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Crouching before her, I reach for her bruised face. She flinches and closes her eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry, Bella.”
Tears spill down her cheeks.
I take her hands. “I’m going to undress you, and then I’m going to help you into the bath. Is that okay?”
I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone for any kind of permission, ever. When you’re the don of one of the most powerful families in the world, you don’t need to. People trip over themselves to offer you everything, and soldiers do as they are instructed or face losing their place at the table for lack of loyalty. But my heart has been flayed open by what has happened to my queen, and I need to ease her pain, and I need to know that she is okay with me doing this.
Wordlessly, she nods, and when I see her eyes soaked with tears, I feel the crushing weight on my chest.
It’s not sexual as I slowly peel the ripped and stained bra and panties off her. It’s a transfer of strength. I’ve got you. I will look after you. And once she’s naked, I gather her in my arms again and carry her to the bathroom, savoring the knowledge she is safe.
I ease her into the warm, soapy water that smells like ocean and wild lilies, and she hisses as the water licks at her wounds.
“Fuck—” I say, ready to hoist her out of the water.
“It’s okay,” she croaks. “They’re nothing, really.”
She looks up at me and a small smile teases her lips. “I’m going to be okay, Nico.”
They’re words of strength, but her expression is anything but strong.
Again, that crushing weight sinks in my chest.
I’ve done this to her.
In the ginormous bath, she looks small and wounded, and I can’t stand it. Kicking off my shoes, I strip out of my clothes and step into the porcelain tub and gather her in my arms.
I hold her to my chest, and she melts against me and begins to sob.
Tremors wrack her body, and her tears coat my skin.
Guilt crashes through me, colliding with the simmering rage boiling in my blood.
Killing Luca a thousand times over couldn’t make this up to her.
Eventually, she stops shaking, and her tears ease. But we don’t speak. I know she is listening to the thud of my heart as it bashes against my ribs, and I pray she knows that it beats for her.
When she is calm, she pulls away from me, and the sadness in her eyes strikes a match to a terrible sense of foreboding lingering in the pit of my stomach.
Irreparable damage has been done.
It’s in the silence. In the stiffness of her shoulders. In the way she can’t look me in the eyes when I tell her that she is safe now.
I turn her around so her back is to me and reach for the shampoo on the bath caddy, squirting a pool of the golden liquid into my hand. I run my fingers through her hair, lathering the shampoo through the long, wet strands. She moans and leans into my fingers as I massage her scalp.
I rinse the shampoo away with the handheld showerhead, then repeat the head massage with a palm full of conditioner, relishing her moans and the peaceful sag of her shoulders as she relaxes beneath my touch.
When we’re done, I turn her around to face me. The bruise on her cheek where Luca punched her sends a new wave of anger through me, and it’s an anger I don’t know how to deal with.
“Tell me how to make this right,” I say.
For the first time in my adult life, I don’t have the answers.
“I don’t know,” she croaks, and the tremble on her lips lands a new blow to my gut.
“I will do whatever it takes,” I say, reaching for her wet hands.
“Even if it means letting me go?”
I didn’t see her question coming, and it hits me with the force of a sledgehammer. My body tenses, every muscle balling up tightly at the thought of losing her.
“Is that what you want?” I can barely move my jaw to speak. And it’s damn impossible to keep the edge from my voice.
She sighs. “I’m tired, and I need to sleep. Can we talk about this in the morning?”
My heart beats rapidly in my chest. I want to take her thoughts of leaving me and machine gun them to pieces.
I was angry and tight with fury for what happened to my queen, now I can add anxiety to the mix. I’d rather fucking die than lose her.
But I respect her wishes and remain quiet. In the morning, when she wakes up rested, we can talk.
We leave the bath and dry off in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I can’t shake the persistent scratch in the back of my mind that everything is about to fall apart.
