“But you punched his face. You walked away.”
“I had somewhere to go.”
“It doesn’t matter…it doesn’t make it okay.”
“No. Not for either of us. Especially not for you. But we were the victims here. And it’s a horrible word, I know. I hate it, but it’s the truth. I want you to know I look at you and I see a man who earned his success. A man who deserves everything he has. A man who doesn’t deserve to be defined by what he did to survive.”
“A nice thought, Julia, but even if I believed I didn’t need to be defined by it, I can’t simply make it go away.”
“I know that, too.”
He leaned forward. “I would kill him. I want you to know that. Any man who touched you like that…who hurt you. I would kill him.”
“I believe you.”
“It’s important that you know.”
It made her want to cry. Because her parents had asked why she was bruised the next morning, but they’d also believed her lies about why. Feeble lies about tripping over her feet. They’d accepted it without batting an eye.
And when she’d started spending more and more time in her room, they just stopped asking her to come out.
Ferro made her feel like it mattered. Like she mattered.
“I really think you’re a pretty good man, Ferro Calvaresi,” she said.
He slid his thumb over her cheekbone, his eyes intent on hers. “I’m not, Julia. I don’t want you to lie to yourself. That’s just another reason we need these rules. I need to make sure you understand what this is. What this really is.”
“I accept your terms,” she said, an echo of the agreement she’d made with him the first time they’d made love. “But you have to agree to mine.”
“And they are?”
“Don’t leave me after. I want to sleep with you. I need that.”
He searched her face. Unwilling to disappoint her, not now. She could read it, clearly, in his expression. “I will stay in bed with you at least until you fall asleep. I would not be able to sleep with another person.”
She nodded, even though she didn’t like his answer. She wouldn’t push.
“Don’t fake charm me. I’m not one of your clients. We might be making a deal, but we’re not selling our bodies, do you understand? I want you. The real you.”
“I’ll give you what I can on that score, Julia, but I don’t know if it will be enough for you.”
“And why is that?”
“Julia, I had to work at separating my mind from my body, what I wanted, from what I needed to do. I don’t just connect with people and that’s not by accident. I learned something very quickly in my life. It’s easy to survive if you realize you always have control of your mind. The harshest street doesn’t seem so bad if you can go into yourself and imagine you have a bed, imagine you’re safe. Sex with a stranger you don’t even want touches your body, but you can close it out in your mind. You can go so far inside yourself that nothing touches you anymore. My problem has been finding the way back out. Honestly, I don’t even want to most of the time. Except when you touch me. Then I want to feel it all.”
Her heart crumpled in on itself. “I want to try to help you.”
“You can help me. In my bed. I feel the most with you, when I’m in you, that I’ve ever felt in my life.” He reached and she extended her hand to him, let him take it, let him draw her to him. “Kiss me.”
She bent down and pressed her lips to his.
“You will come home with me tonight,” he said, a command, but she knew it was her choice.
She nodded, not caring that it was impractical and that she didn’t have her things. Not caring about much of anything but Ferro and her need for him.
“Whatever you want.”
“As per our agreement, cara.”
And she couldn’t help but feel like she’d made a deal with the devil. But she had a hard time feeling too bad about it. And the strange thing was, she didn’t feel trapped anymore. Not by the media, not by her past.
She felt free.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FOR THE FOURTH night in a row, when Ferro got home after work, Julia was at his house. And for the fourth night in a row he told his chef to have dinner delivered to his room in an hour. And for the fourth night in a row, he picked Julia up and took her upstairs where he made the best use of that hour possible. Naked and beneath the covers.