A gust of wind blew past my face, making me shiver once more. Storm clouds were rolling in, threatening rain. As much as I wanted to go on watching Luc, I was too cold. So I went back inside, closed the door, and headed for the kitchen, figuring food was a good place to start for both of us. He’d be hungry after he came back, and I needed energy if I was ever going to come up with a way to get through to the man.
He stayed outside for another thirty minutes, and I knew he had to be freezing. But when the kitchen door opened and he stepped into the room, he didn’t look cold. His jaw was hard, his eyes as dark as I’d ever seen them, and there was an air of restlessness about him I couldn’t define. One that made me think he hadn’t even noticed the temperature out there on that beach.
“Hey,” I said, looking up from the scrambled eggs I was just finishing. “Good timing. This is almost ready.”
He didn’t look at me, just stepped past me and mumbled, “I’m not hungry.”
I flipped the burner off, moved the pan to a cool spot on the stove, and turned toward him. He was pouring himself a cup of coffee at the far counter, the red slash marks across his back angry and raised from the cold outside, reminding me just what kind of torture he’d been through at the hands of those monsters.
“You have to eat. If you don’t want eggs, I could make you toast or cereal. I’m pretty sure there’s oatmeal in the—”
“I said I’m not hungry, dammit. Stop badgering me.”
I pursed my lips as I stared at his back. My heart contracted even though part of me wanted to fight fire with fire and lash out at him. There was so much anger inside him, I wasn’t sure how I’d ever thought breakfast was a good idea.
He rested both hands on the counter and dropped his head. Then he drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I just... don’t feel like eating.”
His quiet voice surprised me. “It’s okay.”
He stood still for several seconds, facing the counter, then said, “And, I’m sorry about last night. That won’t happen again.”
He turned for the stairs with his coffee, but something in the center of my chest told me not to let him go. Not like this.
“Hold on.” I stepped in his path, preventing him from reaching the steps. “I...”
He drew to an abrupt stop several feet away from me, and I twisted my hands together because now that I was in front of him, I wasn’t sure what to say.
He wasn’t looking at me. I could tell he didn’t want to look at me. But I was desperate to reach him. And then I remembered something Felicity and I had talked about before she’d left. And even though it was probably really bad timing, I didn’t care. I was desperate.
“I... I know you’re probably not very hungry. I’m not either. I just... We need to talk, Luc.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
He tried to step around me, but I moved in his way once more. “Okay, if you don’t want to talk, then I’ll do the talking. We can’t keep avoiding each other.”
“I don’t have time for this. I need to take a shower.”
“Make time. Until we face everything that happened, it’s just going to keep festering between us.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” When he tried to brush past me, I moved into the stairwell, blocking his exit. “You’re not the only one who was there, Luc. I was there, too.”
“Which is why we don’t need to fucking talk about it. Ever,” he growled from between clenched teeth.
“I don’t agree. If you don’t want to talk to me, then you need to talk to someone. Felicity left the name of a good psychiatr—”
“A shrink?” He moved back several steps. “No fucking way.”
“Therapists can be extremely helpful in situations like this.”
His jaw turned to a slice of steel beneath his skin, and he shifted away from me. “Situations like this,” he muttered.
“You know what I’m talking about.” My heart pinched. “What they did to you. The rape.”
He chuckled, but there was no humor in his voice, and the sound sent a chill straight down my spine. “You are so fucking naïve.”
“I’m not naïve.” My back went up, but I fought to keep my own temper in check. I realized he was hurting, but I was his champion, not his punching bag. “I saw what they did to you. I was there. I—”
“You saw what you wanted to see.”
“That’s not true. I—”
“Porca troia.”
He hurled his coffee cup against the cabinet. The ceramic shattered into a dozen pieces, making me jump, and coffee splattered against the cabinets and floor as he rounded on me with eyes as dark and stormy as they’d ever been.
“I agreed to it, okay? I agreed to let those kittens fuck me, and I agreed to the goddamn beating after. You can’t rape a willing participant, and I was willing. I even came when she was fucking me. Do you understand now? I’m not a goddamn victim, and I don’t need to talk to a stupid shrink. And if you had any sense in that stubborn head of yours, you’d get the fuck out of my life while you still can. I’m no better than any of the degenerate men in my House. If you didn’t know that last week when you watched me fuck that kitten in front of you, then you should have figured it out last night.”
He didn’t try to push past me for the back stairs. Instead, he turned for the archway that led into the main part of the house. And as I heard him stomping through the hallway and up the curved stairs in the entryway, his words spun in my head until only one thing was clear.
It wasn’t pain he was holding on to. It wasn’t humiliation as I’d assumed. It wasn’t even his tattered pride. What he couldn’t get past was guilt, because in his screwed-up head, he blamed himself for what had happened. He thought he was responsible.
My heart beat hard and fast as I glanced over the wide kitchen with its white cabinets, black-and-white checked tile floor, and pristine granite counters. Until I made him face the truth, we were never going to get past this.
I took my time picking up the broken mug, wiping down the cabinets, and cleaning the floor. And I used the time to think through the best way to reach him.
I’d seen him on the edge of control twice before. Once, in Venice, when his mother had shown up at our hotel and he’d been frantic to protect me from his family. The other time had been on his island, after he’d confessed what had happened to Vittoria, the girl he’d tried to rescue from his House. In both of those instances, the way through to him had not been to give him space. Space only granted him permission to sink deeper into the darkness.
What he needed... was me. My touch. My voice. My body.
Surrendering to him completely, without restrictions, was the only thing that had gotten through to him before. I had to believe it would work again. Because this time, I feared that darkness was dangerously close to claiming him forever.
My heart raced as I climbed the back stairs to the second level and quietly made my way down the hall. His bedroom door was closed, but a twist of the handle told me it wasn’t locked. I stepped into the room only to find it empty. Water ran in the bathroom. Glancing toward the partway-open door, I realized the shower was on.