by Donna Alward
“I saw him touch you and I wanted to grab him by the neck and throw him out,” Luca ground out beside her ear. “But that’s not Fiori. At least that’s not what the hotel stands for. Fiori is class and elegance, not brawling in the lobby. Even if he deserved it.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. I-I hate violence. But I was afraid, Luca. So afraid.”
“It took all I had to hold my temper.”
She stepped back out of his arms. “You may think you were polite, but I saw the look on your face. Oh Luca, I was so glad to see you. I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”
He lifted a finger and ran it over her cheek. “I’d never let him hurt you, Mariella.”
“But I know…I know what men like Reilly can do.”
And then the shakes hit.
Mari felt the trembling strike deep inside and was helpless to control it. Her body went cold and suddenly it was impossible to get enough air. She stared straight ahead but could hear the gasping of her own strident breath.
“What the hell?” Mari barely registered his exclamation as his hands gripped her arms and pushed her down on the sofa. He said something to her in fast Italian. The breaths came fast and shallow and she started to see gray spots.
“Damn it! Mari, put your head between your legs!” He bit out the command and she felt the pressure of his hand against her head, pushing it down. She closed her eyes and fought against the darkness. “Breathe, darling,” his voice came, gentler now, and she concentrated simply on the in and out of respiration.
Reilly was gone. Robert was gone. No one would hurt her.
If she said it over enough, perhaps she’d believe it.
After a few minutes she’d gained control again. The shakes had hit her so hard and fast she hadn’t been prepared, though she should have been. She’d had them often enough before. It just hadn’t happened for a very long time. She’d let her guard down since being with Luca day in and day out. She was safe here with him. He was looking after her and knowing it made her want to cry all over again. She was always alone. This time she wasn’t. Luca was here.
“You…I thought you were going to hit him,” she murmured, bracing her arms on her knees and holding her head.
“And I wanted to, the moment I saw him put his hand on you. But sometimes there are better ways to accomplish things than with fists. He’s gone now, and he won’t be back. Not to any Fiori hotel. I’ll make sure of it.”
At his words a tear snuck out of the corner of her eye and she blotted it. He couldn’t know how much his words meant to her. How much he’d risen in her eyes, just knowing he’d preferred a calmer, more effective way to deal with a brute. Knowing he had had that urge to protect her, yet held his temper.
The warmth of his body disappeared for a moment and she heard him over at the bar. When he came back, he pressed a glass of water into her hands. “This might work better than the brandy,” he suggested quietly, his fingers cupping hers around the glass.
She took a grateful sip. Wondered what she could possibly say to make him understand. Understand both why she’d reacted the way she had and also understand how much it meant to her, having him there with her.
“Mariella, is there anything you could have done to make Reilly happy?”
She took another sip. “Short of magically making the Primrose Room appear out of our new spa, I doubt it. But I should have found a way. We were the ones who inconvenienced him. I should have found a better way. He was within his rights to be angry…”
“Don’t you dare make excuses. Don’t you dare, Mariella. There is no excuse for a man raising his hand to a woman. Ever.”
In the moment when Reilly had grabbed her arm, she had forgotten everything she’d learned since that day seven years ago. She’d forgotten how to be right and instead had only known what it was to feel wrong. And Luca was right. She was making excuses. She’d been good at it. Good at blaming herself, at playing the “if only” game. If only she’d been smarter, prettier, better behaved. If only she’d said something different, or nothing at all. If she hadn’t looked into his eyes, if she’d cooked the pasta a few minutes longer, if only, if only, if only.
And for a few seconds, she’d truly believed, if only she had looked away, said something differently, maybe Mr. Reilly wouldn’t have grabbed her. Seven years of progress down the drain.
“Mariella.” Luca knelt by her knees. “Sweetheart. I saw your face when he put his hands on you. You went so pale. That’s happened to you before, hasn’t it?”
She would not cry. She would not.
She nodded, a tiny affirmation.
“Oh Mariella, I am so sorry.”
This kinder, gentler Luca was tearing her apart bit by bit. Every place his hand touched was warmed and reassured. Every word he said healed something inside her. She didn’t want his pity. All she wanted was his understanding and…and…
And his love. It was all she’d ever really wanted, and she hadn’t even known it.
Luca continued, “It all makes sense now. That day in the attic, all those times you didn’t want to be touched. Who was he, Mariella? An ex-husband?”
She shook her head.
“A boyfriend, then.”
Mari shook her head again. “No, nothing like that.” She could trust Luca; she knew that in her heart. They could deny their feelings all they wanted but the way he’d rushed to her rescue ensured it. He had earned the right to the truth. To know why she’d acted the way she had all these weeks. “It was my stepfather.”
Luca said a word in Italian she didn’t understand but the meaning was clear enough. “He beat you?”
“Yes. Me and…and my mother.”
Luca stood, went to the bar, poured himself a drink far more generous than the one he’d given her, and tossed it back.
“And where is he now?”
Mari folded her hands in her lap. It helped with the trembling. She tried not to think about the beatings. About how Robert would turn to her after he’d gotten tired of pushing her mother around. “He-he was in jail, but he’s out now. He made parole the day before you and I went…” She had to stop, breathe, swallow. “The day in the attic.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
She looked up from her lap then. What she saw in Luca’s eyes she knew she’d remember to her dying day. He wasn’t angry with her, he was angry for her. Ready to stand between her and whatever, whoever, would dare to hurt her.
“He’s on parole, you said. Would he come after you? Dammit Mari, I could have protected you! You should have said something, rather than go through this alone!”
“What would I have said, Luca?”
He put down his glass. “If I had known you were scared, if I’d known the reason you didn’t like contact, I swear Mari, I wouldn’t have pushed. I’m not cruel.”
“And said what? ‘Hey, Mr. New Boss! Please don’t mind me, I just don’t like any physical contact because my stepfather was a sadistic freak that beat me for the hell of it?’ Nice ice breaker, don’t you think?”
His eyes closed for the smallest of moments.
“All the times I held you, all the times I could feel you trembling. Dio, Mari, I’m so sorry.”
He was blaming himself now and Mari was sick and tired of Robert Langston having all the power. Could she be honest with Luca? Could she tell him how she felt?
In the end she knew she couldn’t reveal it all, yet she also felt he deserved a partial truth.
“I wasn’t shaking with fear, Luca. Not with you. Don’t you realize how much it means to me that you stood up for me today? No one’s ever done that for me before. I…I…” But she stopped. She couldn’t tell him how she felt, it was too new, to tenuous. “Please, don’t ever think I was afraid of you. I never felt like I was in physical danger.”
Only in danger of what I feel for you, she thought. That was the part she couldn’t tell him. That was the one thing she couldn’t let him know. She had known from the beginning that
there would never be anything serious between them. He was Luca Fiori, based in Florence, heir to the empire. They were from two different worlds and were simply in the same place at a particular time.
He couldn’t know that with each passing day, with each gesture, she was falling deeper in love with him. What was she to do with those feelings? She certainly didn’t feel equipped to handle them, let alone share them. The one thing that she was sure of was that it wouldn’t turn out well. And she valued him too much to let things turn bitter and angry.
“Are you afraid now? Of your stepfather? What about your mother? Where is she?”
She wasn’t sure how much to tell him, how much he could handle. It wasn’t a pretty story. She paused too long, and he backed away.
“I apologize. I’ve overstepped. You don’t want to talk about it, and I respect that.”
“No!” Mari got up from the sofa. “I’m not trying to shut you out, Luca…you must understand. No one here knows about this. I started a new life, built it from scratch. And I thought I’d left it all behind me. I did therapy. I thought it was all okay. Only I have just realized I can’t leave it behind—Reilly showed me that—and right now…”
She needed him. Luca, complicated, arrogant, temporary Luca, and she needed him. Wasn’t that a kick in the pants.
“Right now,” —her voice shook— “you’re the only one keeping me from losing it. Today brought it all back, all of it. I-I need you, Luca.”
She half-expected him to run screaming. What man would want an emotionally crippled woman clinging and crying all over him?
“Tell me,” he said softly, holding out his hand.
She took it. “Robert Langston spent seven years in prison for the attempted murder of my mother…and of me.”
Chapter 9
Luca sat beside her on the plush sofa, tucking one leg beneath him so that he was sitting sideways, facing her. His warm hand enclosed hers and she clung to it, a link that kept her from feeling groundless and out of control. Now that she said the words, they sounded surreal. Like it couldn’t have possibly happened. But it had, and she squeezed his hand in response.
She didn’t talk about that day. Not ever. But perhaps now she needed to. This afternoon had taught her that it wasn’t behind her as she’d thought it was. And the scary truth was Robert was out of prison and knowing it had chipped away at her safety net more than she cared to admit. Being with Luca was the only thing holding her together right now.
She looked up at him. His dark eyes were steady on hers, waiting for her to begin, giving her the time she needed. There was such a strength about him, even now when he was being gentle and nurturing. Luca was a man to be relied upon, so much more than the Fiori heir who liked fast cars and beautiful women. That wasn’t the real Luca.
The real Luca was sitting before her now, a safe port in the storm, willing to be whatever she needed.
She stared at the sensuous curve of his lips, feeling a little wonder that a man like him had kissed a woman like her, and on more than one occasion. Things like that didn’t happen. Real life wasn’t like that.
They certainly didn’t happen to a plain Jane from Ontario. Not one who was mediocre at best. But here he was, waiting. Not running. Not arguing. He was caring for her, and knowing it unlocked something she kept hidden deep inside. For the first time in her life, she wanted to give of herself to another human being.
“Mariella, you don’t have to tell me if it’s too difficult. It’s okay.”
She was brought back by the warm sound of his voice. She lifted their joined hands and kissed the top of his, holding it against her lips. She closed her eyes, grateful he was there. Even now he was being understanding and her appreciation ran long and deep. When she was with him, Robert somehow lost his power.
“When I was six, my mother married Robert Langston.” She focused on Luca’s face to keep the images away. “I never knew my real father. She’d brought me up on her own all that time and she said that things would get better, we’d have a new family. Only it didn’t turn out that way.”
“It wasn’t the fairy tale you expected.”
She nodded. “The abuse didn’t happen right at the beginning, but that doesn’t matter now. What is important is that when it did start it escalated quickly and completely, and we were essentially terrorized. He had complete control. He ruled us with fear, and it was awful. The years were—”
But she couldn’t go on. Her throat closed over as memories flooded back. Cowering in a corner while he yelled at her mother. The rage on his face as he used his fists on her. Mari had foolishly spent too many evenings trying to defend her mother, only to receive the same treatment.
The years of long-sleeved shirts and make-up. Being scared to speak up and feeling guilty listening to the sound of punches on the other side of the wall, too paralyzed to do anything. Of tiptoeing around, always afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing something not quite the right way.
Years of waiting for her mother to tell her it was over, but that moment never came. She’d remained trapped in the living hell of her childhood.
For the first time, Mari forgot all the police reports, all the therapy, all the ways she’d been told she’d made progress, and she simply cried—quiet, cold, devastating tears.
Luca pulled her into his arms and held her…warm, solid, sure. She cried for the childhood she’d lost, the guilt she still felt, the fear that never quite went away, and the fact that today of all days it had finally reached the point where she could grieve for it all.
Luca had made that possible. By some miracle, he’d pushed himself into her life and had shown her what was real.
After several minutes she slid backwards on the couch, wiping her eyes. Luca went to the bathroom and brought back a box of tissues, offering her two and waiting patiently.
“I’m sorry for crying all over you that way.”
“Please don’t apologize.” He sat on the edge of the coffee table, facing her. “I just want to make sure you’re all right.”
At that moment the telephone rang, and Luca scowled. “Answer it,” Mari said, but Luca shook his head.
“It can wait.”
The ringing persisted and he sighed, rising to answer. Mari watched him from her position on the couch. She was tired, so tired. Only once before had she been this drained, and it was the day she’d had to testify in court.
“It will have to wait.”
Mari heard Luca speaking into the telephone. His eyes remained fixed on her and she tried tucking the hair that had come loose back behind her ears. She must look a fright. His voice came again. “I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of something more important right now. You’ll have to take care of it. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He hung up the phone and came back, sitting on the table again and taking her hands in his. “I’m sorry about that.”
She was still trying to absorb the fact that he’d put off whoever it was to look after her. “If you need to go, it’s fine. I’ll be okay.”
“You’re not okay. And it can wait. Right now, looking after you is my priority.”
Never, not once in her life had anyone said those words to her. Never had anyone put her first. But Luca—driven, focused Luca—had just put off whoever had been on the other end of that call. She licked her lips, unsure of where to start.
“Today I forgot all the things I learned from counseling and only felt the fear, the responsibility. If only I’d done something differently it wouldn’t have happened. I—” She swallowed, having difficulty going on. “Oh Luca, I thought I was far beyond that. I worked so hard and all of a sudden it was like no time had passed at all. And then you were there. I was so glad to see you.”
“He put his hands on you. I couldn’t allow that.” He lifted his other hand and grazed her cheek with his fingers.
“In that moment I was trapped, back seven years ago. That day…” Her voice faded away for a moment. It was all in the police report. It was in her
medical files after she’d gone through intensive counseling. But she’d never willingly offered it to someone who hadn’t been paid to hear it.
“What happened that day, Mariella.”
His voice encouraged her, invited her. After all he’d done, telling him seemed the next logical, if difficult step.
“I had moved out and felt torn because on one hand I had left my mum behind. On the other I was away and safe. Mum had called and had said she was finally leaving him.” Mari realized her eyes were bone dry; she must have cried herself out earlier. She remembered being so relieved, so happy that her mum was getting away. Happy at the thought that maybe, just maybe, they could start building a relationship. “I said I’d come and help. But when I arrived, he’d gotten there first. Caught her packing her bags and when I found her, she was bleeding, unconscious on the floor, with a broken arm and a cracked skull. Her clothes were strewn everywhere, slashed to ribbons.”
“Dio Mio.” Luca’s low exclamation drew her out of the memory.
“It happens, Luca, far more often than it should.”
She put her other hand over his. Telling him was sapping her strength but it needed to be said. Perhaps she could finally be free of it. Perhaps with Luca beside her, she’d stop blaming herself. Perhaps Robert would lose his power over her for good.
“He found me there, grabbing the phone to call the police. He ripped it from my hand and started in on me. By the time it was over, my mum was still unconscious and I had a concussion, broken ribs and internal injuries from where he—” Her voice broke a little. “From where he kicked me over and over. He left us there, Luca. Left us to die. Except the postman noticed bloody handprints on the front door and the stair railing. He called the police, and the rest is history.”
“Only it’s not history.” He gently tipped up her chin with a finger. “Nothing like that can ever completely go away, can it? Oh Mari.” He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed the backs, his eyes closing. She stared at the way his lashes lay on his cheeks, the tender way he cradled her fingers. Where had he come from? How was it that he was here, exactly what she needed, at exactly the time she needed him?