Fire Bound (Sea Haven Sisters)(42)

She turned her head to look at him, her eyes meeting his. He felt the impact all the way to his groin.

“I don’t think any fantasy is insignificant.” Her voice had dropped an octave or two, just enough that she sounded sultry.



Casimir wrapped his hand around her neck and leaned down to kiss her gently. Almost reverently. She didn’t know it, but right there, in that moment, she was very fragile. Very vulnerable. Her world had shifted out from under her. The blow had to be terrible and, he knew, her mind would be racing, putting together all the little things from her childhood that hadn’t added up. That she’d dismissed and refused to think about.

He settled her between his legs and began to draw the brush through the long silky strands, hoping the simple act of brushing her hair would help to soothe her. No betrayal came at a good time and certainly not one that had been going on since childhood.



“How could he do this?”



Her voice was low. Shaking. He wasn’t certain whether the shaking was from anger or shock. He stayed quiet, knowing there was no answer to such treachery.



“His own brother. He ordered the hit on his own brother. On my mother. They loved him. I loved him.” A shudder went through her body. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at him.

His heart nearly stopped. Her eyes were wet. Liquid. As blue as the deepest sea. The tips of her lashes were wet. Spiky. He didn’t think tears could affect him, but his gut knotted and his heart stuttered at the sight of her liquid blue eyes. He wanted to go into her uncle’s room and cut his lying, deceitful throat.



“Do you have any idea how many times I worried about his health? I was just a child and terrified I’d lose him. He’d tell me he had to go into his rooms and be alone. He wouldn’t call the doctor, no matter how much I begged him to. He would be there for two weeks or more at a time. Once it was a month. I cried every night, afraid he would die, my only living relative. Arturo would be here with me…” Her voice trailed off. She turned her head back. “Arturo.” She whispered the name.

He was a man of action. He’d always been a man of patience, but her pain was so deep he wanted to strike out. He couldn’t take out her uncle, not yet, but Arturo was an altogether different proposition. His hands were steady as he pulled the brush through her hair, one arm around her waist, holding her to him.



“I love him too,” she said. “Tio Luigi and Arturo. I love them both. I thought they loved me. I don’t have…” She broke off abruptly.



“You do, Giacinta,” Casimir said. “You have your sisters. They aren’t blood relations, but they may as well be. They love you. My brothers, on that farm, they love you. They would never have taken the chance of sending for me if they didn’t want you protected at all times. If you weren’t family to them.”



She shook her head. “They don’t know me. None of them know what I am. What Tio Luigi shaped me into. I’m a killer. If my sisters knew…”



“They would still love you, golubushka. You’re the same person who threw in with them. You went to the counseling sessions with them and built a home with them. They would understand and help you through this. Look what their men are.”



She shook her head. He kept brushing her hair, searching his mind for the right words, hoping to find something – anything – to comfort her.



“Think about each of them. Who they are. What they’ve gone through. Then you can tell me they wouldn’t understand.”



She took a deep breath. He knew she was trying to stop the tears from falling. He didn’t want that. She needed to cry, to share that with him. He put the brush down and turned her in his arms. She was reluctant, her body stiff, but he was strong and she wasn’t in any shape to put up a fight. He drew her onto his lap and held her close until she dropped her head on his shoulder in defeat.



“You’re right,” she said. A small shudder went through her body. Her voice was strangling on tears. “They’d accept me.”



“And love you. That won’t ever change,” he confirmed. “Not ever. Those women are your true family, Giacinta. And my brothers love you, and more than anyone else in the world, they would understand and accept you. How could they not? The same thing that happened to you, happened to us. The others might suspect, but Gavriil knows. No one ever fools Gavriil. He’s the one who used the emergency drop to let me know you would be coming to Europe and he wanted protection for you.”



Hot tears fell on his neck and bare shoulders. He tightened his arms. The last thing he wanted was for Lissa to pull away from him or her family. Betrayal could do that. Isolate and eat away at a person until there was nothing left. He wasn’t going to have that for her.