Total pages in book: 767
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 732023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 3660(@200wpm)___ 2928(@250wpm)___ 2440(@300wpm)
He stepped forward, towering over me, soot smudged on his admittedly handsome face—he looked the way I imagined the Grim Reaper might if he shopped in the finest apparel stores and possessed the chiseled features of a god. “Wash the cuts,” he said.
I tensed. “What?”
He moved around me and turned on the faucet to the bathtub. “The cuts on your arms and legs. I told you to watch out for glass, did I not?” He grunted. “I can’t help but think you ran through it just to spite me.”
“I did it for Diego,” I said, although it was only half-true. “And I’d do it again.”
He looked over his shoulder at me, his gaze shadowed. “So you continue to remind me, even though I was there. I watched you run into the fire for him.”
I limped to the tub. “You were wrong earlier. Butterflies aren’t delicate.”
We switched places. He pulled open my top drawer and started pushing products around. “No?”
“During a wildfire, they don’t go up in smoke. They bury themselves in soil.”
He moved to the next drawer, shoving aside my hair dryer. “Another way they’re survivors.”
I perched on the inside edge of the tub so I wouldn’t have my back to him. He kept his to me as he rifled in my drawers, his muscled back rippling under his dress shirt. He dumped my makeup bag into the sink, picking through items while I gently soaped my right arm and hand.
He went through every basket, drawer and cabinet, including the medicine one over the sink, gathering things and placing them by the side of the toilet.
I moved on to cleaning my feet. Eventually, Cristiano sat on the outside lip of the tub and held out his hand for the soap. I gave it to him, and he reached in to clean my other foot. He alternated between lathering the soap over my cuts and massaging my ankles. “What happened to your shoulder?” he asked.
I hadn’t realized I was holding it. Or the throb of pain when I raised my arm. “I fell.”
When he seemed satisfied with my feet, he stood and lowered the lid of the toilet. “Sit,” he said to me before disappearing into my bedroom.
I moved from the bath, dried myself off, and slipped on my purple satin robe. Seated on the toilet, I swayed a little, recalling the sensation of riding for the first time in over a decade. For some time, I’d craved that feeling of driving a horse again the way I had with my mother on one side, but the longer I put it off, the harder it was to get back on.
Cristiano returned with my desk chair. He sat in front of me and handed me a towel of ice. “For your shoulder.”
I inspected it as if it might be hiding mini daggers before deciding to take my chances. I held it to my arm. “Thank you.”
He took tweezers from the counter and grasped my wrist. “This is a deep one, but it’ll be the worst one.”
I’d sooner faint than show him my pain. I made a fist with my opposite hand as he squeezed my skin.
“Why were you at the warehouse?” he asked quietly as he inspected the cut. Somehow, he was more menacing when he was calm and collected than when yelling.
“Diego stopped to check on a problem.”
“And he decided that was the right place to fuck you? You’re a foolish girl.”
“Foolish?” I bit out, my temper flaring. “For your information, we barely touched.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I set my jaw. “You don’t know a single thing about him, me, or our relationship—”
One corner of his mouth crooked. “There it is.”
“What?”
Belatedly, dull pain radiated from a spot on my palm. He held up the tweezers to show me a thin but substantial shard of glass. “If you can take that, the rest should be easy.”
I shut my mouth. I hadn’t even felt it. He’d tricked me to distract me.
His expression defaulted to a scowl as he turned over my hand to inspect my knuckles. “You should never have gone anywhere without your guards,” he scolded. “Not the club, and especially not the warehouse.”
“I don’t need to be looked after,” I said firmly, but my heart skipped. Perhaps what scared me most wasn’t Cristiano’s reputation, but the fact that he was unreadable. Unpredictable. That he had not only the strength to shove me down a dark tunnel but that he might do it for no other reason than to amuse himself. How could Father trust him?
“You’d feel differently if there wasn’t anybody to look after you.” He tweezed a few small pieces from my forearm. “You’ve never had to survive in the wild. You’re just the kind of prey some predators are looking for—one with a false sense of bravery.”
He had no right to accuse me of that. We’d faced off when I’d been weaponless and small enough that I’d only come up to his waist. I’d held my own for a kid. “I have survived,” I said. “Not all danger is physical. I’ve navigated through a different kind of wild, one you know nothing about.”