“Emme? That’s how you got past the guards and into my house. Into my bedroom.” He made the statement quietly.
She didn’t confirm or deny it, but she did try to pull her hand away from him. He settled his fingers firmly around her wrist again.
“Don’t, Princess. We’re talking this out, just like we said we would. You asked me. If the story is correct, you move in the shadows, but you’re tethered to me. If I have a very small hold on you, I can only use that hold for small things like having you listen in on meetings in the enemy’s home, but I have to be close enough that the ropes will extend through the shadows to where I want you to listen and see the enemy.”
“So I would spy for you and bring that information back to you.”
“That’s the way the story goes.”
“In essence, what I heard in your bedroom that night was really true. Giuseppi really did tell you to find me, hold on to me to ferret out the Ferraro secrets, just not in quite the way you told her. And I didn’t know anything about sex. You had to teach me everything. You didn’t lie, Val; I can’t fault you there.”
His grip tightened on her wrist, although he was gentle. His thumb moved along her skin, and this time she felt the strange melody running along her nerve endings that always sent that peculiar awareness of Valentino charging through her like electricity, bringing her alive in a sensual way that devastated her after the things he’d said about her to another woman.
Emmanuelle thought about the young girl—Brielle Couture—whose self-esteem had most likely been destroyed by the things she’d overheard Elie say about her, just as hers had been when she heard Valentino say terrible things to another woman. She knew she would never forget a single word Val had said to that woman in his bedroom for as long as she lived. Men didn’t realize the long-reaching effects the things they said or did could have, especially on a young woman in love.
“Baby, you have to know it was never like that for me. Yes, my father told me the story. Both fathers told me that story. It’s handed down generation after generation, but I don’t know if Giuseppi believed it or not. I didn’t tell him about you. I felt guilty not telling him, but something stopped me. I didn’t want anyone to know. Not my parents, not Dario, whom I regard as a brother—no one. What was happening between us, I didn’t understand, but it was intimate, and belonged just to us. Eventually, Dario knew, but no one else.”
He turned her hand over. “You were a kid, Emme. A teenager. I was a grown man. I was already very experienced, but I’d never been hit so hard like that in my life, the way I was attracted to you. And it was wrong. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stay away from you. I did try. I told myself you were too young and that what happened between our shadows wasn’t real, but none of that mattered, only seeing you again.”
She heard the raw need in his voice. The truth. She’d always been able to distinguish lies from truth. That was a gift of being a rider, an essential one. She’d begun to doubt her abilities after being with Val. So many times, she thought he was telling her the truth, that he loved her the way she loved him, and then she would catch him in some terrible deceit. After so many times, she had to believe her eyes, not her heart.
“I found myself compromising my code, my honor—nothing mattered but seeing you.”
“You were careful with me,” she conceded. He had been in those early days. She couldn’t say he hadn’t seduced her—he had.
She had never looked at another man after Val, but he hadn’t done more than kiss her. A lot. There was a lot of kissing. Eventually, there was a lot of touching. He brought her to orgasm with his fingers. He taught her how to bring him to pleasure with her hand. Then her mouth. He did the same with his mouth. He had waited until she was eighteen before he took her virginity.
At first, she barely remembered what was happening with their shadows. She was so wrapped up in the wild, almost feral way they came together. She could hardly stand being away from him. She was obsessed with him. He seemed to be the same way about her. Both of them knew their families would object, and they were careful. Valentino didn’t like that she had to hide from her brothers, but she insisted, knowing Stefano would forbid any kind of relationship between them.
Emmanuelle noticed the expression on Val’s face when they were sitting together out by the lake after they’d made love. He was looking at their shadows, and he looked very satisfied, almost smug. She had turned her head and was shocked at the amount of cords wrapped so tightly around her shadow, as if it were imprisoned by his. She had sat up straighter, turning to him, her heart pounding, for the first time in three years with him afraid. Val had tackled her, laughing, kissing her, distracting her.
That night, she’d stayed awake all night in her bed thinking, realizing she had to tell her brothers. That alone was terrifying. Her confession hadn’t gone over very well. She hadn’t even gotten to the part with her shadow when they all began yelling and threatening Valentino. They forbade her from ever seeing him again. Eloisa began to accuse her of being disloyal to the family. She’d tried to stay away from Val, but in the end, it was impossible. The pull to be with him was too strong, and no matter how hard she tried, she always ended up going back to him.
“Keep going on with your story, Val. I think I understand what you’re saying. I would be able to go into the shadow, spy on a rival with you sitting in a car outside if our tether, for lack of a better word, were short.”
“Something like that, I guess. If it were stronger, you could be at a greater distance from me. You could, say, be across town. I wouldn’t have to be close to you for you to get the information for me.”
“And if we were really tied tight together?”
“The bonds have to be wrapped and knotted so close and so permanently that there is no way to undo them. You already know our neuropathways are connected via those ties and shadows. Supposedly, the more bonds I put on you, the more permanent they become, and the more we’re bound together.”
“Then what would happen?” she asked. She found she was holding her breath. She already knew the answer.
“You would take me with you. I would travel from place to place with you. In the shadows. Those ties have to be that strong between us.”
“That’s what you were doing every time we were together. You were wrapping as many ties around my shadow as you could, as fast as you could. If I noticed, you deliberately distracted me.” She kept accusation out of her voice, just stated it as fact, because it was.
Valentino didn’t deny it. “Yes. I didn’t know what it would take to make us a permanent couple, but your family and mine objected to us, and I wasn’t going to lose you. I knew if Miceli or his sons found out your capabilities, it was possible they would make a try for you, and that would put you in danger. If you were permanently tied to me, there would be no reason for anyone to try to kidnap you or to tear us apart.”
She flicked him a look. “And you could benefit greatly from the uses you could get from having a spy, or being able to move through shadows, if that is all true, right?”
Val pressed his fingers into her wrist. “Don’t hold on to anger and hurt when we have a chance to work this out, Emme. Yes, I knew things you didn’t, but you knew things I didn’t. You still do. We have families to protect. I never asked you questions. I accepted that you would protect your family, just as you accepted that I would protect mine.”