Giovanni
I give her that night and the next few days to rest. And all I can think about any time I look at her is what I’d thought, what I’d felt, when I’d seen her slumped over the steering wheel.
It’s five days later when I decide it’s time we had this talk.
“How long have you known what’s on that drive,” she asks when I enter the bedroom.
She’s sitting up and Alice has just cleared the tray of food she’d brought up. Sienna’s on bedrest. My orders.
“Long enough. You shouldn’t have left like you did. You should have waited for me. Talked to me.”
“I thought Deirdre was in trouble. I thought-”
“You should have talked to me!” I slam my fist into one of the bedposts.
Sienna jumps.
I hold up my hand, mutter a curse under my breath. I don’t mean to frighten her, but I do because she gets that look in her eyes, that one from the first night.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Ever. I don’t want to think about it. You can’t understand what… I just… I wish I could forget. Why can’t I forget?” Her voice breaks.
I go to her, sit on the edge of the bed. When she turns her face away, I touch her chin to make her look at me.
Tears well and overflow from her eyes and what I want most of all is to wipe them away forever. I touch one with my thumb, smear it across her cheek.
“The past is exactly that, Sienna. Past. But if you let it have any power over you, it will destroy you.”
She sniffles, turns her face and wipes her hands over her eyes.
“When I went on my trip, I went after that man at the party.”
She won’t look at me as she cries quietly.
“I know what happened, what they did to you. What the Williams’s made you do.”
She makes a sound, tries to draw herself away and she still won’t look at me.
“Look at me,” I say.
She shakes her head.
“Sienna. Look at me.”
I take her face in both hands and hold her, make her look at me. And the look on her face, it breaks something inside me.
“They raped you. They raped a child. You’re not responsible for anything that happened. You know that, don’t you?”
She squeezes her eyes shut and tears flood her face. I’m not sure she can talk right now. I pull her to me, hold her against my chest and let her sob.
“And you don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about. But know this. I’m going to punish every one I get my hands on. It’s over, sweetheart. No one’s ever going to hurt you again. I swear it.”
It takes her a long time, but I hold her until finally she puts her arms around me. They’re soft at first, weak, but soon, she’s clinging to me, and I lift her up and sit her on my lap and hold her. I just hold her until the sobbing stops and she quiets.
Her eyes are puffy and red when she finally looks up at me.
“Why?” she asks.
“Why what?”
“Why are you still here? I’m a mess, Giovanni.”
“You’re not a mess, Sienna. You’re mine.”
——-
Sienna
I stare up at him. At this man who stormed into my life just weeks ago.
Has it only been weeks?
This man who bought me not once but twice. Who I expected to be brutal and although he was, he was also gentle. Gentler than any I’ve ever known.
“How did you find me out there?”
He touches my bracelet. “I had a tracking device put in here. A chip. It’s tiny but you felt the weight difference.”
“Why did you… Never mind.” I shake my head. No point in asking why he did that. He’s Giovanni Adams. I’m not surprised at all. “What now?”
He stands up, walks away, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. When he turns back to me, he runs that hand through his hair and it stands on end.
“When I saw the crashed SUV, Sienna, I was scared. For the first time in a long time, I was scared. I thought-”
“I’m sorry,” I cut him off. “I’m sorry, I just-”
“I’ve wasted a lot of time. I don’t want to waste any more. And I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I love you.”
It takes me a moment to register that. Then another to really understand it. And I think I misheard him. I must have.
“What did you say?”
He smiles, comes to resume his seat on the bed.
“I said I love you.” He touches my face softly. “I love you.”
“I don’t… When… why…”
“I don’t know when or why, I just know I do.”
“You saved me,” I say. “In so many ways. I’ve never felt as safe with anyone. As protected. You’re not what I expected and I love you, too, Giovanni.”
He wraps his big arms around me, pulls me in to him. I wince, my ribs bruised, but I hug him back because the pain is worth it, worth this. I love him. I don’t want to be anywhere but in his arms.
That thought reminds me of something. I draw back.
“You never answered my question the other day,” I say.
“What question?”
“You’re staying here, aren’t you?”
He studies me, cocks his head to the side and gets a familiar glint in his eyes. Like he’s up to no good.
“I have another proposition for you, Sienna.”