Chapter 8
Nora
Luca’s strong arms were around me again, carrying me as though I was incapable of walking the short distance from the bedroom to the bathroom.
I considered arguing with him about the arrangement, but exhaustion sapped my mind, and my tongue felt too heavy to snap at him.
He’d removed me from the cocoon of the duvet, and the persistent chill had frosted over my skin.
I eyed the bath with longing, breathing in the floral scented steam rising from the hot water. Luca carefully set me down on my feet, his hands on my waist to steady me. He peered down into my eyes, assessing. Whatever he saw there, it made him frown.
His fingers trailed over the goosebumps that pebbled on my arms. “Let’s get you warmed up.”
He reached behind me, finding the zipper at the back of my dress. All my muscles locked up tight. “What are you doing?”
He shushed me gently. “I just want to help you. Let me.”
The command wrapped around my ravaged soul, and I was too tired to defy him. All the fight drained out of me, and I started to go numb. My husband was stripping me. He would get me naked and touch me in ways that made me blush.
I would endure this. I had to.
“Look at me.”
Another command. My eyes snapped to his.
He cupped my cheek in his hand, thumb skimming over the heated skin that still prickled slightly from where Alberto had slapped me. I stared up at him blankly, retreating further into myself.
Lines of strain deepened around his eyes. “I’m not like him.” A hint of the feral growl returned to his voice, but otherwise, he remained calm and handled me with aching care. “I will never hurt you like that.”
I said nothing. He claimed that he wouldn’t violate me, but he was taking off my dress. There was only one thing he could possibly want from me.
His jaw ticked, but his hands remained gentle as he slowly drew down the zipper at the back of my dress. I shivered when the ruined garment dropped to the floor, leaving me in nothing but white lace underwear.
To my surprise, he didn’t remove them right away. He retrieved a brush and hair tie from the sink cabinet and quickly returned to me. Curiosity stirred in the depths of my detached state. I didn’t understand his strange actions, but I wouldn’t fight him. There was no point; he would inevitably win.
I slipped deeper into my composure, allowing my body to become gracefully poised and my expression to relax into something vacant and serene.
“Why are you doing that?” he asked, a sharp edge to the question.
I blinked up at him. “Doing what?”
He gestured at my body, my face. “This vapid doll act. Is it a passive aggressive guilt trip, or have I truly damaged you so deeply?” Those fine lines around his eyes deepened.
“This is how I always look,” I hedged, unease tightening my belly. No man had ever noticed that my composed mask was a lie.
His lips pressed into a grimace. “No. I’ve seen you, Nora. You’re far from vapid. You’re my wife. I want to understand you, so we can build a life together that isn’t miserable. I can’t make you happy if I don’t know how to read you.”
Surprise pierced my unease. “You want to make me happy?” I breathed.
Before, he’d said that happiness was my choice, as though he didn’t care one way or another.
He nodded. “I don’t want you to hate me. And I won’t play games with you. So I’ll ask you again: why do you put on that pretty doll act?”
I blew out a sigh. “It has nothing to do with you. I’m a dancer. I’m poised when I perform.”
His brow furrowed. “Perform?”
I shrugged. “That’s how I always act around men. It keeps me safe.”
“What do you mean? What men have made you feel unsafe? Alberto?” He scowled on my cousin’s name.
I gaped at him. “All men are dangerous.” How could he not know that?
“If I ever displease my father, he has one of his guards punish me. Ballet taught me to be serene and composed. I learned a long time ago to draw on those lessons outside of the dance studio. If I don’t provoke anyone, they have no reason to hurt me. ”
I was giving away one of my deepest secrets, making myself vulnerable to him.
But somehow, he’d already figured out that my careful composure was a lie.
Maybe it was because I’d let him glimpse my defiance far too many times since he’d kidnapped me and taken my virginity.
He’d seen beneath the mask, and I couldn’t put it back on.
He curled two fingers beneath my chin, tilting my face back so that he could stare deep into my eyes, my soul. “I will never task another man with punishing you,” he vowed. “I will never brutalize you.”
I bit my lip, thinking of how he’d spanked me. That hadn’t been brutal or inflicted lasting damage, but it had effectively chastised me. My cheeks warmed at the embarrassing memory.
He traced his thumb over my mouth, encouraging me to relax. “I’m not like your father, and I’m not like mine.” His voice deepened, his eyes darkening. “My father beat my mother so badly that she was hospitalized. She became addicted to opiates after that. Two years later, she died of an overdose.”
My heart squeezed at his confession. I’d known that his mother was dead, just like my own, but I hadn’t known how she’d died. Luca’s admission was shockingly intimate. He’d made me vulnerable, but he was sharing something that made him vulnerable in return.
He cupped my cheeks in both of his big hands, cradling my face like I was precious and fragile. “I will never hurt you like that, Nora. I will not be that kind of husband.”
I swallowed against the lump that’d formed in my throat. I was so tempted to believe him. I wanted to believe him.
But I’d spent my entire life fearing men and their violent tendencies. Less than an hour ago, my own cousin had slapped me and tried to violate me.
Luca pressed a tender kiss to my forehead. “You’ll believe me one day,” he murmured. “I’ll prove it to you.”
I pressed my lips together, fearful that I’d spill more of my secrets if I dared to reply.
Luca seemed to understand that I wouldn’t say anything more, so he stepped away and picked up the hairbrush again.
Shock loosened my tight chest when he gently ran it through my hair, careful not to pull at the worst of the tangles where Alberto had mussed it.
I allowed him to continue in silence, my mind too muddled to come up with conversation.
The act was strange but soothing. The bristles massaged my scalp, and after a few calming, quiet minutes, my hair was glossy and free of snarls.
He gathered up the heavy locks and tied them in a loose bun.
I watched him in the mirror in front of me, feeling too shy to meet his eyes directly.
A man had never touched me like this: with tender care.
There was nothing sexual about the way he was handling me, even though I was mostly naked.
Warmth pulsed in the center of my chest, chasing the last of the chill from my bones.
When he was finished, he brushed a kiss over my nape, then dropped to his knees before me. His thumbs hooked through my panties, and I didn’t resist as he slowly slid them down my legs. I stepped out of them, and he took my hands in his. Wordlessly, he guided me to the tub.
I sank into the warm water, until the bubbles tickled my chin. Luca rolled up his sleeves, revealing corded forearms. Then he picked up a washcloth and dipped it into the suds. I pulled back slightly when he reached for me.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my voice strangely soft and slow. I felt sleepy and a bit drunk, so tired after everything that’d happened to me in the last twenty-four hours.
“Taking care of you,” he replied, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
He began to wash me, and I didn’t protest. It felt strange, but good. Maybe this was normal for married couples? I didn’t know anything about what happened in private between a man and a woman. My naivete was a little embarrassing, but I was too relaxed to feel any shame.
“I’m sorry for upsetting you earlier,” he said after a while, his voice a deep rumble.
My eyes fluttered open, and I found him watching me with a heavy-lidded gaze, as though he was feeling slightly drunk too.
“When?” I asked. He’d upset me so many times since he’d kidnapped me. Upset wasn’t even a strong enough word.
“When I insisted you take birth control,” he reminded me.
A needle of anger pricked at the peaceful cocoon that’d engulfed me, but he immediately soothed it away with a stroke of the cloth down my spine.
“I think I pushed too hard, but I need you to understand that everything I’ve done is for your own protection. We can’t risk a pregnancy right now.”
My cheeks heated at the memory of how he’d humiliated me with his erotic touch after he’d given me the shot; how he’d promised to reward me with pleasure if I behaved at the reception.
“And after that?” I asked, still too lethargic for the demand to hold any venom. “When you touched me and teased me. How was that protecting me?”
Another stroke down my spine. I melted into his touch.
He released a low, satisfied hum. “Our marriage has to seem real,” he explained calmly. “My position as heir isn’t secure if this alliance with your father doesn’t seem genuine. If you’d fought with me at the reception, everyone would know that you hate me.”
I pressed my lips together. Before the party, I had told him that I hated him.
And in that moment, I’d meant it. Now, I wasn’t sure of how I felt about my mercurial husband.
He’d promised that he wouldn’t harm me. He’d sworn to protect me.
And he had defended me from Alberto. He was touching me with nothing but tenderness as he bathed me.
I said nothing, too tired to puzzle out my conflicted feelings toward him.
That night, he didn’t force himself on me. He didn’t wring pleasure from my unwilling body, and he didn’t selfishly claim his own. My husband simply held me, cuddling me in our bed and petting me until I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.