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She moved over to him, and put her hand on his face, then let it drift down to his chest. Her heart throbbed with sympathy for him. Where before she had been angry. But seeing him like this, seeing him desperate and ready to implode, made her feel regretful for coming at him the way that she had. The truth was, she knew about his life after she and Alex had come into it, but not before. He had been through things. She knew that. He was haunted by so much, and he might never tell her what it was, but she wanted him to know that she trusted him no matter what.

“Adonis,” she said softly. “You have cared for me all my life. At least, the part that I remember the best. The part that matters to me the most. We are going to figure this out. Together. You don’t have to simply take care of me anymore. I can help take care of you too.”

He turned his head away from her, and she traced the line of his jaw with the tip of her finger. “You’re so beautiful. Do you know how beautiful I think you are?”

“Don’t, Esme,” he said.

“Why? Are you afraid of me now? What happened to that man? That man who took me above the club.”

“Has the sex not been satisfactory to you?”

“It’s been wonderful. But I feel like you’ve been holding back. Not in the garden, I think that night was real. I think it was everything. But there’s something that you’re holding back from me.”

“If I’m holding it back it’s probably for your own good.”

“Don’t,” she said. “I’m not going to be coddled. You are taking on too much. You’re making this too much about you. About whatever is going on inside of you. If you won’t share it with me, I can’t fix it. I also can’t make you share it with me. But I can be there for you. I could be whatever you need.”

“You said you don’t believe I’m violent because of my past, but my violence isn’t only in my past. Don’t you wonder why I left the company?”

His eyes were burning bright and fierce and for a moment, she faltered. “I… Well. No. I thought you just didn’t want to be with us anymore.”

“It was you. But more than that. You and your dating. I began to do research on the men you went out with.”

“Oh.”

“I followed you. Watched. I was stalking you, Esme.”

“You know me,” she said, breathless. “We saw each other every day, you weren’t stalking me.”

“I was. I found out the last man you were dating was… He’d been accused of many things, violence against women being the main one, and I was concerned about you. I followed you. After your last date I waited in the alley by your house and I accosted him. I beat him. I told him to never speak to you again.”

Her heart was pounding hard. “You…”

“That’s why you never heard from him again. Because of me. I don’t regret it. He was bragging about how next time you went out he’d sleep with you, whether you wanted it or not.”

Growing alarm flooded Esme. Yet again, Adonis had protected her. But he saw it as…he saw it as something bad in himself.

“You saved me.”

“I could have talked to you. I could have trusted you. Violence is the easiest choice for me to make. It lives the closest to the surface of my skin. It’s what I know.”

She took a shuddering breath, her body trembling. She reached up and put her hand on his face. “Here’s what I know…every choice you make is always about protecting the people you care about. Maybe you are hard. Maybe you do have violence in you, but you also have justice in you. You would never harm someone who didn’t deserve it. You always protect the ones that are weaker than you. You told me that, do you remember? You never harm babies.” She smiled, just slightly. “You protected us, Alex and I. You’ll protect your child.”

“Esme,” he said, his voice a rasp.

“Don’t you remember? You stitched up my cuts, and you would lay next to me sometimes, guarding me.”

“Your brother was on the other side of you.”

“I know. But in my memory, it’s just you. Because especially when I got older I could feel the heat from your body, and I… I wanted to touch you so bad, Adonis. But I knew that you didn’t see me that way.”

“No,” he said, his voice hard.

“Well, you do now. You know that I’m not weak. Let me be there for you. Let me guard you while you sleep. Let me stitch you up. Please, you silly man. Can’t you see that I can give you what you need?”

“You don’t know what I need.”

“Bullshit, Adonis, I know you. I think that’s what truly frightens you. I know all this about you. It doesn’t shock me you did that. And is it worse that I like it? That I like knowing you followed me? That I like knowing you were jealous?”