Pride (In Wilde Country 1)

Surely, she could convince Luca, too.

“I want my career.”

“And I have stopped you from having it?”

“A model at the top can’t afford to have any baggage. I have to be able to travel at a second’s notice, to spend time on keeping myself fit and—and—”

“Bullshit!”

Luca covered the couple of feet that separated them, clamped his hands on her shoulders and spun her towards him as the flashlight fell to the oak floor, spilling just enough light so he could see the truth, the real truth, in her eyes.

“I love you,” he said fiercely, “and you love me, and you’re going to tell me what this is all about if I have to shake it out of you.” His eyes darkened. “Or kiss it out of you,” he whispered, and he drew her into his arms, claimed her mouth with his…

She was lost.

How could she not rise on her toes, wind her arms around his neck, sob his name, return his kisses with frantic kisses of her own?

“Tell me you love me,” he said, not as a demand, but as a plea that went from his heart to hers. “Tell me, bellissima, or I am nothing.”

“I love you,” she said. “I love you. I’ll always love you.”

Luca cupped her face in his hands. “Then why did you run away from me? If you love me—”

“Your sisters—”

“Merda! What did they tell you that upset you so?”

“They told me something I already knew.” Cheyenne smiled, despite her tears. “They told me that you were a fine, wonderful man—and that you had been a sweet, trusting boy.”

“Sweet?” Despite everything, he laughed. “My sisters said that of me?”

“What they said was that when you were all growing up, you were the one who kept believing in your father.”

His mouth twisted. “That was not a sweet thing, cara. It was stupid.”

“It was sweet. You trusted him. You believed in him.”

“I suppose that I did, for a very long time. And it was foolish, but I—I loved him. When you love someone, you put your trust in them to be what you believe them to be.”

“I know.” She bit her bottom lip. “And—and that’s what you’ve done with me. You believed me to be one kind of woman But—but I’m not.”

“Sweetheart. Whatever it is you’re trying to tell me—”

“I’m trying to tell you,” she said, “that what I said about the horse I loved, about that day, about my life, were only bits and pieces of the truth. And once you hear the truth, everything will change.”

“Nothing will change,” he said. “How could it? Cara…”

“I lost my virginity the day I turned thirteen. Mama said it was—it was my birthday present, although that was hardly the first time a man had touched me.”

She saw the shock in his eyes. Felt the pressure of his arms around her ease. This was the end, she knew, but she loved him too much to hide the truth anymore.

“I was barely twelve,” she said softly, “the first time it happened…”

* * *

She told him everything, and spared herself nothing.

She described her childhood. The trailer. Her mother. She did it dispassionately, and told him all of it because she was determined to hold nothing back.

She stumbled, but only briefly, when she described ‘having fun.’ She thought she saw his mouth tighten, but the light was bad and she couldn’t be sure. Not that it would have surprised her.

What she was describing, after all, was not only ‘having fun,’ but her pathetic attempts at fighting back.

“I know I didn’t try hard enough,” she said.

“Because?”

“Because, if I had,” she said, in a tone of absolute reason, “the men would have stopped doing those things to me.”

Luca was very, very still. In fact, he seemed to hardly breathe. If only the light were better. If only she could see his eyes.

“And how would you have done that? Tried harder, I mean.”

“I don’t know. Grabbed something, maybe. Hit the man. I just should have done better.”

He nodded. Why was he so motionless?

When she got to the part about her thirteenth birthday ‘celebration,’ she was even more ruthless.

“I know, absolutely, that I could have stopped it.”

Luca responded with another one word question.

“How?”

“The same way. By hitting him with something.”

Another nod. And more of that awful stillness. “A lamp? A skillet?”

“Something,” she said, surprised at the irritation in her voice. “I just should have done more than I did.”

“Which was?”

“I kicked him. Between the legs. But not hard enough or he’d have—”

“Stopped.”

“Yes.”

“Did you try to kick him again?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

She shrugged. Looked over his shoulder.

“He was big,” she said, and cleared her throat. “You know. Fat. He lay on top of me and—”

There was a long, terrible silence. “And then,” Luca said, moving closer to her, “you found something to love. A horse you named Baby.”

“This isn’t about—”

“But it is,” he said. “You gave your love to Baby. And he gave his love to you. And then—and then, he died.”

A moan rose in her throat. She clapped her hands to her mouth to silence it, but Luca took her hands and held them tightly in his.

“And on the very day you lost him, your mother took you home to—to be with a man.”

His voice cracked. She knew the reason. Now he understood just how disgusting a creature she was.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“But you refused” He lifted her hands to his chest. “You spat on her. And she beat you.”

“Why are you repeating all this? I already told you—”

“So you hit her back.”

Cheyenne’s chin rose.

“You hit her hard enough to hurt her, and the next day you went to school and told the principal what was happening.”

“What do you want me to tell you?” she said, her voice strengthening. Her eyes met his. “Do you want me to apologize? Because I’m not going to do that, despite the way you’re looking at—”