Chapter25
GIANNA
A partof me wants to push him away as he unzips the ripped hoodie of my track suit and slides it off my shoulders.The feeling intensifies as he slides off my bra and bares my breasts.But his touch is soft, his gaze is warm and a faint, gorgeous scent of lavender is rising on the steam of the bath he prepared for me.
After the rollercoaster of emotions I went through today, I don’t know what I want.But this feels good, pleasant, peaceful.So I let him undress me.Let him help me into the bath.
The water is just right as it accepts me into its warm embrace.I hope everything just melts away in its soft touch.My little sister being led away by her angry husband.The wild ride in Matteo’s car that I didn’t know where it would end.The dash from the casino-my daring escape.Listening to my mom’s voice over and over, wishing the words were more comforting.My daring escape plan ended with me surrounded by would-be rapists.
Would I even survive if he hadn’t shown up?
I shudder as I think that, interrupting his slow and sensual washing of my hair with a shampoo that smells like lavender too.His soft touches are waking my need for him, a tingling deep in my core, radiating out.But it’s no more than echoes of the pull he had on me, the feelings he could wake in me when he was still my bodyguard, and I still had a home.
“What’s wrong?”
I shake my head and lie back in the water, submerging my hair and almost my whole face.Then I shut my eyes and submerge my whole head.The water is soft against my face.I could just stay like this, holding my breath and then I’d wake up and everything would be better.
His touch is soft as he lifts me from the water, his arms strong and steady.
He has me stand after that, lathering my whole body with a soap that creates lots of bubbles and does not smell of lavender.It smells of roses.Sweet summer roses like the ones that grow at the beach house.The ones my mom picks and puts in a vase for the dinner table.
His touch is still as soft as a summer breeze and my skin is now tingling from it and the warmth of the water.
This is already better.Maybe when I wake up tomorrow, things will be better still.
He helps me out of the bath and dries me with one of the thick, soft towels.Then he wraps me in an even softer bathrobe and carries me to the bed like a bride.
The sheets are cool, as cool as the nighttime ocean breeze.The welcome kind.Not the kind that was blowing when I was alone and defenseless on the beach.This is the kind I would always fall asleep to at the beach house.
He took all that away from me!
But it’s hard to hold onto that anger as he climbs in bed beside me and wraps me in his arms.He kisses the top of my head, and a bubble of warm joy explodes somewhere deep in my chest.Not strong enough to light up all the darkness he has caused.But bright.Very bright.
“Sleep now, Goldie,” he says.“Everything will work out for the best.”
I choose to believe him.For now.Because peace and dreams of a better tomorrow are already pulling me closer.And because in dreams is the only place where we can be happy together and what he said is true.
Chapter26
MATTEO
I fell asleep rightalong with her, the lavender smell of her hair and her soft body in my arms making it easy.But I woke up in the dead of night, my head pounding from all the alcohol I’d consumed after so long of nothing, and possibly a punch or two I received while rescuing her last night.I’d take ten more just like that.A hundred.For her.
What I can’t take is her leaving me again.
I check the phone she bought, noting down the numbers she called.
Some of them I recognized as belonging to the other members of her family.Ferro already has those.His IT guys—probably the Russians, since they’re so good with computers and such—even traced those phones to a spot in the ocean about twenty miles from the Codelli beach house.They must have tossed their phones off the boat as they fled.
But one of the numbers she’d called I’d never seen.And she had called it first.She had called it again and again when she couldn’t reach anyone at the other numbers.
It could be the lead Ferro needs.It could lead us straight to where her family is hiding.
Ferro has been texting me all night, wanting updates, complaining that the damn bodyguard Rafaelle wasn’t talking.
Damn that tough bastard.If he rolled on the Codellis then the burden of this decision would be off my shoulders.
I’m losing my patience with you and both the Codelli bitches.
