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“I haven’t slept holding a woman like this. Ever.”
I blinked my eyes open but didn’t speak.
“I never wanted them to stay,” he finished. He pulled me in tighter.
“Raphael—”
“Sleep, Sofia. Nothing’s going to happen.”
I reached my hand down and touched the back of his and closed my eyes and slept, and when I woke in the morning to sunlight coming through the curtains, he was gone, his side of the bed cold.
Chapter Ten
Raphael
I sat in my study with the door locked, reading for the hundredth time the amendment to the contract that her grandfather had made. As much as I hated him for it, part of me wanted it, rejoiced in it.
That was the sick part. The part I tried to warn her about. The part she felt sure didn’t exist.
I shook my head, my thoughts wandering again to last night. I should put a lock on that cellar door. I couldn’t have her go down there again. I couldn’t have her see what lay beneath those sheets. Hell, I should seal that door. Maybe then I could forget the things that had happened in that room.
Last night was the first time I’d been there in more than six years. It was raining, and I had needed to go to the chapel. To the cemetery behind it. I hadn’t shown Sofia that part when I’d shown her the small church. It seemed too personal, too private. My excuse to use the tunnel had been the rain, although it was flimsy. I didn’t care about getting wet, and if I did, I could have driven.
I wanted to see if that room still held power over me. If the horrors of it still haunted me. I thought I was stronger. That time would have toughened my skin. That six years in fucking prison would have squashed those memories, but they hadn’t. Nothing ever could. Whenever I went down those stairs, I would become that little boy again, that scared little boy pissing his fucking pants.
I gritted my teeth.
It could be worse. I could be like him instead. Like my father. Hell, I wasn’t sure I wasn’t. Wasn’t it better to be the victim?
No. Fuck, no. It was never better to be the victim. I needed to remember that, and maybe what I needed were more fucking visits to that hell, not less. Maybe what I needed was to have someone take the whip to me again. To teach me. To harden me.
Sofia’s warm body pressing against mine all night, the sound of her quiet breathing, the feel of her softness as she finally relaxed in my arms, had finally let me exhale.
In my arms.
Fuck.
She’d surprised me when I’d returned to the cellar. That was the last place I ever expected to find her. I ever wanted to see her. She didn’t belong in that world. I meant what I said, the past haunted that cellar, and that past was full of horrors. She did not belong there, and I’d be damned if I’d let it touch her. Dirty her. Take her innocence.
But wasn’t I doing the same? Stealing that from her? I didn’t need the past to dirty her. I would do a fine job myself. I wanted her. And the way I wanted her was different than what I expected, what I had planned. She was supposed to be afraid of me. That was the plan. But holding her last night, holding her in my arms, her taking care of me…taking care of me? Why had she done that? I didn’t understand. It made no sense.
I stood and walked to the window. In the distance, far enough from the women to not be intrusive but close enough to do his job, stood Eric. After my talk with Lambertini, I’d thought about hiring a few more men.
From behind the curtain, I watched Sofia. She wore a short turquoise sundress, her long hair in a clip wet from a shower. I’d have to talk to her about her wardrobe. The thought of anyone else looking at what was mine bothered me.
She’d just walked outside. Charlie, whom I’d let out at five this morning while she’d slept, ran to her, and she grabbed him in her arms. A smile lit up her face, but I saw how she looked around, and when Nicola went outside and Sofia spoke with her, I knew she was asking about me.
I’d told Maria I wasn’t to be disturbed. I told her to say I was gone.
I was truly fucked up. An asshole, really. Last night, she’d seen me. Really seen me. And she hadn’t run. Not even when I’d let the darkness own me, just for a little while. The opposite, in fact. She’d stayed with me and refused to leave me behind in that place. She’d told me I didn’t belong there. That no one did.
