Page 79 of I Would Beg For You
Outrage dies as I reckon, I can’t fault his reasoning. That pinch still smarts.
Renata comes in then with a tray holding a bowl of steaming liquid which she places on my lap. It smells divine, rich and invigorating. I pick up the spoon as she leaves, dip it into the deep brown liquid, but it’s a huge effort to bring it to my lips.
“Here,” Valentino says as he grasps the spoon from my grip. “Lay back.”
I’m too tired to ask what’s going on, so I lean back into the pillows he propped up and let him feed me spoonful after spoonful of soup.
I’d never thought him such a patient man. Driven, stubborn, earnest, yes. Caring, too, of course. But this, it’s on another level,and it breaks something in me just as it sweeps some other broken parts and makes them whole again.
I’ll bawl if I think of all this, so I focus on conserving what little energy I have left and eat. When the bowl is empty, Valentino gets up to place the tray on the coffee table in front of the fire. The food has given me sustenance, and I’m not feeling so weak anymore. Spent, yes, but I can face up to some things now. Starting with the truth.
“What happened, Val?”
He sighs as he comes back to the bed. I’m a little surprised when he presses his back to the headboard and scoots in next to me. His arm opens out, and I don’t need to think twice before slipping into it, his warm hand wrapping over my shoulder as he clasps me to him.
“What do you remember?” he asks.
Images flood my mind, and I gulp. “I…I don’t want to talk about that. Can we not talk about it?”
He presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“Okay.” His chest heaves up and down with a heavy inhale and sigh. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come out with it.”
Dread is pooling inside my gut now. “Go on.”
He sneaks in another deep breath. “You were committed to a mental institution on a seventy-two-hour psych hold.”
I rear back with the shock and stare, wide-eyed, into his face. “What? Why?”
“I don’t know why. All I know was I needed to get you out.”
I frown. “And you did? You got me out?”
He nods.
I don’t recall any of this. I remember those blasted flashes from this godforsaken place I now know is a mental institution, which prompts me to shiver, but aside from feeling weird on the campaign trail lately, nothing’s really clocking.
Sudden insight fills me, and I balk, swallowing the contents that just made their way back up my throat. I sure didn’t commit myself, and Val said I was committed—meaning someone else did this to me. Someone… No! It can’t be! But…
Horror floods every inch of me, and the tears start flowing. Only one person could’ve done this. After what I told him had happened to me in the house, things changed. That’s what had been feeling off.
“My…my father?” I croak out.
Valentino’s jaw clenches, a small muscle ticking along one side, and he nods.
I blink. I’m not safe with my own father. Just like my mother. Everything I’ve learned about him since being with Valentino bombards my mind under a new light. Anya said he wouldn’t take my side when I told him Thad assaulted me.
“Why would he do this?” I ask.
“His career,” Val bites out.
I’m just a pawn to him. Just like my mother. He raped her when she was still so young, turned her head, married her for her money… Strange how I’d always known he’d married for money, yet it never dawned how nefarious that idea actually was. He doted on me, is still so much a philanthropist, I guess I blipped this out as a little girl and never let myself face the truth. He’s not a good man. Never was. And now, I’m convinced my mom didn’t have an accident—either he killed her, or she took her own life.
She hadn’t been safe with him, and neither am I.
“What am I going to do, Valentino?”
His nostrils flare. “There is something.”
