Zeno smirked without humour. His stormy eyes spoke a story I was not ready to hear. “You should probably go change now that your dress is ruined.”
He doesn’t like when youshare your attention with others. It makes him jealous becausehe cares. As unorthodox as his methods may be, thisis his way of showing it.
Grudgingly, I pivoted on my heels and marched out of the ballroom with a cloud of smoke. Zeno matched my steps and his hand snagged mine. As always, we were the perfect pair of lovebirds in front of the world.
The world now out of sight, I flicked away his hand and wiped it on my dress, just to get a rise out of him. Clearly, I wasn’t above playing games with my husband.
My feet began to cramp in my four-inch heels and I stumbled over to an alcove.
Zeno followed behind. “What are you doing?”
I leaned against the wall. “I have a three-hour window with heels until my feet start to kill.”
“Why do you wear them to begin with?”
“They make my legs look fantastic.” My left leg peeked from my gown’s high slit and I flashed him my foot, donned in Swarovski encrusted straps. “Don’t you agree?”
That low-lidded, hunting look returned. Not bothering to hide his desire, his gaze licked me from bottom to top, riveted on my cleavage and the diamonds resting on my collarbones. “There’s still time to reconsider your little rule.”
This man could eat my pussy for an hour straight before fucking me into oblivion. Did he think staying away from him was an easy fit?
I wanted to bend, break, and burn all my rules where this man was concerned.
“Tell me what you have on my mother and I’ll reconsider.”
“I can’t do that,mon trésor. It’s her truth to reveal.” Zeno fastened closer. “For what it’s worth, she did put up a fight when I asked for your hand in marriage.”
Colour me surprised. I was not expecting that.
“You know so many of my secrets, yet I know close to nothing about you,” I admitted, gulping when he caged me against the wall.
The outside world blurred in the confinements of this alcove. Zeno’s finger traced my bare shoulder in a feather-light touch and I held my breath. “What would you like to know?”
I began with the most salient one.
“You have dark eyes and dark hair, yet everyone else in your family is blond with light eyes.” I moved aside a fallen strand from his forehead. “Moreover, you look nothing like them. Who do you take after?”
His fingers paused their descent down my upper arm. “I’m adopted.”
“Oh.”
“My biological father was an alcoholic and my mother a drug addict.” Zeno gripped my waist and pressed his body to mine, flattening me to the wall. “Safe to say, my childhood was very colourful. I was poor and practically lived on the dirty streets of Paris. The De la Croixes adopted me when I was thirteen and I moved to Canada with them. I’ve been living here ever since.”
I did not see this coming. “What happened to your biological parents?”
“Dead,” he said blankly. “And better off so. They weren’t ready to have a child and failed to take care of me.”
“I’m sorry to hear about your childhood.” I sensed there was more to the tragic tale. “Will you elaborate?”
“You haven’t experienced cruelty until you were raised with my kind of parents. Every day, they wished I didn’t exist. My mother neglected me due to her addiction and my father liked to shove me into a dark closet for hours because he couldn’t stand my sight. If that didn’t work, he hurt me physically to cope,” he murmured. “Coupled with the fact that we were poor and barely had any support, our household was nothing short of an abusive circus.”
My heart twisted in pain.
I didn’t expect him to be so blunt with this divulgence, braided with stark vulnerability.
If I ever thought my childhood was bad with a control freak of a mother, hearing Zeno’s made mine sound like a walk in the park. I had Berto to shield me against my mother’s rude ways. My husband had no one.
“I’ve begged on the streets, pickpocketed so I didn’t go to bed hungry, and even searched through the garbage for food. My biological parents did nothing to feed or protect me.” A bitter smirk appeared on his lips. “Does it disgust you that I was raised in filth?”