Page 60 of The Strength Of A Woman

She’s still standing, her leg touching my knee, and I feel an undercurrent of pleasure in my body.

“He must be as hideous as he is dangerous, but I don’t care,” she says, her eyes tilted to mine.

And then she slides a hand onto the table and leans forward, with determination sparkling in her eyes.

She speaks softly, her lips inches away from mine.

“Bad things have happened to me all my life. One just happened tonight. So, what do I have to lose, Callum?”

A downcast smile breaks through her tears.

“Huh? What do I have to lose? Nothing. I’ve got nothing to lose. I don’t care if this is the end for me. They’ve all mistreated me. He’ll just be the last one in a long line of miscreants. And he won’t touch me. I’ll make sure of that. Even if he restrains me and has his way with me. Maybe he’ll do it once. Maybe he’ll do it twice. But one night, he’ll let his guard down, and he’ll find out what little Leilani Gallo is capable of. I’m not afraid to die. I’vethought about death more times than you can count. When you live the life I live, it’s hard not to think about it.”

My jaw locks as I feel some long-suppressed, hard emotion build in my chest.

Something in this woman’s life speaks to me in ways impossible to describe.

It makes my eyes glint differently, and it registers with her, bringing a smile to her face.

“You know what I mean, don’t you?”

Her smile is tinged with hope.

“You’ve been living this life, too. Only at the other end,” she goes on. “You must know how it feels. I was at the receiving end. I had men lust after me when they should’ve taken care of their wives. I’ve had people touching me, like that jerk tonight, when they should’ve minded their own business. I’ve had men humiliating me and treating me like a sex object and pulling me into a ritualistic hell. I’ve had my own family look the other way. I asked them to protect me. They told me I was insane. The only time they wanted to keep me away from all that was when you became a part of it. That’s when it suited them. You think I didn’t notice how my mother behaved when she married you. She thought you were like them. Only this time, she didn’t want you to lust after me. She didn’t want you to ask for me to be sent to your room so you could pour yourself a drink like you just did now, order me to strip, and then order me to takea shower so you could watch me naked, hair wet, water dripping from my chest and the place between my legs. Night, after night, after night…”

Her voice trails off, her smile fading as she’s about to straighten and step back, when I grab her forearm harshly.

“Who did that to you?”

A grin dipped in resignation touches her lips.

“It doesn’t matter.”

I slide my hand up and wrap my fingers around her neck, pressing them into her delicate skin.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she says quietly, on the verge of crying, when all I want is to wrap my arms around her, hold her against me, and never let her leave this house.

Keep her here with me, teach her how to heal, see her wounds close, and then show her something else.

Protect her for once.

Introduce her to a different kind of life for once.

She did nothing to deserve this.

“No one’s hurting you. Who did this to you?”

She lifts her hand to my face and fans her fingers over my cheek.

“I can’t tell you,” she murmurs, shaking her head from side to side. “I’ll take this secret to the grave. It’s not a secret for most people in the house. They all witnessed it, one way or another. They’ve heard of it, if nothing else. I’m too ashamed to even speak about it. I’ve never said what I just told you to anyone else.”

My grip slackens before my fingers trail up her cheek and then remove a few tears.

Her eyes seem clearer now than they were before, as she’s waiting for me to speak.

“Julian York knows about it,” I say, convinced the little prick got emboldened by whatever happened in her family in the past.

“He’s probably heard the stories.”