Chapter 43
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Lily
We cuddle in silence, neither of us quite ready to sleep. My mind is racing, wanting to give him more of myself.
“You know,” I start, then stop myself, the words catching in my throat. “You’re the first guy since…”
My voice trails off. The room feels too quiet. Too aware.
His eyebrow lifts, but the color drains from his face, like his body already knows what his mind is about to hear.
Shit. I shouldn’t do this now. I shouldn’t open this door. Once it’s open, I don’t know how to close it again. My therapist would say I’m sabotaging something good. That I’m handing him the sharpest part of myself and daring him to decide whether I’m still worth it.
But this doesn’t feel like sabotage. It feels like truth clawing its way out of me, demanding to be seen. Maybe the champagne has helped loosen my anxiety.
“Since?” he asks gently, but his hand tightens on my thigh, like he’s bracing for impact.
I sit up, forcing my lungs to work, my heart slamming so hard it feels like it might give me away before my words do.
“A few years ago,” I say. “After my final ballet show.”
My chest aches just saying that much. Ballet had been everything. My body. My purpose. My escape.
“There was a guy,” I continue. “He—”
I can’t look at Drago when I say it. Instead, I trace the ink on his forearm, grounding myself in something real, something solid. The lines of him. The proof that I’m not alone right now.
“I don’t know if I can say all of it,” I admit. “But he broke into my dressing room and locked the door. Before I could scream, he covered my mouth.”
My hands start to shake, violently now, it’s as if my body remembers before my brain does.
“He gagged me. Tied me to a chair. Blindfolded me.” My stomach twists, bile creeping up my throat. I feel small again. Trapped. Like I’m back there, waiting for something worse to happen.
Drago doesn’t move. Doesn’t interrupt. My hands shake so badly that he weaves his fingers through mine, grounding me to him rather than the memories that haunt me.
“You’re safe with me, Lily,” he murmurs. “Tell me as much or as little as you want. Nothing you say will push me away.”
I look at him through the blur in my vision and see it. He means it.
I nod slowly.
The expression on his face almost breaks me more than the memory. The raw, contained fury. The grief. The unbearable tenderness. He’s hurting for me.
“He… did things to me,” I whisper. “Before he could actually—” The word refuses to form. My throat closes around it like it’s poison.
“I was saved,” I say instead. “By someone. I don’t know who. I think I passed out. I remember being carried. I couldn’t see. I don’t even remember getting home.”
My voice splinters. “But I felt safe. Whoever it was… he protected me.”
Drago leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek like he’s afraid I might shatter. “You are so fucking strong,” he says. “Someone may have saved you that night, but every night since, you’ve saved yourself. Don’t ever forget that.”
His nose brushes mine.
I shake my head. “It didn’t feel like strength.”
“It never does,” he says quietly. “Strength feels like fear that didn’t win.”
I swallow hard. “The man who did it… He’s dead. Apparently.” A pause. “That helps. Knowing he can’t hurt anyone else.”
His jaw tightens, a muscle jumping, and I don’t miss the way his breath turns sharp for just a second before he reins it in.
“No one,” he says, his voice deadly calm, “will ever touch you without your consent again. Not ever. They’ll have to kill me to get to you. And everything we do will be with your consent. You hold the power, I promise you.”
The restraint in that promise undoes me. A sob tears out of my chest, and suddenly I’m crying against him, my face pressed into his skin like it’s the only thing holding me together.
“I’m a mess,” I choke. “I’m not easy. I’m scared all the time. Living my life fighting one panic attack after another. I hold it together to survive, but I’m exhausted, Drago. Are you really sure you want this? Honestly, I’d understand if you just walked away from me.”
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his blue eyes almost fierce with certainty. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he says. “You told me earlier you might be falling for me.”
His thumb brushes under my eye, catching a tear. “I already am. Hard. Fast. No way to slow it down. I wouldn’t want to even if I could,” he whispers.
My breath stutters. I’m lost for words. I’ve laid out my ugliest truths, thinking it would push him away. Thinking it would save him from me. Yet, instead, he’s just made me fall more in love with him with each word he says.
“You aren’t broken,” he continues. “I want you. Exactly as you are. And if loving you means holding the hurt with you, then that’s not a burden. That’s an honor.”
Something in my chest finally gives way. The shame that’s had a vice on me for years finally loosens its grip. I don’t feel like something that needs to be handled carefully.
I feel chosen.
And it hurts in the best, most terrifying way possible.