Page 63 of Ruining Vanessa

I take a deep breath and remind myself that getting angry won’t change anything. I’m not angry with Vanessa, and Giulio would find any display of emotion amusing. Slayer…

I’ll deal with him the next time I see him.

“All right. Hold still while I cover the large ones. We’ll rebandage the smaller ones after the bath.”

Vanessa barely breathes as I kneel in front of her and begin removing the bloodied bandages and redress the larger cuts. Her cunt is right there, tempting me, but I’d promised to keep my clothes on…

Giulio would have pointed out that fingering her doesn’t mean I’m getting naked myself, but Vanessa is shivering enough.

Once I finish wrapping up the wounds on her thigh with the plastic wrap, I get up and slowly peel off the other bandages. I have to bite down a frustrated sound when I see all the little red lines blooming across her skin.

Vanessa squeezes her eyes shut.

I step away from her and back toward the tub. The water is almost to the top. “Here. You can warm up in the bath. Sit so I can wash your hair.”

She looks warily at me, all doe-eyed and frightened, like she’s expecting me to do something else to her. “Why are you being nice to me?” she whispers. “Giulio said…” She swallows hard. “He said I didn’t… That you’d be mad. And that I didn’t appreciate all the nice things the… the three of you have done for me so I didn’t deserve them.”

“It… it doesn’t matter,” I say, although I can’t stop the hurt from coming through in my voice. “That you used contraception with me …or Slayer.” I need to pause to collect myself, because it does matter that she denied Giulio. It does matter that she isn’t already shaping his child inside her. “Vanessa. I’m not… I’m not angry. Simply upset. Disappointed. I’ve been looking forward to this for so long. But I can wait another month. Another year.”

I don’t want to wait another year.

I know it would be simplest to replace Vanessa and find a woman much more eager to carry the child of a rich, handsome mafia don.

I help her into the tub, and as though sensing my thoughts, she looks up at me. “Is he actually… you know… bisexual? He always needs the role play thing, and really, he’s had to have had some girlfriend who would do anything for his money,” she rambles a little.

I unconsciously tighten my grip on Vanessa’s arm, and she gasps before I remember to release her. She sits down, scooting away from me a little to put distance between us. With the tub as large as it is, that’s quite a lot of space.

“He is,” I say. “He’s had sex with you without Slayer or me present, hasn’t he? He does the roleplay thing with everybody. But he doesn’t… He doesn’t allow people to get close to him. He doesn’t trust people.”

“But he’s had to have had girlfriends before,” Vanessa presses. “I mean, I know how he looks at you, and I know he has some weird thing with Slayer, but…”

“Yes,” I say curtly. “He did. But she wasn’t any good, and now she’s gone.” I don’t want to think about that woman who had hurt Giulio so badly.

I know relationships don’t always last, but Giulio had been trying, and even if it sometimes hurt to see Giulio gushing about another person, I had tried to be supportive despite my misgivings.

“Don’t worry about the past.” I turn the water off and settle myself on the small step leading up to the tub, rolling up my sleeves, so I’ll have an easier time washing Vanessa.

“What happened to her?” she asks anyway.

I cup my hands, fill them with water, and pour it over Vanessa’s head. That small amount does nothing to soak her long hair, but at least it gives me something to do while I think about how much I want to share.

“She isn’t dead.” I pour more water on Vanessa. “I should have shot her. But the whole thing was a messy affair. She—” I break off and shake my head. “Leave it alone, Vanessa.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, but her voice is edged as she tries to pull away from me, wiping her face, “but if I get cut up like this because I tried not to get pregnant, I can’t help but wonder what happens to someone who actually hurt Giulio. You and Slayer aren’t exactly stable when it comes to him.”

“Anybody who hurts Giulio…” I grip the edge of the tub. “He doesn’t want you dead. If he did, we wouldn’t be speaking now. He still… Vanessa, if he didn’t care at all, he would have offered you to Romano and his men. It wouldn’t have been Stef. We would never have come this far.”

“Giulio wanted to leave me outside, did you know that?” She’s trembling, but I don’t know if it’s from the chill in the air—how can it be, when the water is so warm—or something else. “It was freezing, I was naked, he’d just fucked me, I was bleeding all over the place, and he told Slayer to just leave me outside. And you say he doesn’t want me dead?” I can’t tell if it’s tears or water dripping down her cheeks.

I give in to the urge to embrace her, not caring that my shirt gets wet as I wrap my arms around her shoulders. She tenses but doesn’t attempt to break free.

“But Slayer took you inside,” I point out, breathing in her scent. “Giulio didn’t take you out there alone. Giulio wasn’t the one to cut you. Giulio… Giulio held back.”

Vanessa shakes her head. “He wanted to be the one to cut me,” she says, her voice a little harsher. “He doesn’t care. He wasn’t in control. I could see it. Maybe you’re too blind—” She cuts herself off, fear suddenly replacing the passion, and shrinks back in on herself.

“How did Slayer react when Giulio suggested it?” I ask gently. Then I kiss the side of her head.

Vanessa hesitates, then says quietly, “Slayer tried to tell him not to do it. Then when Giulio said to give him the knife, Slayer said he’d do it instead. I mean, they were both… aroused… but Giulio’s the one who scared me. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I need to be more grateful. It could’ve been worse. Ignore me.”

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