Page 25 of Forgotten Vows

"Adriana—" I start to reach for her to turn her toward me, my thoughts hazy. I need to touch her. I feel like I'm starving, and I step forward, my hands going toward her waist again.

She hits me.

Her hand catches my cheek, enough to make me step back as the skin heats and reddens. It jolts me, and I feel a wash of shame for touching her without asking first. Even that innocent of a touch—she's right about one thing, the boy she loved would never have done that.

But I've had to become a different kind of man to get her back. And I've had nothing but her ghost to keep me company for ten years.

"I'll do it," she says, her voice trembling. "I'll put on the fuckingdress. But you have to leave. You have to get out of this room right now."

"Adriana—"

"Now." She's not asking. And there's something in her expression that tells me if I don't leave, if I push this any further, I'm going to break something that can't be fixed.

So I leave. I walk out of the room quickly, before I can do anything else to make this worse, and close the door behind me. I stand in the hallway trying to catch my breath, trying to understand what the fuck just happened and how I managed to fuck this up so completely.

My cock is still half-hard, but I don't reach down to adjust it. I can't touch it right now, or I might lose control. At the very least, I'll have to go and take care of it before we can do anything else, and I don't have time for that right now.

Adriana needs to be my wife as soon as possible. Everything else, all the recriminations and explanations and figuring out how to move forward can come after that. After I've made sure that when Gio Santoro wakes up tomorrow, he no longer has any right to the woman who has been mine for twelve years.

7

ADRIANA

The dress weighs nothing. I lift it from where Lachlan left it draped across the bed, and the white silk with lace detailing feels like a wisp in my hands. I'm still trembling as I hold it up, feeling the ghost of his hands touching my waist.

A part of me wanted to fling myself into his arms. To let him hold me, touch me everywhere, make me feel like the last ten years never happened. To believe everything he's telling me.

But the greater part of me is too afraid to do that. Hurt that it took ten years for him to come back to me. And I'm terrified, too, of who he might have become—what kind of man would take me away the way he did tonight and not listen to a word I said a few minutes ago.

He's not giving me a choice about this. I'm supposed to put on this dress, go downstairs and marry him, and then I can see Matteo.

How is that different from how my family has been using my son against me for ten years?

My breath catches in my throat at the thought, squeezing my lungs until my chest hurts.This isn't real,I tell myself. None of this is real. I'm going to wake up in my room at the estate, and…

But that's not a relief. That's just a different nightmare.

And in this one, I have to get dressed and go downstairs to marry a man I don't know anymore.

The boy I loved is gone, and the man who took his place is a stranger.

Slowly, I set the dress back down and strip out of my clothes. I'm not wearing a bra, and the cotton panties I wore to bed tonight don't go with the dress at all. They're going to show lines, I realize, and I stand there for several long seconds debating. Going downstairs without underwear feels too vulnerable, but I was raised to dress myself well, and the idea of being so sloppy doesn't feel good, either. Especially not right now, when my mental state is so frayed.

Finally, I just pick up the dress again, leaving my underwear on. Any minute now, Lachlan is going to come find me again to take me downstairs, and I need to be dressed before he returns. I stare at the dress in my hands, unable to quite believe that he had this made for me. That he thought all of this out so thoroughly.

And he made the right choices. The dress is very similar to what I would have picked for myself. It's white silk with a modest neckline and a flowing skirt, with lace insets at the waist and decorating the hem, and lace cap sleeves. I can picture myself in this, my hair up with flowers woven through it, wearing pearl-strapped sandals as I walk through the garden?—

I squeeze my eyes shut at the thought of the garden, and drag the dress over my head.

It slides over my skin like water, the silk whispering against my breasts, my stomach, and then my thighs. I close my eyes against the sensation. It's too much, too intimate. Too reminiscent of the way Lachlan's hands felt on me ten years ago, when I thought love was enough.

When I thought we could have a future.

The zipper is in the back, and I have to contort myself to reach it, my arms twisting at awkward angles as I struggle to pull it up. There's something darkly funny about the fact that I'm getting ready for my own wedding alone while my groom waits downstairs with a priesthe probably threatened into coming here, and I feel laughter pushing at my lips. I hold it back, knowing that it's bordering on hysteria. I'm losing it, and I need to keep it together long enough to get through this.

Thisis insane. All of this is insane. But Matteo is somewhere in this penthouse, confused and frightened, and he needs me. If putting on this dress and saying some words in front of a priest will get me to him faster, then I'll do it. I'll do whatever it takes. I've been doing whatever it takes for ten years now—what's one more compromise, one more piece of myself given away to keep my son safe?

The zipper catches halfway up my back, the teeth snagging on the fabric, and I yank at it harder than I should. I feel something tear and hear the delicate sound of silk giving way.