Page 170 of Pink

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Lev tapped his knuckles to the bathroom door, listening for a confirmation inside that he could enter. At first, he heard nothing. The second rap of his hand to the door, however, and Gigi’s quiet voice came through the wood when she said, “What?”

That wasn’t an okay.

It was still good enough for him.

Twisting the knob and stepping inside the bathroom, he was entirely unsurprised to find Gigi naked, the steam in the bathroom wrapping around her freckled skin as she stood over the sink, hands curved at the edge of the bowl, while she stared at herself in the mirror.

“You okay?” he asked.

She passed a look his way, and her next exhale came out shaky when she whispered, “I don’t know if I can do it, Lev. I thought I could but now I know the car is going to be here in ten minutes to pick me up and all I can think is … like, what are people going to say when they see the scars or—”

Her words cut off when she choked out a soft cry, her head dropping low as the wet strands of her hair fell over her shoulders. There was nothing that killed him more than when this amazing, strong woman had moments where she felt anything but those things. He blamed a dead man for the fight Gigi still dealt with constantly, the scars on her heart and in her mind invisible to the rest of the world but so very apparent to him.

“Hey, hey, hey …”

He didn’t really have time on his schedule to handle a mental breakdown when he was supposed to be at Andino’s restaurant in less than an hour to sit down at an important meeting between his boss and other made men, but some shit couldn’t be helped.

“Come here,” he murmured, crossing the space between them and slipping in behind her. In a second, he had her warm, wet form pressed against his. Wrapping his arms around her chest the way she liked because she said it felt safe and good and right … he held here there, dropping soft kisses across the six-inch scar between her shoulder blades. A whip, she told him one night when he asked.

He didn’t push a lot.

She didn’t offer details.

He was fine to do whatever she wanted.

Whenever she wanted.

While some things had been so easy for them after everything happened, others were not. She found solace when he loved her, and monsters in her dreams beside him. He could take her away from the world with sex and affection, but he couldn’t save her from the war in her mind.

But she kept fighting.

And he helped when he could.

Like now.

With his lips at the back of her neck, he murmured, “Do you want me to get your phone—have Kayla call off the interview and shoot?”

Her first in months.

It wasn’t even one she was being paid for but rather, a campaign she had chosen to join to bring awareness to violence against women. Because as a survivor, and as more and more things became publicly known about the horrible things happening to women in her industry, she felt like she owed it to the world to say, if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

He didn’t think she owed anybody shit.

Not even him.

When Gigi didn’t reply, Lev was quick to add, “You know it doesn’t matter to us, right? Me and Arely, I mean. We don’t care if you’re in magazines. We don’t care how many people know your face or if your name is in lights … you’re ours regardless, Gigi. You’re just ours.”

Because he knew that was the thing …

She feared the camera; the very idea that a lens would start to capture the parts of her that were not the same. The scars left behind. The darkness that sometimes shone through in her bright green eyes. Any of it.

All of it.

That scared her.

He understood why.