Had she known that this moment was coming? Was this the only way she could think of having him, when she could absolve herself of all responsibility? Was this how she had let Jackson walk all over her?
Would she always let life happen to her, rather than take charge of it?
Shame cooled her skin, leaving her shaking. Tugging the torn lace of her dress upward, she stumbled back. Her breathing out of sync, she tried to collect her aroused senses together.
She wanted to be held and kissed and touched by him so much that it was a cavernous chasm inside her.
But not like this.
No. This was not fair to either of them.
She looked up and met his glittering gaze, every inch of her vibrating with need. “When I look back at this night a decade later, I want to remember something else other than your self-disgust that you want me and my desperate attempt to escape it, as you put it so well.”
“Clio—”
“Yes you do, Stefan. You hate that you want me when it isn’t your will, don’t you?” She blinked, striving for strength. “I want to have one thing that will make me proud about today. I want you to leave. Thank you for saving me from myself once again.”
The flesh over the angular bones of his face, already so lean and spare, tightened even further, until he was all jutting angles and brooding arrogance. He went still, inch by inch, ridding himself of that glittering want and desire, ridding himself of any emotion.
That growing stillness in him, that willpower in action—it was the most disconcerting thing she had ever seen.
“As you wish,” he said with one lingering look before he turned and left.
She could almost believe that her words had pierced him. Almost.
Roughly tugging at the bodice of a dress that could have probably fed a starving family for a few months, Clio sank to the bed and covered her face.
As caustic as his analysis of her life had been, Stefan had stopped them from making an irrevocable mistake.
She should be glad for it. All she needed was to convince herself of it.
* * *
Standing under the ice-cold shower spray, Stefan shivered. His teeth chattered in his mouth, his skin grew goose bumps. If he looked down, he would probably see that his balls had forever turned blue.
But even the possibility of permanent damage to his manhood couldn’t erase the picture of his wife from his mind.
He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Her vulnerability shone in her eyes, her desire too pure and real to be anything but temptation, her struggle to be better than herself a wonder for him to watch.
Neither could he curb the small flicker of warmth in his chest.
Was this what Clio would do for him?
Punish him, torture him and yet push him toward being a better man than he had been this past decade?
That he had resisted her, that he hadn’t given in to his need and taken what she had so freely offered, that he had protected her, even from himself, he would count as a win; he would count it as a little bit of honor still left in him.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN CLIO OPENED her eyes the next morning, there was a hammer and a pointy needle inside her skull, and someone had pulled the silky curtains aside to let in reams of sunlight to punish her with.
Or at least, that’s how it felt.
Clutching her head, she turned to her side and groaned. Tears prickled behind her eyes at the dull, pounding ache through the top of her head.
Her mouth was dry, and her throat parched. She tried opening her eyes again and was about to sit up when a strong arm pulled her up with infinite gentleness.
A whimper erupted from her throat as a blend of lime and aftershave and masculine musk teased her nostrils. It was like a slap to her senses, at once decadent and eviscerating…
Just like the man was.
She stiffened in his hold but he didn’t relent.
Of all the unholy, damnedest things in the world, why did Stefan have to be up before her on the first morning of their ill-conceived marriage? Why couldn’t she have started it by setting an unaffected tone, one that she wanted?
“Buon giorno, cara.”
The honeyed words boomeranged against her skull as if he had shouted them.
Another moan escaped her and a smile curved that sinful mouth.
Thick wet hair fell onto his forehead. His freshly shaved jaw glinted, and he smelled clean and nice and as sinful as the red-velvet cake she had devoured last night.
Bastardo, she mouthed the word that she had heard Alessandra use.
His gorgeous green eyes glittered with humor, his smile so beautiful that her chest hurt.
“Go away,” she said, hiding her face in the pillow, superaware of her messy hair, parched mouth and her old Columbia T-shirt that constituted her nightwear.
“Take this,” he said, opening his palm to a white pill—her migraine medication—and a glass of water in the other hand.
Too far gone with the ache in her head to even offer a token protest, Clio grabbed the glass and ingested the pill. She lay back down gingerly, any sudden movement piercing her head.
His handsome face filling her vision, Stefan straightened the cotton duvet around her and tucked it to her chin. Tapped her nose with his finger, and pushed her hair back from her temples. “Sleep, cara,” he whispered.
Sleep and exhaustion hit her in waves and Clio decided the concern she had heard in his voice had to be a side effect of her medication.
* * *
The next morning, Stefan awoke in his bed with the smell of coffee teasing him awake. It took him a few seconds to figure out why he had a feeling that he had missed something. He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which said eight in the morning. The red digits burned his brain.
He hadn’t checked on Clio in a few hours.
Pushing back the covers, he leaped from the bed and walked through the corridor to her bedroom.
He came to a halt as he found it empty with the bed neatly made up.
The scent of gardenias clung to the air and before he knew it, his lungs were filled with it. Running a hand through his hair, he leaned against the entrance, a wisp of something keeping him in the room.