“We’ll have sex when you’re ready for it, Nicoletta,” he assured her. “There’s no hurry. We’re still back on step one. Let’s get comfortable with each other and remember we’re best friends—”
She shook her head. “You never give me anything of yourself, Taviano. Nothing. You know everything there is to know about me, the worst things one human can know about another human, but you don’t ever give me back anything that would make me feel as if I was special to you, a part of you.”
Everything in him stilled. Came to a complete halt. His heart even seemed to cease beating. He had always known this moment would come. There couldn’t be the two of them without it, yet it could tear them apart as surely as it had torn apart his family. He couldn’t look at her. There was no meeting her eyes any more than he could meet his own eyes in the mirror in the morning when he got up. He couldn’t look at his mother when she walked into a room, and he had never looked at his father. Never. Now everything in his life came down to this one moment. This heartbeat of time.
If he gave her the truth of himself, shared his past with her as she had shared hers, would she give him the same acceptance or reject him the way his parents had rejected him? He couldn’t lose her. He couldn’t lose riding the shadows, it was all he had. He was a rider. That was who he was …
He ducked his head and stared at the toe of his immaculate shoes, breathing deeply, trying not to think that she could be in any way like his mother. Trying not to believe that his Nicoletta could in any way be like Eloisa or Phillip. Still, if he didn’t choose to give himself to Nicoletta, share who he was, what he was, any part of the real truth behind the man who was Taviano Ferraro, then what he had with her would never be more than a sham. He didn’t want that with her, and she was far too astute to believe any lie he came up with.
Cursing in his native language, Taviano reached past Nicoletta, fingers settling around the doors to push them open, his taller body forcing her smaller one to step inside the master bedroom. He was more aggressive with her than he’d ever been. He felt aggressive. Belligerent. Angry. Fearful. So many emotions. But then he’d been feeling them ever since Stefano had demanded to know why he’d allowed Nicoletta into the shadows with him.
“You want to know about me? Something no one else knows? Not Stefano? Not my brothers or Emme? Only my lovely mother, Eloisa? Or my now-dead, loving father? Do you want to know how she chose her husband and riding shadows over her son and his mental and physical well-being? Do you want to know what my father had to say about his own son?”
With every word his heart pounded and his chest hurt. Adrenaline poured into his body until he was shaking so hard he could barely control himself, when he was all about control. He suddenly couldn’t breathe. He slammed the doors closed with the flats of his hands and strode past her through the bedroom, straight to the bar.
With trembling hands, he reached for the bottle of Scotch. Hell, he didn’t need a glass. Nicoletta’s hand got there first. She took the bottle from him and set it back on the bar.
“Don’t tell me, Taviano. If it hurts that much, you don’t need to share it. I understand what pain and humiliation are. I know what letting someone see the worst of your shame is. It isn’t worth you drinking, not to me.”
He caught both of her upper arms and dragged her close, looking down into her upturned face. She was fearless, looking back at him, her eyes wide. She met his gaze without flinching, no matter that he deliberately let her see the unrelenting fury that burned like a raging volcano, deep and wild, ready to explode.
She ignored the rage in him, the fact that everyone knew the famous temper the Ferraro brothers shared and that she was alone in a house far away from everyone else with him.
Nicoletta laid her palm gently against his rough jaw. “You can tell me something humorous about yourself. Something everyone but me knows, Taviano. It doesn’t have to be a secret you don’t want to share.”
If she didn’t have his heart already, he would have surrendered it right then and there. He pulled her in tight against him. “This is our home, Nicoletta. I want you to love it, so if you want to change anything about it, feel free to do so. I’ll get your name on the accounts tomorrow morning. That way, if you want to go furniture shopping, or anything else, you can immediately.”