Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
It was only after I said that, woefully, when I realized the long length of his body under me had stiffened.
“Shit, did I say the wrong thing?” I asked.
“You think this house is full of love?” he asked in return.
“You don’t?” I queried hesitantly.
“I’ve never thought on it.”
“Well,” I said carefully, “it is.” Even more carefully, I stroked his jaw and whispered, “And it’s obvious you’re the one who built that.”
“She was raped.”
Now my body stiffened.
Straight to stone.
“Some monster who was a guest at a wedding she did the flowers for,” he went on.
Oh no.
I mean, that was what I was guessing happened.
But I hated to have it confirmed.
“He asked her out. She had a boyfriend. She declined. He refused to be put off and wasn’t, in the end. He cornered her in the back of her shop after closing, beat the fuck out of her because she fought, and probably because she didn’t say yes when he wanted her to, and he raped her.”
I framed his head in my hands and had no words to say except an aching, “Battle.”
“She was terrified of him. Closed the shop. Broke up with her boyfriend. Came home. Refused to press charges. She didn’t want it in the press. She didn’t want anyone to know. She didn’t want to have to testify.”
I pressed lightly on his head and remained quiet as he recited the litany of what any woman faced when this happened to her: having to make the decision whether or not to endure another violating trauma after experiencing the worst violating trauma a woman could experience.
“Buried herself in the garden. Tempie and Prue begged her to go to therapy. She refused. They stopped because just broaching it brought the subject up and they didn’t want to cause her more pain. I…” he swallowed with difficulty, “couldn’t go there with her.”
“Of course,” I said tremulously, because this man, knowing what happened to his sister, had to have come undone.
It didn’t happen to him.
But anytime something heinous befell someone you loved, in a way, it happened to you too.
“I fucked up, Vivi. I warned Tempie and Prue off. I told them to let her heal how she needed to heal. But the days turned to months, and now it’s been years, and I see all I did wasn’t giving her a safe haven to find a way to heal her wounds and accept her scars. It was allowing her to close the door on her own prison.”
“You take too much responsibility.”
“Tempie was right. We should have pressed therapy. We should have pushed her.”
“And maybe push her away?” I shook my head. “No. You did the right thing. It’s up to her to chart this course, honey.”
“Three years, Vivienne?”
I flinched.
“Right,” he muttered.
“That isn’t on you. It’s not on her either. It’s on that man. God. What an asshole. Did anything happen to him?”
His face shut down.
Oh boy.
“You did something,” I whispered.
“He raped my sister,” he said through his teeth. “And I’m stupid rich. Yes, I did something.”
I grinned.
Huge.
“What did you do?”
He stared at me like I was crazy.
“You can tell me,” I urged. “You didn’t make me sign an NDA, but I swear on all the orgasms you’ve yet to give me, I will take it to my grave.”
“We established yesterday we’re fond of each other.”
Fond?
That was tame for what I was feeling, but it worked for now.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“I’d prefer you remained fond of me.”
“All right, allow me to share, as a woman, there is not one thing you can tell me you did to a man who violated a woman that way, especially Chastity, but really anybody, that would make me even an iota less fond of you.”
“I had him beaten,” he said like a dare, “and raped.”
My eyes got big.
Then I busted out laughing.
I pushed up, and through my hilarity, said, “Oh please, tell me you’re serious.”
“I was emotional at the time, Vivienne. It wasn’t my finest hour.”
“Oh, you are so wrong, my overprotective duke, it soooooooo was. Seriously? The whole hog?”
“It was very costly,” he muttered.
“Did he press charges?”
“No, considering they told him it would keep happening if he uttered a fucking word.”
“They?”
“I sent three.”
This just got better and better.
“Did they all…?” I let that trail off.
“I didn’t ask for specifics. Just confirmation it was done.”
“Oh my God, this is magnificent.”
He rolled on top of me and warned, “Chassie and Prue don’t know.”
I pretended to lock my lips with a key, then said, “Let me guess, it was Tempie’s idea.”
“No. But she sanctioned it.”
“I bet she did,” I mumbled. Man, I dug that woman. “This is priceless. I love it.”
“It doesn’t erase what was done to my sister.”
That made me pull my shit together and soothe him with my hands.
Oh yeah, that muscled back was amazing.
“No, honey,” I agreed. “But even if she was his first crime, she might not have been his last. But I bet that made it so it was.”