6. Lachlan #2
"Where's Matteo?" She shoves herself off of the bed and onto her feet, swaying slightly. I move forward instinctively to steady her, but she jerks away from my touch. "Where is my son?"
"He's safe. He's here, in another room. He's sleeping—"
"I want to see him. Right now. I want to see him right now."
"You will," I promise. I'm trying so hard to be patient and understanding, but my own frustration is building. Why can't she just trust me? Why can't she see that I'm trying to help her? "But first we need to talk. We need to—"
"We don't need to do anything." She backs away from me, her hands up like she's going to need to ward off an attack. "You kidnapped me. You took me and my son without permission, and now you're keeping us here—"
"I'm protecting you." The words come out harder than I intended, frustration sharpening my tone. "I'm keeping you safe from Gio—"
"That's not—" She stops, shaking her head. "You can't just take what you want. That's not how this works."
"That's exactly how this works. That's how it's always worked in our world, Adriana. You know that."
"I don't know anything anymore." Her voice breaks on the last word, and I can see tears gathering in her eyes. "I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want from me. I don't—"
She stops, her gaze landing on something behind me, and I turn to see what she's looking at.
The wedding dress.
"What is that?" she whispers.
"It's for you." I open the closet door so she can see the dress properly. I wanted this to be romantic, just like the moment I've been imagining for ten years, but her expression is pure horror. "I had it made for you. For our wedding."
"Our—" She blinks at me confusedly. "You want to marry me?"
"I want to protect you." I take the dress out of the closet and lay it on the bed so she can see it better. "Marriage makes it harder for anyone to challenge my custody of you and Matteo. It makes you mine in the eyes of the law, not just—"
"Not just in your own mind?" The way she's looking at me is nothing like how I thought this would go. "Not just in whatever fantasy you've been living in for the last ten years?"
The words hit like a slap, and I have to force myself not to react, not to let her see how much they hurt.
"This isn't a fantasy," I say quietly. "This is real. We're real. We always have been."
"We were real ten years ago." Tears spill over her lashes. "We were kids who thought we could have something that our families would never allow. But that's over, Lachlan. That ended the night my father caught us."
"It doesn't have to be. Let me give you the life you deserve. Let me—"
"By forcing me to marry you? By dressing me up like a doll and parading me in front of a priest? That's not protection, Lachlan. That's just another prison."
"It's not—" But I can't finish the sentence. Maybe she's right, maybe I am just trying to control her the way Gio did… the way her father did. Maybe I'm no better than any of them.
No.
No, that's not true. I love her. I've always loved her. Everything I'm doing is to keep her safe and give her the life she should have had, to make up for the ten years I wasn't there.
"The priest will be waiting downstairs by now.
" I know it's the wrong thing to say even as the words leave my mouth, that I'm pushing too hard, moving too fast, but this needs to be done.
"We can do this now, tonight, and then you'll be protected.
Then no one can take you away from me except by force, and I fucking dare Gio Santoro to try. "
Her eyes are wide and shocked. "I don't want to marry you." Each word is deliberate. "I don't even know who you are anymore."
Nothing could have prepared me for the pain of hearing Adriana say she doesn't want to marry me. The words wash away the echoes in my mind of all the sweet words and promises we made to each other years ago, and all I can hear is her terrible rejection ringing in my ears.
"You know me." I take another step toward her, and she takes another step back. "I'm the same person I've always been. I'm the man who loves you. I'm the man who came back for you."
"You're a stranger." Her voice breaks. "You're a violent, dangerous stranger who broke into my home and kidnapped me and my son, and now you want me to marry you like that's somehow romantic. Like that's somehow proof of your love."
My jaw clenches. "I killed for you. I would kill anyone who tried to hurt you. Doesn't that mean anything?"
"It means you're dangerous." She's pressed against the wall now with nowhere left to go, and I realize I've been backing her into a corner without meaning to. Every instinct I have to get closer to her is making her more terrified. "It means I should be afraid of you."
"You shouldn't be afraid of me." I stop moving, holding my hands up in what I hope is a placating gesture. "I would never hurt you, Adriana. Never."
"You're hurting me right now." The words are barely a whisper. "You're hurting me by keeping me here, by keeping me from my son and trying to force me into a marriage I don't want."
"I'm not forcing—" But I am, aren't I? I'm not giving her a choice. I'm not asking what she wants. I'm just taking, the way I've learned to take everything I want over the last ten years. You have to take things in this world if you want to survive.
Except she's not a territory to be claimed or a business to be acquired. She's the woman I love.
And I'm losing her.