AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I won’t, I promise.” As it is, she’s a little wide-eyed and shaken by my sudden announcement. I supposed it must have come as a shock that I’d want to take her shopping.
It’s a purely self-serving decision. I can’t have her walking around in my clothes all the time, and not only because she’s so damn tempting in them. What is it about a woman wearing oversized clothes that’s such a turn-on? She manages to look sexy, adorable, even.
And I can’t keep my eyes off her, to say nothing of my hands. I spent far too much time lying in bed after leaving the kitchen thinking about her, envisioning her holding a cup of milk with cinnamon sprinkled on top, dressed in an oversized shirt, and looking sweet and vulnerable.
Now isn’t the time to think about that. I have to be firm with her, as this is a huge risk. “If you so much as hint to anyone around us that you need help for any reason, it’s over.” I open the door and usher her inside, wasting no time getting behind the wheel. I don’t even want to give her an extra few seconds with the car door unlocked. The moment I’m inside, I slam the door and activate the locks.
“What do you mean it’s over?” She’s practically hugging the door, clearly nervous. Good. If she’s nervous, she’ll be less likely to do anything stupid. I wouldn’t trust her if she acted confident right now.
“It means I’ll chain you to the bed, naked, and you’ll stay there until our wedding day. Understood?”
Her head bobs up and down. “Understood.”
“Good.” I still have the feeling I’m going to regret this, but there’s no way around it. She needs things, including something to wear for our wedding.
Our wedding. I still can’t wrap my head around that. The thought of it leaves a bad taste in my mouth as I back out of the driveway and pull out of the development. Our wedding. I’m going to have to marry this woman.
The worst part is that I don’t feel nearly as bitter about that as I did before. And that’s dangerous, too. I can’t deny the fact that she’s growing on me. Moments like this morning in the kitchen, the two of us talking quietly, sharing bits of our past. That can’t be, it mustn’t be, but it happened. And it was so damn easy. We started talking, and I relaxed, and all of a sudden, I was saying things I’ve told hardly anyone. Almost no one knows about my mother, about how I came to live with my grandfather. I’ll be damned if anyone sees me as the poor little motherless boy.
But she does. I saw it in her eyes, in the pained expression she wore. I saw pity.
I’m not a man to be pitied.
I’m also not a man she wants to get close to. Not if she hopes to live very long. That’s what plagues me worst of all as I pull onto the freeway and head downtown. I don’t know anymore if I’m pushing her away because I don’t want her or because it would be safest for her to stay far away from me. I’m the last man she needs to develop any sort of tender feelings toward.
All I’ll do is get her killed the way my mother was. She deserves better than that. She deserves better than me, for sure. Considering the man who fathered her, I’d say she’s already suffered more than enough. I can’t imagine how he’s treated her, and I’m not sure I want to know. Not when it would be so easy to murder the bastard. Maybe once we’re back in Italy, with an ocean between him and us, I can satisfy my morbid curiosity.
Though really, all that sharing and relating would only bring us closer. I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to her to make her care for me, to put her life in danger that way. Any woman who makes the mistake of caring for me would end up paying for it in one way or another.
She seems good and frightened right now. That’s for the best. If she’s feeling intimidated, she’s hating me and behaving herself. I can’t ask for much more than that at the moment.
“I want you to think about what you need. For the wedding, all of it. I’m not in the mood to wander around from store to store while you make up your mind.”
“I’m sure I won’t need much,” she whispers. I glance over to find her staring out the window, her folded hands pressed between her knees.
“You’ll need a dress, at least.”
She snorts. “Does it really matter?”
“I’m sure it will matter to your father and mother if you show up for the wedding wearing sweatpants—or nothing but one of my dress shirts. Not exactly what they had in mind.”
“Why do you even care?” An interesting question. I don’t know how to answer it, so I let it go, and soon we fall back into uneasy silence.
That’s a good thing. She needs to feel uneasy around me. We’ve drifted too far away from how things ought to be between us. I know it’s up to me to change that.
I warn her again as we pull into a parking garage in town. “I’m serious. Do you doubt how bad I could make things for you if you decide to look for help while we’re shopping?”
“I get it. I’ll behave.” A glance her way treats me to an eye roll.
I’ve never seen a woman look so unhappy about going shopping, but then I don’t have much experience with this, either. I suppose my presence isn’t helping things. It takes conscious effort to maintain a pleasant expression as I all but drag her down the street. “We’ll go in here,” I mutter, keeping a tight grip on her hand while gesturing toward a store with the other.
Her eyes widen. “Versace? Are you kidding?”
“Why would I kid?” She says nothing else, allowing me to lead her inside.
“This is nice,” she whispers. I don’t even know if she realized she said it, and I doubt she was talking to me. More like an inner thought she whispered without noticing.
And she’s not wrong. The stores here in the Design District are top of the line, all the way, hence our being here. “What would you like?”
