Anna reminded him. 

“True, you’re still beautiful, Anna, but those f*****g blind eyes and unless legs are nothing but show pieces now,” he laughed, grabbing Piper’s hand to leave. “You’ll look better on the street with a bowl in your hand. Don't even think about getting money from me. You’re not getting s**t,” he said.

As soon as they left, the room fell into dead silence. 

“Ma’am, are you okay?” Anna’s maid, who was hidden behind the curtains the whole time, came out. 

“I’m fine,” Anna said, removing her sunglasses and standing on her own two feet. Her eyes and legs were perfectly fine. Everett hated broken things, which was why Anna had shown him that she was no longer perfect and used to get a divorce. She had already asked her doctors to never tell Everett that her eyes and legs could be healed. 

“Here are your clothes and bags,” the maid handed over Anna’s things that she had already asked her to retrieve from Everett’s house a few days ago. He did not even notice her stuff was missing. 

“Here, take it,” Anna handed over an envelope filled with cash to the woman as her last p*****t before leaving the hospital out the back door.