Hold You Against Me (Stripped 4)

He stops at the door without turning.

He’s only a few feet away, but it may as well be miles. I’m locked in a castle, and he’s on the outside. Except that was the past. He says the boy he was is dead, but I think that princess is gone too. I’m someone else now. Someone who can fight for what she wants, for who she wants.

“I want to stay.”

There’s a pained pause. He turns to face me, his expression unforgiving. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I drugged you, Clara. I held you captive. I know you may have softened toward me at the end—”

“Fell in love with you,” I say softly.

He flinches. “That’s not possible.”

“I think there could be a million different incarnations of you, and I’d fall in love with every single one.”

He’s almost vibrating with tension, a man at the end of his rope. “God, Clara.”

“So I want to stay with you.” Some of my confidence falters. He’s not the only one who changed. I’m not the girl he knew before. “Unless you didn’t fall in love with me.”

His expression is stark with need as he nears the bedside. “Fall in love with you? How could I fall in love with you when I loved you with every breath, every heartbeat, every lash of the fucking whip? When you invaded my dreams, my hallucinations. I can’t stop loving you, bella. I’ve tried. God help me, I’ve tried.”

Tears blur the vision in front of me, the haggard man, the fallen knight. “Gio.”

He clasps my hand between his and rests his forehead on my unharmed shoulder. “I didn’t know how to have you. I didn’t believe I deserved you. So I took you, and you…God, you were shot. Because of me.”

“No one said marriage was easy.”

His laugh is unsteady. “I know I don’t deserve you, but I’ll keep you. If you want to stay, I won’t be able to let you go.”

I close my eyes, knowing that my demons have fought alongside his. We have our own battles, the both of us, but we can fight them together. “The mansion had so many memories. So many monsters. But you vanquished them, one by one. Only you could have turned this place into a home, Giovanni.”

“We can leave here. We can run away together, you and me.”

That was what I’d always wanted. Running away together. It sounds romantic, but the truth is, it’s really just running away. “We’ll stay here,” I say softly. “So you can look for your mother.”

It wouldn’t be easy, dealing with the violence of the life.

Another battle we would fight together.

He kneels beside the bed. “Ti amo, bella. Mi vuoi sposare?”

Tears stream down my face. I don’t know Italian like he did, but I know enough. “We’re already married.”

“Di nuovo,” he says. “Again. For real this time.”

I run my fingers through his hair, a wild mane now. “It was always real.”

He bows his head over my hand, his voice low and fervent. “I know, bella. Always.”

Epilogue

The mirror has blackened at the edges, turned misty in the center. How many brides have looked at themselves in this pane of glass? How many of them lived happily ever after?

My sister sniffles from behind me, her brown eyes glossy with tears. “You’re so beautiful.”

This ceremony is more for her than for me. For all of our family and friends who didn’t get to attend the first one. I don’t have any of the fear, the nerves that I had before.

I give her a soft smile. “If I am, it’s because of you.”

She applied my makeup, somehow making it both subtle and glittering. I don’t know how she does it, but I’m grateful to have her. Now she’s forming a wide braid with loose curls, twining strands of pearls and crystals that remind me of water droplets. Combined with the full skirt of my dress and the antique engagement ring on my finger, I feel more like a princess than ever.