“Persia.” Her name is gravel in my mouth.
"The worst time was three years ago." She turns slightly in my arms, and I can see the way her aqua eyes have gone distant, lost in a memory that still haunts her. “He found out I had been taking nursing classes at the community college. Classes I paid for myself with money my mother secretly gave me. Education he had not authorized, independence he had not permitted. Those were his words.”
Her voice cracks on the last word, and I pull her closer, tucking her head beneath my chin where she cannot see the murder that must be written across my face.
“I could not sit or lie back for two weeks. My mother told everyone I had the flu.” The bitterness in her tone could strip paint from walls. “The scars from that night are the deepest. They are the ones you felt when you touched the small of my back and shoulders.”
I think of my hands on her spine, of pressing kisses to raised white lines without understanding the horror that created them. I think of a nineteen-year-old girl bleeding through her clothes because she dared to want something for herself.
“That is why you always wear the scarves." My voice comes out hoarse. "The cardigans in summer. The dresses with high backs. My shirts.”
“I have not been truly bare in front of another person since I was a teenager.” She lifts her head to meet my eyes, and the vulnerability there nearly undoes me. “I was terrified of what you would think when you saw them. That you would see damaged goods. Even now, though I did not want to sign your contract I fear you will want someone–”
“Stop.” The word is sharper than I intend, and I soften it by cradling her face in my wet palms. "Do not finish that sentence."
“Rafael—”
“Those scars are not your shame to carry. They are his." I trace my thumb across her cheekbone, catching a tear I did not realize had fallen. "They do not make you damaged, little dove. They make you a survivor. They make you the strongest woman I have ever known."
She searches my face with those luminous eyes, looking for the disgust she expected to find. When she does not see it, when she sees only the fury and the tenderness warring beneath my skin, something in her expression cracks open.
"I am going to kill him." The promise slips out before I can stop it, low and controlled and absolutely sincere. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday, Barret Fiore will pay for every mark he carved into your skin."
"You cannot just?—"
"I can." I press my forehead to hers, letting her see the truth in my eyes. "I will. No one hurts what belongs to me, Persia. No one."
She does not argue. Instead, she closes the distance between us and kisses me with a desperation that tastes like gratitude and something deeper, something that makes my chest ache in ways I do not have words for.
When she finally pulls back, her lashes are wet but she is smiling.
"Thank you," she whispers. "For not looking at me differently."
I tuck a strand of damp violet hair behind her ear and let my fingers linger on the curve of her jaw. "The only thing that has changed is that I now have another name on my list of people who will answer for hurting you."
By the time I carry her back to bed and tuck her against my side, something has shifted between us. Something that feels like the foundation of something real.
I wait until her breathing evens out, until I am certain she is asleep, before I press my lips to her hair and whisper the words I am not brave enough to say when she can hear them.
"I am falling in love with you, little dove. And I have no idea how to stop."
Her only answer is a soft sigh and the instinctive way she burrows closer, seeking my warmth even in sleep.
I hold her tighter and stare at the ceiling, wondering how the hell a man like me is supposed to deserve a woman like her.
The answer, I suspect, is that I do not.
But I am going to spend the rest of my life trying anyway.
Thirteen
Rafael
The first pale fingers of dawn stretch across the Chicago skyline, painting the clouds in shades of rose and amber that have no business being so beautiful when I feel this fucking ugly inside.
I stand at the window of my bedroom with my shoulder pressed against the cool glass, watching the woman in my bed sleep with the kind of peace I have not earned the right to witness. The sheets have twisted around her hips during the night, leaving the elegant curve of her spine exposed to the gray morning light, and I can see the faint silver lines of her scars catching the sunrise like threads of silk woven into her skin.
She trusted me with those scars last night. Trusted me with her body, her virginity, her future wrapped up in a contract I strong-armed her into signing while my fingers were still wet with her arousal.
