31. Stephano

31

STEPHANO

I let her stand at the twin basin and reach for a face cloth. "Do you want to shower?" I ask as I open the faucet, getting ready to wipe her clean.

She still smells of perfumed bride with a touch of freshly fucked. If we'd had proper sex, she would've smelled only of freshly fucked, and I bet that's going to be my favorite scent if I ever get to smell it.

"I'm so tired, I'll just deal with my makeup," she says as she eyes me wringing out the face cloth.

I lower to my haunches and wipe away the evidence of us not having sex. Finally, I'm getting a closer inspection of those cuts that have been haunting me since I saw them the first time. They're healing, and not in the way they should if someone had it done for body art. The lines are scabbed and will leave a scar, but Franco Fiore will be displeased at the result. She'll have to get a tattoo or more scarification to disguise it, but she might not be into that. Her skin is beautiful with no other markings.

"What does your tattoo say?" she asks as I straighten again.

Her eyes are on my forearm as I toss the cloth to the laundry basket. "It's in your blood."

"What is?"

She meets my gaze, and I work my jaw as I take her in. In this moment, she isn't on guard. She's naked and as vulnerable as a woman can be. Trusting . But I could wrap her neck with one hand and choke her to death in minutes. I could work her body to a pulp, break her ribs and splinter them into her lungs, and nobody would be any the wiser when she wore clothes. Just like Mom. Physically, she's no match for me. A stick to snap. A bug to crush.

These thoughts revolt me, and I swallow the bile pushing up my throat. Something about talking about Mom and her paintings is pushing me to open up to this woman. I don't know what it is, but I'll probably regret it later. "Don Guiliano Scalera is in my blood."

"Your dad?"

I nod.

"What did he do to you that you inked those words on your skin? As an oath or a reminder of sorts?"

Nobody has ever asked that question as directly as she just did, and it throws me. I battle for a long moment with telling her about that night decades ago, wanting to flay myself open and keep my secrets at the same time. I bet she has a similar story somewhere. Mafia princesses often witness and are subjected to things no human should be subjected to. Mafia princesses don't run like Gigi has without reason or having lived through some shit.

"I woke up one night. There were noises coming from their bedroom." I flex and fist my hands at the familiar itch that hits me whenever I revisit this memory. "Once Don Scalera realized I was in their room, too petrified to move, he locked the door. He made me watch and then he dragged me closer and forced me to take punches at her too. According to him, this was what he expected of me, because it was in my blood, just like it was in his. Like father, like son."

I'm trembling now, the horror of that night creeping under my skin and rippling in waves through me. He would have done so much worse if Mom hadn't stopped him. To this day, I know the Don would have forced me to touch her with my dirty fucking hands in places no son should ever touch his mother. But she'd gone at him, probably for the first time in her life, retaliating. It was the only time we'd ever seen Don Scalera walk around with a bruised eye.

In the end, she'd paid for it, though, with her life. And I never walked around at night again when I heard noises coming from their side of the house. Instead, I quivered in my bed, haunted by what I'd done. I'd failed to protect the first woman I've ever loved. I was weak. I bowed to his tone and command and did as he asked, too fucking scared to defend her. Instead, I participated, and the shame of it made me ink my skin. I'm reminded every fucking day of what I did.

"Oh my God," she whispers, her eyes wide and worried. "How old where you?"

"Seven."

An age which holds a lot of blurry memories for most people. Mine don't fade; they're crystal clear. I never felt so helpless and out of control of my own body in my life. Then she died eight months later. To think she was pregnant at the time he'd gone at her.

Tears are streaming down Gigi's cheeks as she reaches for me, wraps her arms around my neck, and pulls me close. Her soft body molds to mine, her naked skin warm and comforting.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers into my neck.

Now she'll know why I got triggered that afternoon in Cannes, when she told me to get my dirty Mafia paws off her. All I want to do is touch her, kiss away every mark Franco Fiore made on her skin, and possessively make sure no man ever touches her again. Love isn't needed in this equation. She is my wife now, and I will protect her till death do us part.

"Have you ever spoken to anybody about what happened?" she asks as she leans back to look me in the eye.

Her expression is serious, but her question makes me smirk. "Angel, I'm a Scalera. I don't do shrinks. We don't do therapy. My brothers deal with their shit in their own way. I beat that psycho out of my system every day."

Her hands slide down my arms to where my hands are resting on her hips. She's going to peel them from her body, disengage, and walk away. Wise woman. Chills spread over my skin at the thought of her rejection when I've opened to her in a moment of stupid trust.

Instead, she wraps her hands around my own and bring them to her lips. She places kisses on each of my knuckles, her hair draping and hiding her face.

"My dad was the same. Not Don Trapani. He's my stepdad. My biological dad. I saw him flip so many times, being all placid and then the next minute…raging."

I drag in a shaky breath. "Did he ever hit you?"

"When he got hold of me. I learned to run from an early age. To steer clear of him when he was in a mood. To hide. As a grown woman…Franco was the first."

And her last. I pull my hands free to cup her cheeks. They're wet from tears.

She leans into me, her hands on my chest. "But because I know how men can be, I've never slept… I mean stayed the night with a man before."

She's never slept with a man before. "No? Why?"

"I'm too scared he'd be human one moment, and a monster in the next. I…I risk having sex but leave right after."

I gave her exactly what she'd wanted that night in Cannes, but her words give me pause. Every encounter alone with a man, with sex or not, is a risk for her. Fuck . The lives women lead, and I've seen it firsthand.

"You don't trust any man, do you?"

"No." It's barely a whisper as she shakes her head. "I don't."

I tilt her chin up, forcing her to look at me. "Do you feel safe with me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

She swallows and dips her gaze, but when she looks up at me again, there's honesty in her eyes.

"There's a lot you can learn about a man in the way he…"

"Say it," I press her as I run my thumb along her jaw.

"In the way he fucks a woman. Or controls himself and doesn't fuck her."

A blush spreads over her cheeks, and if her words weren't so crass, she'd be downright adorable right now.

"Is that so? And what did you learn about me, angel?" I slide my hand lower to her neck, and she shivers at my tender touch.

"In Cannes, you never lost control. You never caved in and took without thinking of the woman in the equation as any other man would have. If I'd said no to anything, you would have stopped."

Yes. I would have stopped. I'm in control of myself every second of every day. But I also know the flip she talks about. I've been there, but never with a woman. "Then trust me, too. Trust me to protect you and keep you safe."

She bites her lip and nods, and in this moment, I want to kiss her more than ever before. But she has her stupid terms which I've been bending tonight. Kissing is more defined than mere sex.

"You're more your mother than your father," she murmurs. "You just never see it that way."

Gigi squeezes my hand and walks away, leaving me standing in the bathroom, whiplashed. I look like Don Scalera, not a carbon copy, but I'm physically his son in every way. I grip the vanity, listening to how she unzips her suitcase and rummages through her things in the bedroom. My heart hammers in my chest.

I'm standing frozen, the idea that I'm my mother's son pounding in my head when Gigi comes to stand in the bathroom door, dressed in the old-fashioned nightgown I bought for her.

Fuck. She probably thinks it's the demurest of them all, but her shape shows through the delicate cotton, the darker shade of her nipples barely visible where the fabric is gathered at the bodice. Already, I want to crumple the soft material up and stroke her naked ass, fall to my knees and press her pussy to my tongue.

I look away. This is going to be the longest fake marriage of my life. I don't plan another one. I brush my teeth and wrap up my own bedtime routine while she packs her things out on the vanity.

"I'll give you space."

I close the door behind her and stare at the bed. She's never slept with a man before. In this way, she's almost virginal, and the notion pleases me more than it should.

I go downstairs to switch off the lights and get a gun from the safe. Wedding day and all, I'd boosted the bodyguards so I could forego the usual weapons. Irrespective of Dominic's security upgrades, though, I'm not sleeping without a gun within arm's reach. By the time I head upstairs again, Gigi is finished in the bathroom and hovers by the window, taking in the city lights.

I pad over to her and take her hand. "Come, angel."

I lead her to the bed and open the covers for her. It would be the decent thing to make up a story about having work to do, or a few calls to make. A nightclub or ten to go boss over. Anything really to give her time to fall asleep alone.

But I'm not a decent guy. I'm the guy who wants to spoon my wife's ass and fondle her breasts as I watch her drift into sleep. So instead, I strip and slip under the covers right behind her.