Maybe Alexandre was a flawed man. Perhaps he’d done things that were wrong. But he’d been hurt deeply too, broken and twisted in ways that I think maybe only I’d really been able to understand.
I don’t know if Liam can understand it. I don’t know if he can accept what was between Alexandre and me or the feelings I’m still struggling with. And after everything, I don’t know what can be between Liam and me.
We stand there, looking at each other across the room before Liam finally clears his throat and walks towards me. He stops a few inches away, and I’m aware all over again of how tall and leanly muscled he is, his sharp, handsome face looking down into mine.
“Is there anything else you need, Ana? Whatever it is, I’ll do my best to get it for you.”
I swallow hard. “I’d like to take a bath,” I whisper, and I see something flicker across his face.
Is it a test? I’m not sure. He’d helped me to the shower before and been hands off, leaving the second that I’d said I could do it myself. Alexandre would have undressed me with his own two hands, picked me up and run the bathwater for me, set me in the bath, and bathed me while watching me through the entire thing, as if there wasn’t a single thing I could or should be allowed to do for myself. And a part of me had loved it, had loved giving him such absolute control over me. It had felt like a relief to no longer have to choose anything, to be handled like a doll or a prized puppy, petted and bathed and brushed and put to bed.
Liam hesitates, and then offers me his arm. “Here,” he says. “A little help, getting there.”
I kick off the flats next to the bed, the hardwood cool against my feet as I take Liam’s offer. His arm feels warm and solid against mine, reassuring in the way it steadies me as he guides me towards the bathroom, turning on the taps as we reach the bath.
“I’ll let you adjust it how you want,” he says, stepping back as I grip the edge of the tub. “Enjoy your bath. I’ll let you know when there’s dinner—oh.”
He lets out a surprised sound, and I freeze in place, wondering what’s happened. It takes me a second, as I turn to glance back at him, to realize that he’s looking at my feet.
He’d glimpsed one sole as I’d leaned forward to adjust the taps, and the look of horror on his face is plain, even if he’d tried to restrain his response.
“Your feet.” It sounds as if he’s trying to think of what to say. “Ana—”
“You don’t have to say anything.” I shake my head quickly, looking away. I can’t meet his gaze and bear seeing the expression of anguished shock on his face. After all, I’m the one who’s had to live through everything that was done to me and everything that came after. “They’re mostly healed; I can walk better now. They just hurt after a while—the shoes that A—um,hehad made for me help.”
“I’ll see what I can do about finding you another, similar pair, so you have multiples.” Liam seems frozen in place. “What happened, Ana? Luca had said that something happened to you, and I knew you must be injured somehow because of the wheelchair when we first met, but that—”
I’d refused to talk about it when Alexandre had asked, in a circumstance very similar to this. There are plenty of moments in the past months that feel fuzzy and obscure, but that isn’t one of them—the first time Alexandre had put me in the bath after I’d woken up in the Paris apartment when he’d bathed me and seen the soles of my feet.
It was also the first time that I’d seen the darker side of him, the way he could get angry and rage when he felt denied something he thought he deserved, the petulant side. The little boy that didn’t like having his toys defy him.
I’d never thought Alexandre was all good. Far from it. But he’d been good tome, in as many ways as he’d been bad.
I open my mouth to tell Liam the same thing—that I don’t want to talk about it, that it’s none of his business. But for some reason, something else spills out.
“I mentioned a man named Franco on the plane. You knew him, I guess.” The words come out hot and bitter on my tongue, burning like acid. Like the flame on the soles of my feet in that warehouse. “I’d been trying to get information from the Bratva to help Sofia. It was my idea; she was desperate, or she would never have agreed. Franco found out and kidnapped and tortured me. He sliced up my feet and then burned the wounds with a blowtorch while I hung from the ceiling of his warehouse.” I bite my lower lip hard, refusing to let the tears that well up in my eyes fall. I’m so fucking tired of crying.
“His goal was to make sure I never danced again. And he achieved it. He left me on Luca’s doorstep. And since then, I haven’t had a single goddamn thing to live for, other than the fact that I can’t bring myself to die, and no one else will do it for me. They just get fucking close and then leave me to suffer.”
I’m breathing heavily now, my chest heaving, and I wrap my arms around myself, gnawing on my lower lip in a herculean effort not to cry. “Alexandre made me forget,” I whisper. “Just for a little while, sometimes. He took care of me. He made sure it didn’t matter, that there was nothing I needed to do. He let me lose myself in obeying him, in being his doll. And after everything that’s happened—sometimes it felt good. That’s part of why I—”Why I loved him,I almost say, but I stop myself. I don’t want to hurt Liam, and the expression on his face is already so horrified that I don’t want to make it worse.
“Christ, Ana.” Liam runs his hand through his hair, his face pale, except for two angry red spots that I can see flushed high on his cheekbones. “I’m so fucking sorry. I had no idea—I don’t know how anyone could do that to any woman. That’s horrific, I—”
“Do you want to hear what Alexei did to me?” The words come out acerbically, sharper than anything I’ve said to him yet, and I’m not sure what’s come over me. Liam’s been nothing but kind to me. There’s no reason for me to lash out at him. Yes, he took me away from Alexandre, but that wasn’t malicious. He didn’t steal me away because he wanted me for himself. He did it to save me. That’s what he’s said to me, over and over again.
“If you want to talk about it.” Liam’s shoulders are slightly slumped, the expression on his face almost defeated now. “I know what’s been done to you was horrible, Ana—I had no idea how terrible until now. I want to give you a safe place. I won’t touch you unless you want me. I won’t push you further than you’re willing to go. I don’t know what you need from me, but whatever it is, once you figure it out, I—I want to give it to you.”
He takes two hesitant steps forward towards me, another and then another, until he’s standing very close to me again. He reaches past me, turning off the taps that are close to overflowing the tub after how long we’ve been standing here talking, and then as he pulls his hand back, he stops, his fingers hovering just over my cheekbone.
Gently, they brush over my skin, and it’s all I can do not to gasp at the featherlight touch, my heart suddenly racing in my chest for a different reason.
“You might not believe that you deserve it, Ana, but I want to show you differently. You deserve a man who treasures you for yourself, not because he paid money for you. You deserve a life without fear, without pain. A life of your own choosing, not one that you fit yourself into because you have no other choice. Alexandre might not have been as cruel to you as I’d feared he would be, but he owned you, Ana. There’s no way around that. He might have given you the illusion of choice, but it was never there in the end. You werehis.”
Don’t you want me to be yours?The question is on the tip of my tongue because I still don’t entirely understand why he’s brought me here—or maybe I just don’t believe the reasons he’s given me. After all, no man who’s been in my life recently has been trustworthy. Why should Liam be any different?
“I want to take my bath now,” I whisper. I can barely hear my own voice, choked and tight in my throat, and I feel myself starting to tremble slightly at the touch of Liam’s fingers resting against my cheek.
His hand drops away from my face, and he steps away from me. I can see how tense he is, every muscle in his body rigid, as if he were holding himself back from something. From touching me more intimately? From asking for more? I have no idea, but I can feel that same tension in the air, thickening between us as he backs away towards the door.