My breath strangles in my throat. “Giovanni. What are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer except to continue working the buttons, exposing more deep bronze skin and sculpted muscle. Down, down, to the sprinkle of dark hair in a sharp V.
I’ve seen naked bodies before, many of them. Amateur models undress almost daily in the art building for classes to draw. I’ve shaded that line down the middle, sketched those indentations arrowing down. I have run the tip of my pencil over a hundred different bodies, but never have I see one as hard and as strong as his. He’s all muscle, no fat—not even the kind of padding that makes a body warm and comforting. There’s nothing comforting about the way his abs ripple as he takes off the shirt.
“Gio,” I whisper.
I thought I had more time before he forced me. I thought he’d wait until we were married, even if that’s only days away. God, I thought he wouldn’t really do this to me.
His expression is flat, barely human. “You wanted to know, bella. You asked.”
It takes me a moment to register the question. What happened to the boy I loved?
He turns to face the door, and my breath sucks in. This is his answer. There are crisscrossed scars on his back, wounds shaped like talons, skin that healed in thick ropes piled over each other. He wasn’t just beaten. He was tortured.
“Who did this to you?” I choke out.
He turns enough that I can see his face. The complete lack of pain there is almost more disturbing than the scars on his back. Whatever they did to him changed him, turned something off inside him. And I understand why he’s showing me this.
The boy I loved really did die years ago.
He lifts one broad shoulder, a shrug casual enough to break my heart. “The place was swarming with security for the big party. They were prepared for an attack against the Russians, considering your sister’s engagement would have been bad for them. You wouldn’t have made it out undetected.”
A knot has formed in my throat, so hard and so big I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to breathe normally again. I knew that he helped us escape. I suspected that he paid a price. Seeing the proof of that is almost too much to stand. “So you distracted them?”
“They were looking for an attack. I gave them one.”
“And they realized it was you?”
“Not right away.” Something cold flickers over his expression. “When they connected me to the explosion, they figured out why I’d done it. Nunzio told them we had been meeting in secret.”
I gasp because they were family. Cousins, technically, but like brothers. Giovanni had told Nunzio about meeting me in the pool house, had used his help to do it. “How could he do that to you?”
“They probably threatened him. Threatened his parents.” A pause. “Or maybe he didn’t want to get strung up in the basement like I was.”
Without meaning to, I take a step forward. A step toward him.
He puts his hand up to stop me. “I don’t need your pity, bella. Don’t waste it on me. I show you this so you’ll understand. So you don’t look to me for mercy. I have none.”
I swallow hard. He’s right. How can I beg him for freedom when he was tortured to try and save me? Those are not his scars. They’re mine. He took them for me. Grief shudders through me for the boy who died that night, in spirit if not in body. I may have believed him gone all this time, but now I know exactly how it happened. It broke something in him, and God, just the knowledge is breaking something inside me.
“You want me to wear that dress tomorrow night? Fine. I owe you that.” I force myself to take a breath. “I owe you more than I can ever repay. You want me to stand up in front of a priest and say the words I do for whatever power it will bring you? Fine.”
If I expected to see satisfaction, I would have been disappointed. I’m giving up everything I have to a statue made of stone. He doesn’t move, still naked from the waist up, still impenetrable.
I do take a step closer then, because I’m not completely defenseless here. At least, I hope I’m not. “But you can’t force me to consummate this marriage. I’m asking—” I’m more than asking. I’m begging. “Please, Gio. I may not love the man you are now, but don’t make me hate you.”
His head cocks to the side, his eyes incisive, like he’s trying to figure me out. “Do my scars disgust you that much?”
The crack that formed inside me at the sight of them breaks into a thousand pieces. “No, Gio—how could you think that? Your body doesn’t disgust me.” His body is beautiful and strong, a temple of masculine power. The scars don’t detract from that. He’s been forged in fire.
“Then what?”
“I don’t want to be forced, Giovanni. Not about that.”
He takes a step close, and his legs are long enough that we’re only inches apart. The air fills with the salt and spice of him. My heart races. His eyes are dark pools that I can sink into, quicksand, pulling me down faster the harder I struggle.