Page 35 of Lies like Rubies, Part Two (Savage Jewels)

By the time I returned, Sofia had dragged her chair closer to the fire. Dante sat beside her, silent and brooding, while Nick cleaned up the grill.

Nick caught my eye and jerked his head toward Sofia and Dante, where their feet brushed together. Relief swept through me, and jealousy. She might have come to me for safety, but that didn’t mean that she hadn’t changed her mind about us, about our relationship, about everything, in the week she’d been gone.

“What happened while you were gone?” Dante asked against the backdrop of the crackling fire.

Sofia’s entire body stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come here.”

“I don’t want to play your games anymore, Dante.”

“Kitten, this was never a game.”

To my surprise, she stood up from her chair. He grabbed her cushion and dropped it on the ground beside him. “Sit.”

She knelt at his feet, her movements stiff and pained as she settled.

He tangled his hand in her hair and brought her cheek to his thigh.Fuck this.Dante might get off on her supplication, but she needed support, not degradation.

Determined, I strode forward, only for Nick to catch me with an arm across my chest.

“This isn’t what she needs.”

“This isexactlywhat she needs,” he answered.

I took a deep breath, ready to argue.

Nick nodded toward them. “Look how she leans into him, how she’s adjusted her body so she’s supported by his leg, how she’s wrapped her hands around his calf.”

Dante’s fingers stroked gently over her hair, and I watched as the stiff lines of Sofia’s back relaxed.

“Sit beside her,” Nick suggested.

I approached Sofia, waiting for a signal that I was wanted, or wasn’t. She looked up at me and smiled. I gazed into those midnight-blue eyes, and I knew then, with absolute certainty, I didn’t care about anything but making sure this resilient, brilliant woman had reasons to smile again and again for the rest of our lives.

“Grab a cushion,” she said. Dante raised an eyebrow but didn’t protest when I sat behind her, adjusting her until she sat between my legs. More importantly, Sofia didn’t protest, arranging the two of us until my legknocked against Dante’s, and she could lean on both of us together.

“Tell me what happened, kitten.”

Nick dragged a chair to our right, setting it up so he faced us, and Sofia was surrounded by warmth on all sides.

Transfixed, she stared into the fire. “I don’t remember much.”

Nick furrowed his brow. “Is that the truth, or is that what you’re telling us so we stop asking questions?”

She closed her eyes, and I leaned forward, wrapping my arms around her torso. When she brought one hand to tangle with my fingers on her stomach, my heart broke for her.

“You’ve seen my body. I don’t—” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I remember the pain, and the confusion, and his insistence that I sign documents for him. The drugs—I don’t remember much else.”

Sofia tugged her hands from mine and reached for Nick’s. He drew her hand to his knee, letting her clutch it so tightly her fingers turned white.

“He wants legitimacy,” she said. “I took that away from him when I refused to marry him.”

I ran my hands up her back over her T-shirt, rubbing them in soothing circles.

“And he wants Lizzie,” she soldiered on. “Because she owns so much of the port, and if he controls her, then he can control the port.”

“And if he controls the port, the Costas can traffic girls out of it again,” Dante growled.

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