Page 15 of My Dark Ever After
When he returned a few minutes later, I was almost done. He paused a moment in the doorway, obviously staring at me, his gaze a heated press against my skin. I startled when he passed me a secured plastic bag filled with my medicine from the fridge.
“You will teach me to help you with this,” he told me, crouching beside me in his spotless designer suit, strong thighs splayed distractingly. “It must be uncomfortable to dose yourself.”
It was, but it also wasn’t the end of the world, and I absolutely did not want Raffa’s man-killing hands gently tending to me. It wasn’t something my heart could survive.
I knew because I had started to fall in love with him the first time he’d taken care of me when I arrived at his palazzo in Florence.
“You should pack this,” he said, his gaze having snagged on the red fabric I’d left in the summer bin.
I watched as he pulled it from the tangle of clothes and carefully folded it, stroking down the silky fabric. When he looked up at me, his pale eyes were warm with memories.
“I never got to see you in a field of poppies, wearing this dress,” he murmured. “Pack it.”
“Poppy season is over,” I reminded him, taking the dress he’d bought me from Maria Lucia’s store and stuffing it back into the bin.
I stood to go to the bathroom to grab my toiletries, and when I returned, Raffa was sitting on my bed, looking at the framed photo of my family I kept on my nightstand. It had been taken at one of my father’s work events, so we were all done up in finery, though nothing so fine as what Raffa was used to. I was seventeen in the photo, a fresh high school graduate wearing an almost childishly demure white dress that covered me from throat to wrists to ankles, while Gemma was in a scandalously low-cut orange dress that brought out her curves and summer tan. My dad had his arm around me, a proud smile on his face, and my mom was holding Gemma around the waist, laughing at something she’d said.
It was a good photo, one of the last ones we had as a family because Gemma had always been traveling and then moved away when I was twenty.
“You look different here,” Raffa said, his thumb sweeping over my image. “Young and soft, even more acerbiattathan the girl I found on the road in Tuscany.”
“I was,” I agreed. “Young and foolish. I guess I still am.”
He flinched just slightly at the comment. “Your father looks very Italian, but your mother is fair.”
“Her parents were Albanian,” I told him as I bent to zip up my suitcase. “Are you ready?”
He was frowning down at the photo, but nodded, standing with it still in his hand. “Yes, go to the door and give your case to Tony. He will take it down for you. Then come back.”
I wanted to question him, but exhaustion was settling deep into my bones, weighing every step, so I just did as I was told.
When I returned, the bathroom light was on, and Raffa was inside, my little first aid kit open on the closed lid of the toilet.
“Vieni,” he ordered, tapping the sink.
I stepped closer automatically, and by the time I hesitated, Raffa had me by the hips, carefully lifting me to sit on the basin.
“I’m fine,” I said, even though my head was throbbing and every inch of my body ached.
“Stai zitta,” he told me.
I hated hearing him speak Italian because it was so damn lovely, even when he was telling me to shut up.
Still, I quieted, sitting calmly as he tilted my head to inspect the bullet graze. The tap ran for a moment, and then a warm cloth was pressed to the wound. I winced, but he shushed me softly as he cleaned up the injury.
“This will hurt,” he warned before dabbing antiseptic onto the long cut, and I sucked in a sharp breath, nearly choking at the pain.
“Good girl,” he praised me. “Almost done.”
I shivered, clenching my teeth against the invasion of pleasure those words made me feel.
“It is not so bad,” he declared after collecting the garbage and throwing it into the little bin beside the toilet. “It will hurt and then itch as it heals, but your hair should cover any scar.”
I nodded because my voice was somewhere near my toes, and I didn’t know what to say anyway. My body had a mind of its own when it was being tended to by him, and all it wanted to do was curl close and feel safe after this horrible night. He used a new warm, damp cloth to wash the dried blood from my face, and I had to close my eyes to shield myself from the tenderness in his expression.
The cloth landed with a wet splat in the sink behind me, so I peered through my lids to see him bend slightly at the knee until we were eye level with each other. Only then did he cup my clean face in his big, rough palms. I noticed how exhausted he looked up close, the lines of strain beside his mouth, the sooty circles beneath his eyes that spoke of a long time without proper sleep.
“I am sorry, Guinevere,” he murmured, thumbs sweeping over my cheekbones. “Sorrier than I have words in English or Italian to say.”
