She said nothing as I dipped the cloth back into the water and added some soap.
“This is gonna sting, but I have some salve and I’ll help you get bandaged up before we go to bed.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She was quiet while I finished washing her face and made sure the dirt had soaked out of the scrapes on her thighs. As I helped her out of the tub and wrapped her up in a towel, she asked me, “Do you really think you’ll be able to get me away from my father?”
No. Not at all. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. Wrapping my towel around my waist, I sighed heavily and ran a hand through my own wet hair. Some perverse masochistic part of me wanting to know… “I need to ask you something, Sera.”
She was standing in front of the sink looking at the damage to her face. Her eyes met mine in the mirror. Tension pulsed between us. The same energy that was always there. It poked and prodded at the shell I’d built around my heart, searching for a way in.
“Do you really want to leave me?” My heart sped up as I waited for her answer. “If tonight hadn’t happened, and we could find a way out of this, would you still want to be free? Of me?”
She started to respond, then stopped. I opened and closed my hands as I waited for her answer, fighting down the panic that was trying to rise inside of me. “Honestly?” she asked.
I gave her a nod.
Slowly, she turned to face me. “No,” she said quietly. “I don’t know.” The tears that had been gathering in the corners of her blue-gray eyes spilled over. “And I’m probably the sorriest excuse for women’s rights in the entire universe, but even after what you did to me tonight, I don’t want to leave you.”
Relief flooded my veins, so fast and hard it made me sway on my feet. And not even her next words could damper it.
“But I have to. I can’t stay here, Enzo. I can’t stay with you. Eventually he’d come for me. You won’t be able to stop him. Not because he loves me, but because it would be a blow to his pride that you managed to steal something from him. Because that’s all I am to him. A bargaining chip to further his own agenda.”
I stared down at this woman who had taken my world and upended it with nothing but her gap-toothed smile, and the words were coming out of my mouth before I could stop them. “He can’t have you. Not anymore.”
The way she looked at me made me wonder if what I heard in my head and what I’d said were two different things.
“What?” I asked her. “Why are you looking at me that way?”
She opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again and shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
Her mouth twisted into something sour. “There’s only one way he’ll ever agree to let you keep me. And that’s only if his return on investment is worth it.” A nervous laugh burst from her. “Of course, I’m no longer a virgin. The one thing he valued about me and that he could use to sell to a higher bidder. So perhaps you’d have a chance.”
I knew what she was talking about. “I can’t marry you, Sera. That isn’t an option.”
There was a flash of hurt in her eyes before she quickly turned back to the mirror and started taking her hair down.
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me,” she countered. Picking up my brush, she started ripping it through her hair with rough strokes. “It’s my life, Enzo. It haseverythingto do with me. But if you don’t want me…” She trailed off, swallowing hard.
“Sera.”
“There’s nothing I can do about that,” she finished.
I came up behind her and took the brush from her hand before she ripped out all of her hair. Carefully, I started working out the knots, my heart in my throat from memories of doing this for Alessandra. “I never said I didn’t want you.”
“But you don’t want me enough to marry me.”
Setting down the brush, I leaned back against the sink and pulled her around until she was standing between my thighs. “I know you won’t understand, but it’s safer for you that way.”
There was something in her eyes as she stared up at me. Something I didn’t at first understand.
“Okay,” she finally said.
And it was then that I understood.
She knew.
