"I do," she insists. "Elio, I'm asking you to sleep with me. Once. Just once, so that this marriage is legal and binding and can't be undone. That's all."
That's all. As if it's simple. As if I could touch her once and walk away unscathed.
But she's right about the danger. If Desmond captures her, if he figures out the marriage was never consummated, he could undo everything. He could still force her into marriage.
I can't let that happen.
"This doesn't change anything," I hear myself say. "Afterward, we still get this annulled—or divorced, I suppose it would have to be divorced now. We still end this when the danger passes."
"I know," Annie says softly. "I understand." She swallows hard, and I don’t know if the emotion on her face is from the thought of having to let me go or the thought of doing this at all.
I doubt she does. I doubt she has any idea what this is going to cost me.
But I nod anyway. "Okay. Okay, we'll—" I can't finish the sentence. "Give me a few minutes."
“I need to shower anyway,” Annie whispers. “I’ll—find you in the bedroom after I’m done?”
I swallow hard and nod again. “Alright.”
I wait until she’s collected her things and I hear the water running, and then head to the master bedroom. My hands are shaking as I turn on the lights, as I look at the bed where I'm about to make what feels like it might be the biggest mistake of my life—right after walking away from her the first time.
Not because I don't want her. God, I want her so much it physically hurts.
But because I do want her. Because I love her. And because I know that one night with her—one taste of what it could be like if she were really mine—is going to destroy me.
And I’ll let it, if it means she’s safe.
21
ANNIE
My heart is pounding as I go to the bedroom to get something to change into. I want out of this wedding dress—want to burn it, frankly—and I need to scrub everything that’s happened to me today off of my skin before Elio touches me.
Before we consummate our marriage.
The thought makes my pulse flutter in my throat. Eleven years ago, Elio and I came so close to doing exactly this. And then, just when I thought he was going to be my first, when I thought he was going to take what I was begging him to let me give, he stopped.
He got up and told me he couldn’t. That he was leaving for Chicago. That my father and brother would kill him if they knew he’d ever touched me at all—a conversation we’d had before, over and over again. That he wasn’t good enough for me.
That he’d never be someone they’d allow me to be with. To marry. To love.
I wanted him to fight for me. To stand up to them and do what every romance novel, every fairy tale had ever told me he should—tell my father and Ronan that he wasn’t going to leave.That he wasn’t going to abandon me. That I was everything to him.
That he loved me.
Now, eleven years later, he is fighting for me. And we’re married.
He’s about to be my first.
And somehow, it feels all wrong.
He’s doing this because there’s no other way out. He didn’t marry me today because he loves me—he married me because I was right—it was the best way to cut off Desmond’s planned revenge at the knees. And he isn’t going to fuck me tonight because he wants me—he’s going to do it because we need this marriage to be as real as it possibly can be.
I know he does want me. Every time we’ve tested those lines so far has been proof of that. But nothing about tonight is about desire or love.
Just necessity. The thought makes my chest ache.
I strip off the bloody wedding dress, throwing it into a pile in a corner of the bathroom, and turn the shower on as hot as I can stand. I step under the spray, letting the water wash everything away. I scrub my skin until it's pink, washing away any lingering trace of Desmond's touch, any memory of his hands on my arms, his breath on my neck. By the time I'm done, I feel raw and clean and new.
