Veronica
I woke up in Stefan’s arms. I didn’t move and tried to keep my breathing level. What in hell had happened last night? How close had I come to being whipped? I knew he’d needed that scene-that insane scene-to happen. He couldn’t tiptoe around the past any longer. Maybe coming back here, maybe subconsciously, he’d sought the confrontation because without it, there could be no relief. I hoped that last night was his victory over the demons that haunted him. I hoped that last night, he’d banished them to the hell in which they belonged.
What kind of childhood had he had?
What kind of guilt did he carry on his shoulders?
He’d told me he’d protected his brothers from his father, and I understood he took whippings to save them. What he’d said last night, though, had his father-once Stefan was too big to beat-had he turned his rage on Stefan’s mother?
What a beast. What a monster.
I looked up at my husband’s sleeping face. It was the first time I’d seen him like this. The first time I was able to watch him without being watched myself. And for all his hardness, for all those sharp edges, to see him like this, his face quiet, there was a softness to him. An innocence he hid so well in his waking hours.
I knew he was beautiful. That wasn’t a question. Thick dark hair and tanned olive skin, and bones a model would kill for. But even without that, even if he were ugly, that innocence inside him, that damaged little boy still buried there, it made me want to shield him, protect him from his monsters.
He slept holding on to me, and his arm weighed a ton on my side. I shifted a little, unable to resist lightly touching the scruff of hair on his jaw. I wondered if Robyn was awake. She had to be and was probably waiting for me.
Stefan blinked, a blue that didn’t fit with his coloring flashing beneath heavy dark lashes. He rolled over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.
“What time is it?”
“Almost eleven. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Almost eleven?”
He turned to me, and his face grew grave. It was like watching him remember.
“Are you… okay?”
I smiled and touched his face again. “Yes.”
We hadn’t showered when we’d come upstairs last night. He hadn’t allowed it, wanting to hold me instead. The room smelled of sex.
“I need a shower,” I said. “My sister is probably waiting, wondering where I am.”
“She probably figured out where you are.”
He rolled over on top of me and trapped me with his elbows on either side of my face. He kissed me.
“I like my smell on you.”
“Well, I don’t know if everyone else will, so I should shower.”
“What are you two going to do today?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I thought back to yesterday, to seeing my grandfather with that man. “Stefan, that man from the wedding, who is he exactly?”
Hid face grew serious, and he rolled off me. “Vincent Moriarty. A self-proclaimed businessman. A thug, and an extortionist too, to whom my father owed money.”
“He’s dangerous, isn’t he?”
“I told you I wouldn’t let him hurt you, Veronica.”
It wasn’t me I was worried about. “Does he want to hurt you?” I asked.
“He expects me to repay my father’s debt.”
“I have to tell you something,” I said, sitting up.
“If it’s about him meeting with your grandfather, I know.”
“What? How?”
“Eric mentioned it. He saw them, when you and your sister went to get her phone.”
“Oh,” I’d forgotten about Eric. Of course he would have seen. “I want to see my grandfather again today. Ask him what it was about. Have him lay all his cards on the table.”
Stefan chuckled and climbed out of bed. “You’re naive, Veronica.”
I followed him. “I’m not naive. Things have changed. You’re my husband now, and it’s different than it was meant to be.”
He stopped and turned. The look on his face made me falter.
“I don’t want to lie to you. And I don’t want to play games with you,” I said.
“That’s good, because I don’t want to play them with you.”
“We’re not enemies, right?”
“No, but your grandfather-”
“Needs to go home and accept what’s happened. Accept his loss.”
He took my face in his hands and drew me to him, then kissed my forehead.
“Naive, but sweet.”
He went into the bathroom. I followed him.
“You never answered me when I asked you if there was more to tell me about the consummation. I’ve been thinking about it, and it doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t stand to gain by requiring that. There was something else, wasn’t there?” I knew there was from the look on his face. “What did you give up for me to have time with my sister?”
“Five percent.”
“What?”
“I get forty-five percent now. Not the full fifty.”
“For those few days she can be here?”
He nodded and switched on the shower.
“Stefan, you did that for me?” He didn’t have to. He hadn’t had to do anything for me. I went to him but when he turned, I saw how his face had hardened.
“I told you once; don’t make a saint out of me. I’m not that, Veronica.”
His words startled me. “What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“I want Robyn to stay. I want to be her legal Kingstonn,” I blurted out before I could chicken out.
“Stay? As in here with us?”
“She’ll be eighteen in two years. And she’s self-sufficient, not like a child-”
“I’m not worried about that. What makes you think your grandfather will allow that?”
“I’m going to ask him.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You can’t see him again. I forbid it.”
“You forbid it?”
“He’s my enemy, Veronica, which makes him your enemy. Didn’t what you saw with your own eyes prove that yesterday?”
“Exactly why I need to work out for my sister to stay here with me. I don’t feel safe sending her back with him.”
He shook his head, stepped into the shower, and picked up the shampoo.
“Stefan! I’m talking to you.”
“I’m late for a meeting.”
“What meeting? What is with all your meetings?”
“I can make some time for a quick fuck in the shower, though.”
He grinned, that arrogance I hated back.
I flipped him off and walked out of the bathroom, slipped his T-shirt over my head, and ran for it to my bedroom, not wanting to bump into anyone until I’d showered. It took him all of two minutes to follow me, dripping and naked, down the hallway. At my door, he gripped my arm and pushed me inside, slamming it shut behind us.