I stare down at that drop of blood, mesmerized by the idea of my name there…each letter scarred over and white against her peachy skin. But I keep my hand still, unmoving. It seems even now, with my baser instincts driving me, I can’t hurt her that way. Not like her father did, not like her fiancé did.
I’m almost ready to throw the glass away, get it out of my sight so I don’t finish what I started, when her hand lands on top of mine.
I glance up into her red-rimmed eyes and stutter out an exhale. There’s no fear there…something softer, gentler…that tiny glimmer of the woman I love.
“If this is what you need to do to forgive me, then do it. I can take it. I can take it for you.”
40
VALENTINA
“I would do anything for you,” I whisper. “Whatever you need.”
He brings the shard of glass up to my face, my own hand still clutching his. “Except stay. You’ll do anything for me except stay.” His voice is a chasm of pain. A reflection of the abandonment he’s suffered over and over again in his life—by his mother, his father, and now me.
It hits me that I’ve only added to his pain. Threaded my own betrayal in with everyone else he’s loved in his life. My hand shakes, and I let it fall to my lap so he’s pressing the glass into my cheek alone.
“Do it,” I say, hoping he can hear the apology in my tone. “Do what you need to do to forgive me.”
His eyes search mine, back and forth, dark and unyielding. Every part of him screams to press the point to my flesh and let it bite down. To etch him into me so that it’s permanent. More permanent than our wedding vows.
When his hands tremble, the tips of his fingers fluttering against my cheek, he drops the glass. It hits the floor and shatters around our feet to join the rest of the rubble.
He grips my arms tightly, squeezing me together, crumpling me inward like a piece of paper. It’s not to hurt me, I can tell by the set of his jaw, but to remind me how close to the edge he remains. If I knew how to bring him back to the light, I would, but I fear I’ll never be able to walk there again. Not when so much of me has been stained with blood.
I close my eyes and breathe him in. Even as I feared him hunting me down and finding me…I also feared never seeing him again. Never tracing the edge of his jawline or smelling his clean smoky ginger scent. It’s what I thought about when I was alone. That scent. Even now, it winds around my body, calming me in ways I haven’t been for too long.
When he reaches under my legs and lifts me, my eyes snap open. But I don’t tangle my hands around his neck and into his hair. He probably wouldn’t reject me, but if he did, I couldn’t bear it. Not after everything that’s happened today.
“Easy, Angel. I’m just going to wash you,” he whispers. Unlike the first time he bathed me, he starts the shower and walks us both inside, clothing and all. Once under the multiple showerheads delivering delicious hot sprays over my tense muscles, he rips at his clothing. Nothing of the careful, deliberate man is in his eyes now. As if my leaving him has stripped a part of him away. It hurts because I love that part of him.
His clothes make a wet pile in the corner, and I swallow hard against the sight of his erection, bobbing against his stomach as he seizes my waist and drags me forward. “I said be calm, Valentina. I won’t tell you again. I’m not going to fuck you in the shower with your father’s blood still dotting your skin.”
I have nothing to say to that, so I simply nod and let him strip off my dirty clothes. He tosses them on top of his own pile and then scrubs my skin pink with a loofah and his own soap. The ginger scent spirals around us in the water and on our skin. Even the steam carries the fragrance out of the stall. I go languid in his arms, like a doll whose string has finally reached its end.
“Easy,” he whispers. Rubbing my back, he rocks me against him. Not sexually, but like a child in his arms.
The fact he’s trying to comfort me after what I did to him widens the ache in my chest so much more. I burn with it from the inside out. I feel the shame of leaving him and then not even being able to do it properly, only for him to hold me, save me from ruin all over, and wash between my toes where somehow even blood managed to reach.