Chapter 220: Why Don't you trust me?

"No, I wouldn't," Avery says, grabbing the pen from Evan. "I trust you." 

"Are you sure about that?" Evan asks with a small smile.

Evan presses his leg against hers and strokes her arm. A few strands of hair have fallen across her face, and he tucks them behind her ear. Avery looks away guiltily. She wants to swear that she trusts him, but she realizes it's not true. A part of her still thinks he might have fathered Leonie's child. She knows it's irrational, but she just can't forget about that afternoon in the bedroom—it seemed so real.

"I'm not sure," she whispers.

"Why don't you trust me?" Evan asks. He lifts her head so he can look into her eyes. "Please tell me."

Avery puts her hands on his shoulders and says, "I don't actually know you that well."

It's true, she thinks. When I married him, I was obsessively in love, but I didn't know him at all. I was more in love with my idea of him than anything else. I don't remember much of the last three and a half years, but I do remember his cruelty. He always looked the other way when his grandmother and Leonie tortured me. I know he can be tender when he wants to, but I don't really know him at all. 

"I want you to know me," he says seriously. "And once you do, will you trust me? Will you come to find me?"

Avery tries to look away—his eyes are so intense she feels like he's reading her thoughts. His fingers tighten around her chin. He's so close she can feel the warmth of his breath on her face.

"Avery, you have come to find me," he says. "You have to!"

Avery nods silently, and Evan takes her hand and presses it to his lips. His sudden intensity scares her. Does he know something that I don't? She wonders. Why does he think that something is going to happen to him? He sounds so paranoid.

"Avery, you promised me you'd never lie to me again," Evan says. "I want to believe you, and I want to trust you. I need you to believe and trust me in return."

Avery leans into his arms and rests her head against his chest. She breathes deeply, enjoying his particular smell and closes her eyes. He wraps his arm around her, and she sighs. When he holds her, she feels safe and warm.

"Where are we?" Avery asks when the car finally stops.

"The supermarket," Evan says.

"Why?" Avery asks. "I thought the servants did all the shopping." 

"Let's play pretend," he says with a small smile. "We can pretend we're a normal husband and wife shopping together."

"Yes, but Evan, have you ever even been in a supermarket?" she asks.

She looks pointedly at the bodyguards behind them. She's only been grocery shopping a few times, but she knows that a team of seven bodyguards will cause traffic in the narrow aisles. Evan follows her gaze and shrugs. He tells the bodyguards to wait outside the sliding doors, and then he leads her into the store. Robert follows behind them.

"What are we going to buy?" Avery asks. "Do we need a basket or a cart?"

Evan looks at her like she's speaking a foreign language. She rolls her eyes and slings a plastic basket over her arm. She leads him to the bath and body section and takes him down the men's aisle. Shampoos, body washes, and shaving creams line the shelves.

"So um, what brand of shampoo and soap do you prefer?" she asks.

"So, this is what you want to know about me?" he asks.

Avery nods—she wants to know what gives him his distinctive smell. She's never seen any of these brands before; all of the labels look shiny and strange in the bright store lights. Evan takes the basket from her and passes it to Robert. He leans down to look at a row of shampoos and frowns.

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"Mr. Howel, you won't find your products here, I'm afraid," Robert says. "All of your products are handmade with the best ingredients and imported from around the world. They come from a company called VKS."

Avery takes Evan's hand and leads him down the aisle to the razor section. A salesgirl is doing a demonstration with a new six-bladed razor. She lathers shaving cream onto a plastic model and glides the razor down its cheeks. Avery suddenly looks at Evan's cheeks. Every time she's seen him, he's been completely beardless. She's never even seen him with stubble.

"How often do you shave?" she asks him.

"Next time you can do it for me," Evan says. He takes her hand and runs it along with his smooth cheek, copying the salesgirl's motions.

She leads him away from the demonstration toward the food section. She pulls him past the frozen foods, dairy, and deli. When they pass the fish counter, she has to cover her nose with her hand—the strong smell makes her stomach turn. She stops near the produce section. Piles of colorful fruits and vegetables line the shelves and fill the large wooden bins.

"What do you want to buy?" she asks.

The produce section is filled with housewives, students, and families doing their grocery shopping. They push carts and carry baskets, clogging the narrow aisles. Every few feet, someone stops to test the ripeness of a peach or to weigh an eggplant in their hands.

Avery turns to Evan and sees that he's frowning. She vaguely remembers that Evan hates crowded places, but she can't remember why. Does he have a phobia? She wonders. Is he afraid of germs? No, that's not it.

The idea suddenly hits her—he hates physical contact. She quickly thinks about the time they've spent together in public places and realizes he's never touched anyone but her. He didn't shake hands with the doctor in the hospital, he refused to take his glass of wine directly from the waiter's hand, and he wouldn't even let the nurse touch him to clean the cut on his neck.

Evan stands close behind Avery as if to shield her from behind. He gently pushes her forward, and they stop to look at some organic lettuce. A mist of cold water sprays from the shelf above, keeping the lettuce fresh and crisp. Evan grabs a bundle of spinach and tosses it to Robert.

"Don't we have food at home?" Avery asks.

"We do," Evan says, shrugging. "What do you want to eat for dinner?"

Avery frowns and asks, "Are you going to cook?"

"What's wrong with that?" Evan asks.

"You don't know how," Avery replies.

"I can learn," Evan says, teasingly pinching her side.

Evan follows her through the produce section, picking vegetables at random. They argue about the bell peppers. Evan wants to choose the biggest peppers, and Avery wants to get the shiniest. Evan's give in, kissing her forehead as he bags the shiniest peppers on the shelf.

Avery spots several shoppers staring at them and pulls away from him. She can feel herself blushing with embarrassment. We must look like newlyweds, she thinks. It looks like we can't keep our hands off each other. Feeling self-conscious, she tries to stand further from Evan, but he doesn't let her.

When Gabrielle wakes her entire body aches, she feels like she's been crushed under a mountain. She groans and rolls onto her side. Jackson's face is inches from her own. She squirms away from him as quickly as possible, feeling a chill on her arms.

She looks down at her body. The sheets have slid away, and tangled at her feet, revealing the pale skin on her breasts and stomach. Large blue and purple hickeys dot her skin like the evidence of some horrible crime. She covers her mouth, trying to hold back the scream rising in her throat.

Calm down and breathe, she thinks. She takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. Then she reaches for the bedside table. She grabs the phone and dials the police. She presses the phone hard into her ear to muffle the sound of the officer.

"Help," she whispers, "I think I was raped."

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