Page 50 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
"Massimo." Her voice trembles on my name. "I need to tell you something."
I turn to look at her. Her blue eyes are wide and bright with unshed tears, the lamplight catching the moisture gathered along her lower lashes. Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth, the cherry lipstick long gone, her mouth pink and bare. Her hand tightens on my wrist.
"You already know about the guard. About what happened when I was fifteen." She swallows hard, her throat working visibly, and I watch the effort it takes her to keep her eyes on mine. "But you don't know all of it."
I go still. My hand covers hers on my wrist. I hold it there.
I watch her take in a steady breath.
Her other hand moves to her throat and I track her movements. “Who hurt you?” I snarl.
She drops her hand. “No. That's not what this is about.” She takes another breath and starts again.
"Back when I was fifteen and one of my father's guards got me alone, as you know.”
I nod, remembering all too well. But where is she going with this?
“He, um." She presses her lips together. "He put his hands on me in a brutal way. I tried to fight back but I was much smaller and he wasn't taking no for an answer. I thought for sure that nightI was going to be raped and my father was too busy with his business dealings to worry about his nosy daughter.”
She pauses. I want to pull her into my lap and tell her she doesn’t have to say another word, but I can tell there’s something deeper she is sharing here. Something I might not know. I stay silent.
The hand resting over mine tightens. Tears fill the rims of her eyes. “And then you came through the door." Her voice cracks but she keeps going, her eyes locked on mine, refusing to look away even though I can see what the words are costing her in the way her chin trembles and her nostrils flare with each breath.
"You pulled him off me. You stepped in and protected me then just like you have done now. But, well actually there is no but. You didn't have to help me. You had no reason to. But you did. That feeling of being protected never left. But you didn't just pull him off me and leave. You kneeled beside me and you didn't touch me because you knew I couldn't be touched at that moment. You knew what I needed. Instead of putting your hands on me in any way, you said three words that have lived in my heart since that night."
"You're safe now," I finish. My voice comes out rough. Broken.
"Yes." Tears slide down her cheeks, brushing over the freckles, and she doesn't wipe them away. She lets them fall. "I fell in love with you that night, Massimo. Not the way I love you now, but the beginning of it. The seed. And it grew. It grew for eleven years and I've been measuring every man's hands against yours and every single one came up short."
My hands go still on her body. Every muscle in my frame locks. The rain hammers the glass and I hear nothing but her breathing and the blood rushing through my ears.
"Every man I've dated was chosen because I knew he'd leave before I had to explain why I freeze when I'm touched. Marco. Maximus. The Ramen Guy. I know you don’t know their names, but every one of them had an expiration date built in because if they stayed too long, I'd have to tell the truth, and the truth is ugly and complicated and I didn't trust a single one of them enough to get that close to me or to care about taking it slow with me."
She pulls in a shaking breath. The tears are flowing freely now, dripping off her jaw to land in dark spots on the sofa cushion between us.
"I came to your penthouse on my birthday because you're the only man whose touch my body doesn't fight. I stripped the armor for you because I felt I could. And you're the only reason I would ever take it off. I've been in love with you since I was sixteen."
“Armor?”
“The rockabilly. It’s my shield against the world. I felt so violated that night, I never wanted anyone to see the real me again.”
I understand now.
“But you showed me.”
She nods. “You saw the real me that night, the night of my birthday and now.”
The room goes silent except for the rain.
I look at this woman sitting on my sofa with tears on her face and her heart in her hands and I feel eleven years hit me all at once.
She came to my penthouse because of those three words. She gave me her virginity because of those three words. She trusted my hands with her body because my hands were the first ones that didn't take.
"Then it was never a mistake." My voice is raw. "Not even the wrong number. It was fate. Now tell me. Did you intend to text me that night?"
"Honestly? I was three glasses of wine deep on my birthday and I meant to text my ex. Maximus." She laughs but it comes out shaky. "His name is one letter off from yours in my contacts and the wine made the decision my brain wouldn't. I think the universe got sick of waiting for me to woman up and did it for me."
I pull her into me. My arms wrap around her so tight I feel her ribs press against mine, feel her heart slamming against my chest through the thin fabric of her shirt, and her tears soak into my collar, warm and wet against my neck.
