Page 74 of Righteous Deceit

Dropping back against her pillows, she closes her eyes with a soft groan. “Your hands are surprisingly gentle for being so calloused.”

I pause. “Fuck. They’re all rough. Does it feel like shit?”

“Don’t stop.” She opens one eye. “It feels nice.”

I continue, stopping only to switch to her right wrist. She sits so quietly as I work that I consider she’s fallen asleep, but glancing up at her face, I find her watching me intently.

“You’re very handsome.”

I raise a single eyebrow, thrown at the sudden change in our line of conversation.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“What?” I place her wrist softly on her lap.

“I know you didn’t want this, Diego. I’m sorry if you were already involved with someone else. I didn’t even consider that. I know we kissed, but that doesn’t—”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.” I cut her off, not enjoying the unease creeping into her voice and making it shake.

“Oh,” she says. “I just assumed that’s why you didn’t want to...why we didn’t…you know…on our wedding night.”

I suck my bottom lip into my mouth to stop myself from smiling. “Fuck?”

“Mm,” she agrees, the freckles on the bridge of her nose darkening with the way her face shades.

“That’s not why.” I shift down the bed, gesturing for her to stretch her feet out so I can look at them. She moves without argument, and apart from a slight scratch on her heel, her left foot looks fine. “Any pain?” I ask, moving her foot back and forth to test the movement in her ankle.

“No.”

I move to her right foot, and she hisses when I touch the gash stretching the length of her arch. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. How bad?”

“Long but not too deep,” I tell her. “I’m going to put some antiseptic on it, which might sting a bit, and then I’ll bandage it up. We’ll keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t get infected, but I think it’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

She sits quietly as I work, a soft grunt of pain the only sound she makes when I apply the alcohol to the cut.

“Why then?”

“Hm?” I look up at her.

“Why?” she prompts.

“Why what?”

“If it wasn’t another partner, why didn’t you want to sleep with me on our wedding night? Are you not attracted to me?”

I lean back, shocked at her reasoning. I frown at her. “Sia. You know that’s not it.”

She pulls her bandaged foot back into her body. “Then what?”

I sigh. “A few things, I guess.”

“Will you tell me?” This is another side to Alessia again. Shy, unsure, and lost in the dynamics of intimacy and relationships.

“First and foremost, I didn’t want to get married,” I tell her honestly, holding her stare when I do so. “You deceived everyone around you for reasons I have yet to work out. I felt played. I was pissed.”

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