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She takes a step back, putting space between us, and picks up her mug to sip. That’s when I notice she’s not wearing the ring.
“Where’s your ring?” I ask urgently.
“I took it off last night. After you manhandled me up here and locked me in all for—”
“Where is the fucking ring, Scarlett?”
She looks confused but gestures to the bathroom.
I walk in to find it on the counter by the sink. Picking it up I return to the bedroom to take the mug from her hands, not caring about the splash of scalding coffee on my fingers. I push the ring back on her finger.
“Ow. You don’t have to be so rough.”
I squeeze her wrist. “Some girls need rough. You need rough.”
“Why are you so angry with me? What did I even do?”
I close my hands over her shoulders and walk her backward to the wall.
“It doesn’t come off again.”
“Fine.”
“Tonight, you’re going to be my wife. That means something to me.”
“It shouldn’t. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“No? Are you changing your mind?”
She stares up at me. She’s testing. “I’m just making sure you know I’m only doing it because I don’t have a choice, Cristiano.”
I look down at her, at the expanse of skin exposed by the robe. Reaching down I finger the knot of the belt taking my time to undo it. I trace my knuckle over the center of her chest, up over her throat so she tilts her head back a little. I only stop when I have her chin in my grasp. I hold her at an angle that’s just short of comfortable.
“I know what they did to you,” I say.
She clenches her jaw, narrows her eyes.
“Your brothers. I know what they did when Rinaldi wanted a look.”
Pink flushes her cheeks, and her eyes go from indignant, to hurt, to accusing.
“They humiliated you.”
Tears well in her eyes but she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t attempt to pull free.
“While your uncle stood by and watched.”
Those tears begin their procession down her cheeks, thick and wet. But she still won’t look away. Good. She and I both need to look at things with eyes wide open.
“I could force you, Scarlett. I could humiliate you. Hurt you.”
I feel her swallow when she lowers her lashes, letting those tears rush out.
“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” she asks, voice quieter than usual.
“You don’t make this easy, you know that?” I let her go, step back, and run my hand through my hair.
“How did you know?” she asks, her voice tight.
“Your uncle told me.”
“Of course, he did. Did he tell you he tried to stop them? Because that would have been a lie.”
“I know the kind of man he is.”
Silence, then, “What do you want, Cristiano? Why are you here? I’m going to do what you said, what we agreed. So why bother talking to me now after the way you treated me last night?”
“Do you remember what I said last night about my enemies?”
I see from her face she does. It was graphic. Overdone, I admit.
She nods.
“I need a friend, Scarlett. Just one friend.”
She studies me, confused. I get it. I’m confused too. Is this what I’d intended to say when I came in here?
She snorts then, shaking her head and wiping errant tears off her cheeks.
“Why do you do this?” she asks.
“Do what?”
“Mess with me. First there’s what happened last night. You almost kill me, then you…you kiss me and,” she pauses, breaking eye contact and pushing her fingers into her hair. “After you do what you do, you order me out of your study like I’m used up. A piece of trash.”
“You’re not a piece of trash. I never said that.”
“It’s how I felt. How you made me feel.”
“Well, that wasn’t my intention. I was protecting you.”
“Protecting me?”
“Yes.”
She shakes her head again as if dismissing that. “Then you drag me upstairs practically pulling my arm out of its socket and lock me in here. Then this morning you come in here looking all guilty—”
“Guilty?”
“And manhandle me again, then ask me to be your friend? Are you schizophrenic? Is that what this is?”
I chuckle. I shake my head this time.
“Have you gone off your meds, Cristiano?”
“Be careful, Scarlett.”
“Because if you think I’m your friend, you’ve surely lost your mind.”
I fist my hands at my sides, force myself to breathe. This was a mistake. Saying what I just said—god what the fuck even possessed me to say it?
I need to get out of here before I hurt her because man does she know the buttons to push.
“You and me, we’re enemies. Enemies to the end,” she says, a new energy fueling her words.
“To what end?” My self-control is gone in an instant. Before I can think, I slap my hands to the wall on either side of her head so hard and so loud, I’m sure there’s a dent.
