She nibbles on her lip. “Do you have any shampoo?”
Standing, I reach into my walk-in shower, grabbing a bottle of shampoo and conditioner. Izzy’s arm extends to take them from me, but then she winces in pain.
It guts me, seeing that look on her face.
“Let me help you,Cuore mio.”
She swallows. “Okay.”
I squirt some shampoo into my palm. “Can I touch you?” I ask, then groan, hating myself. “Your head, I mean. Can you wash your hair? I won’t do anything—”
She giggles at the way my words tumble over one another. “You may.”
My fingers massage her scalp as I lather the soap through her hair. Then, I rinse using the extendable hose. I put the conditioner only on her ends after she scolds me for trying to repeat the process.
After helping Izzy out and passing her a towel, I leave her to get changed into one of my shirts.
My phone vibrates in my pocket just as the elevator doors open.
“I’m so sorry!” Henry pants down the phone. “I tried to stop—”
I hang up the phone as Dante appears in front of me.
He has a key, but Henry has been charged with not letting anyone up until I give him the go ahead. If he wasn’t one of my best employees, he’d be fired immediately.
“So you are alive,” Dante teases, coming to slap a hand on my back. “We’ve been placing bets, wondering if you’d finally decided to give it all up and go live in England with your little friends.”
I growl at him, “Still here, asshole.”
He scans my appearance: bushy beard, sweatpants, tired eyes. “You look like shit.”
His graze tracks to something behind me, and I don’t have to turn around to know what—orwho—he’s looking at.
“Huh, so this is what you’ve been doing?”
I go to berate him, but I turn my head in time to see Izzy. She’s in nothing but a plain white shirt of mine, with the sleeves rolled up. My cock stirs once more with some primal level possessiveness.
But then I see her face. The pain, the fear.
Dante forgotten, I’m at her side in two strides, picking her up and hugging her to my chest, whispering soothing words in her ear.
My hand runs over her hair as she sobs into my shoulder.
“It’s okay Iz,” I whisper to her. “He’s a friend, he won’t hurt you.” Her trembling lessens. “I promise you’re safe.”
She clings to me like I’m her lifeline and I must be the biggest asshole in the world because goddamn I love that she needs me.
Remembering Dante, I turn back to him, holding Izzy close to me and keeping my hand over her so she stays covered. “Dante, get the fuck out of here. Do not breathe a word of her existence to anyone.”
His expression turns serious as he nods, then steps back to the elevator.
Knowing I can trust him, I carry Izzy back through the apartment, but instead of taking her to the guest room I go straight for my own, laying her down gently onto my bed.
She curls up in a ball, making herself small, her face burrowed into the bed.
I run to the guest room, grabbing the hair dryer, then make my way back to her, finding her in the same position.
Plugging in the dryer, I force her upright. She sits numbly while I dry her hair, running my fingers through the knots. After, I brush her waves with a comb—it's not perfect, I'm sure it's not how she would do it, but it's something.
