Olivia Gates - One Night In…

Alessandro was silent for a moment, taking this in. ‘He did abuse you,’ he finally said flatly, still holding, stroking her fingers.

Meghan shook her head, denying the truth she’d suppressed for so long … the truth about Stephen, the truth about herself. ‘But I let him. I should have known better. Everyone wondered what was happening to me—why I was so different, so distant. He didn’t like my friends, my family, didn’t like my life. I stopped going out … I lost my job because of it.’ She closed her eyes briefly, recalling the pain, the shame. The obsession. The delusion. ‘I told you Stanton Springs is a small town. Everybody watches out for everybody else. People care. They cared about me, and I just drove them all away. All that mattered to me was Stephen. I didn’t know sometimes whether it was because of love or fear, but I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t. How could I have been so blind? So stupid?’

‘Our hearts are blind,’ Alessandro said after a long moment. ‘You thought he loved you.’

‘If I’d had any self-respect—’ Her voice caught jaggedly on a sob, then she choked it back. ‘I would’ve walked out before it came to … before it brought me so low.’

Alessandro’s eyes were gentle, but knowing. So knowing. ‘What did he do to you?’

Meghan shook her head. She couldn’t look at him. Didn’t want to see disgust in his eyes, the disgust she’d felt herself, at herself. ‘Nothing more than what he’d been doing before. Controlling me, humiliating me. He liked to see me under his thumb, catering to his whims, accepting his insults. Brought low. It gave him pleasure. I see that now, even though at the time I thought that was what you did when you loved someone. You just took it. You thought they’d stop. Change. I thought it was because I wasn’t good enough, perfect enough. And then one night I’d had enough. I was so dispirited, so broken. I felt like I was dying inside—like all the good parts of me were gone. Used up. And I told him I’d had enough.’

‘Did he let you go?’ Alessandro asked quietly. Knowingly.

Meghan’s hands clenched on the sash once more as memories assaulted her, battered her brain and heart. ‘No. I should’ve realised he wouldn’t. I told him I was sorry, that I loved him, and then …’ She looked up now, met his gaze, faced the truth. ‘He hit me. Across the face. I was so stunned I just lay there. I couldn’t believe it. I was being hit by a man. The man I loved.’

‘If I could get my hands on him …’ Alessandro whispered savagely under his breath.

‘He kept hitting me. I just took it. I was so surprised, so amazed it was happening. That I’d let it happen. It was my fault.’

‘Meghan, it wasn’t—’

She continued, determined to finish it to the end. ‘He told me he was married then—said I must’ve known. He laughed about it. He said if I wondered why he treated me like a whore it was because I was one, and everyone knew it.’ She closed her eyes briefly, shaking her head against the onslaught of memory. ‘Of course, I knew he was lying. At least, my mind knew. My heart didn’t. My heart believed every word he said.’ She whispered the last, the confession echoing through her soul. She’d believed.

‘What happened then?’ Alessandro asked quietly, after a long moment when the only sound in the still room had been their breathing, ragged and uneven.

‘I ran. He tried to grab me. I don’t know what he would have done if— But I got away. And I kept on running. I ran right out of that town, that life, and I can’t go back.’

‘There are people there who would support you,’ Alessandro said in a low voice. ‘They would understand, Meghan.’

‘But I’m so ashamed,’ she confessed in a wretched whisper. ‘It’s my fault. I should have known. I should have known what kind of man he was. I should have stopped it.’ Her voice broke, and Alessandro pulled her towards him, wrapped her in an embrace that was both tender and savage.

‘No. How could you know? How could you expect…?’

He was silent, his arms around her, his chin resting on her head. Meghan tried to control her shuddering breaths, her pounding pulse.

‘Did you press charges?’ Alessandro asked after a long, ragged moment.

‘No.’ She was horrified at the thought. ‘The last thing I wanted was people knowing what had happened, what I’d done. I told you—I ran. I didn’t even explain where I was going. I sent a postcard. I know everyone is confused, hurt, even, but I couldn’t live in that town knowing he was there. He wouldn’t let me. And I couldn’t bear people knowing.’ She looked up at him, her eyes wide. ‘I was afraid they would condemn me if they knew. I couldn’t bear the shame.’

He stroked her face—light, feathering movements. ‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘I don’t suppose anyone could.’

He continued stroking her hair, her shoulders. Meghan never wanted him to let her go. She never wanted to feel alone, ashamed again.

‘And for this you blame yourself?’ he finally asked. ‘You told me you thought you might have known deep down that he was married. I forced you to that confession.’ Regret laced his words and roughened his tone. ‘But this? Meghan, you could never blame yourself for this. That man—that Stephen—he was a monster. This was not your fault. None of it. You are not responsible for another’s actions.’

‘It’s hard,’ Meghan said after a moment, her voice no more than a thread of sound, ‘not to blame yourself when someone else does. Someone you thought you loved. I stopped believing in myself, in who I was. I’m not sure if I even know any more.’

Alessandro was silent. Meghan heard their breathing, the ticking of a clock, the muted roar of traffic from Milan’s busy streets below.

‘Yes,’ he agreed finally, softly. ‘It is hard. Lord knows, it is very hard. But I am the man with you now, Meghan, gattina. I am the man who married you, and I believe in you.’ He tilted her face up to meet his, wiped the traces of her tears with his thumbs. ‘I know who you are, and I believe you.’

Meghan closed her eyes, felt the old shame slipping away. He knew. He knew, and he believed. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘That’s why I wanted to tell you.’

‘I’m glad you did.’ He cupped her face, slid his hand through the heavy mass of hair at the nape of her neck. ‘Your trust in me is precious.’ His voice was stilted, as if he was testing out new words, new emotions. ‘I am humbled by it.’

Tears sparkled in her eyes. Trust me. She wanted to say it, to plead, but she knew now was not the time. She’d been ready to share, to confess.

Alessandro wasn’t. Yet.

He gazed at her gently. ‘And now? Are there shadows?’

Meghan smiled tremulously, glanced around the darkened room. ‘No. There are no shadows for me.’

‘Good.’ He kissed her softly, the gesture a plea, a prayer. Not a demand. He would demand nothing of her tonight, Meghan knew.

Nothing that she didn’t want.

She kissed him back, her hands sliding up the silkiness of his shirt, bunching the cloth between her restless seeking fingers.

He broke the kiss and glanced down at her with a faint frown between his brows. ‘You are certain?’

‘I am.’ She felt drained, yet relieved. Empty, yet waiting to be filled.

‘Good.’ He kissed her again, this time his mouth sure and seeking, soft and warm.

Meghan felt him untie the bathrobe, felt it slip from her shoulders. She heard his indrawn breath as his gaze roamed over her, taking in the simplicity of the nightgown.