He nods, still brooding, then pulls me to him. “I knew you suffered something terrible. I could tell that you’d been hurt, too. Like me.”
I’m so grateful he’s understanding. He turns me to face outward again, nestled back up against him.
“I’m sorry, Elise. I’m sorry.” I’m not sure what he’s apologizing for. Maybe all of it. “I need you to forgive me for the shit I’ve done.”
I nod, feeling oddly sentimental, like all my emotions have magnified but I can take it somehow. I feel relieved, too, to have that out in the open.
“And how about you?” I ask. “Have you ever been in love?”
His arms tighten around me even more. “Not until… well, not until now.”
I turn to face him. Is he saying what I think he is? When my eyes meet his, he cups my face between his hands, bends, and kisses me. It’s a gentle, almost chaste kiss.
“I was never in love, but I was engaged to be married before you.”
I blink in surprise. “Were you?”
I suppose it’s good that we’re purging this before our wedding. It had to be said. But I don’t like the thought of him with another woman, not at all.
Is that how he feels, knowing I was in love with another man?
I shiver when a brisk breeze chills me. He slides off his jacket and nestles it over my shoulders.
“I never met her,” he says, his voice almost cold.
“What happened to her?”
He releases a breath before he answers. He plays with my fingers, gently stroking them, almost thoughtfully.
“She killed herself.”
A slash of pain hits my chest and my throat gets tight. Suicide is one of life’s greatest tragedies.
“Tavi, no.”
Oh, how awful. I can’t even imagine.
“I didn’t know her,” he says, but you don’t walk away unscathed from even a peripheral*- knowledge of such a thing. “But it got in my head, you know?”
I nod. I do know. Oh, God, do I know.
“Made me think I had to be someone unbearable. If the thought of marrying me was something that drove someone to kill themselves… well it was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
How sad. How achingly sad. I nod, encouraging him to continue.
“For a long time, seeing Orlando with Angelina made me jealous. So jealous. I have to admit, I was pretty mean to her when I first met her.”
I laugh a little. “Yeah, she wasn’t a big fan of any of you guys at first.”
“We have that effect on people.”
I smile sadly. “I’m sorry, Tavi. That’s terrible, though.”
“Yeah. I really got down for a while. Thought, you know, fuck this. I’ll never really have anything close with a woman. And what’s the point? Even if I did, they’d just leave me, you know?”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “I really need to get you high more often.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks, tickling me a little. I squeal and writhe to get away.
“Oh yeah. I like this Ottavio.”
“Which one?” he asks. We’re sitting on a blanket with soft moss beneath us. A warm breeze ruffles my hair when he lays me on my back and pins me down. His dark blue eyes dance at me, challenging.
“The one who speaks about real things,” I whisper. “The one who makes himself vulnerable enough to trust me.”
Slowly, he shakes his head. His thumb presses against my wrist, as if checking the speed of my pulse. It’s such an Ottavio Rossi gesture—possessive and physical, but nothing sweet about it.
“I told you,” he whispers. “Don’t ever say I didn’t tell you, Elise.”
My heart beats rapidly. “Tell me what?”
He bends and brushes his lips to my cheek. “That we aren’t good men.”
If he knew what I’ve seen, what I’ve grown up with, he’d understand we have very different definitions of what it means to be good.
He arranges me so that I’m lying on the blanket and he’s up on an elbow beside me.
“I vow to love you, Elise.” And I don’t know if it’s because I’m high, or relieved from telling him the truth, or excited about the wedding, but the fears I had seem to evaporate.
We could have this, all of this. Devotion. Commitment. Family. Love.
“And I vow to love you,” I say back.
With a tenderness I didn’t know he was capable of, he traces a fingertip over my face, my eyebrows, my eyelids, the curve of my nose and my lips, as if memorizing me.
“There,” he whispers. “We said our vows.”
I don’t protest when he shimmies my dress up my thighs, or when he threads his fingers in my panties and drags them down my legs. “Now I get to make love to you.”
CHAPTER 13
Tavi
It should be a beautiful day. And by all accounts and reason, it is. The sun shines. My family surrounds us with love and support, everything a guy could want.
And my bride… God, my bride looks as if she stepped out of a bridal magazine, so beautiful it makes my heart ache.