“How can you not know when you’re engaged?” I whisper, but my voice lacks conviction.
“It was a misunderstanding. I’ve been distracted.” He pulls back just enough to look at my face, his amber eyes burning into mine. “I belong to you, Mina. Only you. I’ve never belonged to anyone else, and I never will.”
The words pass easily over his lips, impossible to trust. I recall the last time he held me like this, cradling my hurt, only then it was a sprained ankle and not my humiliation in front of perfect Ariana Barone and all my coworkers.
“What about Valerie?” I accuse.
His brow furrows. “Who?”
“Valerie.” The name tastes bitter on my tongue. “You had a date with her the day I sprained my ankle and you gave me a ride home on your motorcycle.”
“A great deal more happened that day than a ride home, Mina,” he says, and I see the memory of our feverish sex in my bed in his eyes. “I didn’t have a date with Valerie. I don’t even remember Valerie’s last name.”
He cups my face in his hands, tilting it up toward him. His lips curve with a satisfied smile.
“But you’ve been thinking about her for five years. You’re jealous.”
“I am not,” I say hotly.
“You are.” His thumb strokes across my cheekbone, and his eyes are glowing in a way that makes my chest ache. “Mina, you must know by now that I wasn’t on a date with Valerie that day, or any other girl. I was following you home, staying several blocks back on my motorcycle, as I did every day.”
“You’re lying,” but I hear how uncertain I sound. That does sound like something he’d do.
“I’m not.” He leans closer, his forehead nearly touching mine. “She meant nothing to me. Ariana means nothing. Every woman I’ve ever met pales in comparison to you.”
I feel a traitorous feminine thrill that he’s comparing me favorably to immaculate beauties like Ariana and Valerie.
“What about the scratches? The tattoos on your back.” My voice is shaking now, but I can’t stop. “Whose are they?”
“I think you know,” he says, and his lips are dangerously close to mine. “I begged you to mark my flesh while we had sex, and you left the most wonderful red scratches up my back. That night when I saw the marks were fading, I couldn’t bear it, so I took pictures. When I was exiled to Italy, I had them inked into my flesh so I would have you with me always.”
That’s so messed up.
That’s so romantic.
I cling desperately to my indignation, because it’s the only thing keeping me safe. “What did she think when she saw them?”
“Ariana Barone? She never saw them.”
“You didn’t sleep with Miss Barone?” I scoff. I don’t believe him. I can’t believe him. “What do other women say? Aren’t they offended? Disgusted that you inked another woman’s scratch marks into your flesh?”
“There are no other women. There’s never been anyone but you.”
“That’s impossible. A man like you…”
“A man like me what?”
My gaze travels helplessly down his broad, muscular chest. A man whose body is God’s gift to women and who’s as rich as Rockefeller. He would barely have to crook his finger and a dozen willing women would tumble into his bed. He probably fucked his way through half of Italy.
A sour taste fills the back of my throat at the thought.
Cristiano draws my face back up to his. “I’ve spent every single one of the days we were parted wanting no one but you. Living in the memory of touching you. I was a virgin the first time we were together, and I haven’t been with a woman since. No one’s seen the tattoos on my back except my men, and they prefer their blood inside their veins and not spattered all over the ground, so they don’t ask about them.”
Five years of celibacy for a man who looks likethat. Who could have anyone. Who has women like Ariana Barone literally wearing an engagement ring for him.
It should make me feel special, chosen, cherished. But this isn’t devotion. This is obsession. A healthy man moves on. A healthy man finds comfort and connection with other women.A healthy man doesn’t preserve scratch marks on his back like relics from a saint.
But a small, dark part of me whispers,He waited for you. All this time, he waited. No other woman would do.
