"Don't I?" I reach up, touching his chest, and I feel him flinch. "Damian, your violence isn't something I'm afraid of. It's something I'm grateful for. Because that violence, that brutality you hate so much about yourself—it's the reason I'm alive. It's the reason my son is safe."
He pulls back from my touch, shaking his head. "You're twenty-two years old. You should be dating college boys, going to parties, living a normal life. Not tied to a man who?—"
"Who what? Who makes me feel safer than I've ever felt in my life? Who looks at my son like he's precious? Who touches me like I'm something worth worshipping?" I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "You keep talking about my age like it makes me some kind of child. But I wasn't too young when you had me bent over your bathroom sink, was I? I wasn't too young when you fucked me while I was tied to your bed until I screamed your name."
A muscle in his jaw ticks, and I can see the war going on behind his eyes. Desire battling with guilt, need fighting against what he thinks is right… and something else, too, something that I’m afraid to let myself see, because it looks too close to what I feel, and I’m afraid to let myself believe that he feels it, too.
"I feel guilty about that," he says finally. "I struggle with it every day, Sienna. About taking advantage of you, about the power dynamic?—"
"Stop." I cut him off, my voice fierce. "Just stop. You didn't take advantage of me. I wanted everything we did together. I asked for it, begged for it, and you know what? If I’d said no, if I’d told you to stop, you would have. Because, despite what you think about yourself, you're not a monster. You're a man who's capable of incredible gentleness, incredible control."
"Sienna—"
"I'm not done." I'm on a roll now, all the hurt and frustration of the past few days pouring out of me. "You want to know what I think? I think you're scared. I think you're so used to being alone, so used to thinking of yourself as unworthy of love, that when someone actually feels something for you, you panic."
The word hangs between us like a live wire, and I see the exact moment it hits him. His face goes white, then red, and he takes a step back like I've physically struck him.
"You don't love me," he says, but his voice lacks conviction. He draws in a breath and looks at me, his jaw tightening. “Even if I wanted to let this be real, Sienna, even if I thought I wasn’t dooming you to a world you wouldn’t want to live in once the shine wore off, there are things you don’t know about me?—”
“I don’t care about the violence?—”
“Not that.” He cuts me off. “I can’t have children, Sienna.”
It feels as if all the air has been sucked out of the room. The memory of the scars I felt on him comes back to me in a rush, and it all makes sense now. I hadn’t asked because I wanted him to tell me on his own, even though I suspected it might be something like that. Now heistelling me… but not the way I’d hoped. Not confiding in me, but throwing it in my face as yet another reason we can’t be together.
I see his pulse beating in his throat, and I can tell it was an effort for him to admit it. To talk about something so personal. I feel guilty for dragging it out of him, but at the same time… I’m glad he told me. I just wish the way we were talking about all of this was different.
“There was an incident, when I was younger,” he continues, his voice tight. “After I came to work for Victor Abramov. I was beaten, badly. I can’t have children. I could never give you more…”
“I don’t care.” The words come out choked, and I fight back the tears burning at the backs of my eyes at the thought of someone hurting him, of Damian, much younger, broken and alone in a hospital room, hurt that terribly. I wish I could go back to that moment, hold him, comfort him. But I was a child then, probably. “I thought you might not be able to, the first time I felt your scars. It never mattered to me, Damian! That would never matter. I have Adam. I have a beautiful, perfect little boy who already adores you, who, by the way, has warmed up to you like I’ve never seen him with anyone. And if I wanted more children in the future, there are other ways.Youare what matters to me, not the idea of children that don’t exist yet and that we haven’t even talked about before this. But Damian, that's not what this is about, and you know it."
I can see the conflict written all over his face. Part of him wants to believe me, wants to accept what I'm offering. But the other part, the part that's been hurt and broken and taught to believe he's worthless, is fighting back.
"You don't understand what kind of life you'd be signing up for," he says desperately. "The danger, the uncertainty. The fact that any day, someone might put a bullet in my head and leave you a widow."
"You think I don't know that?" I laugh, and this time, there is humor in it, albeit dark. "Damian, I've been living with uncertainty my entire adult life. I've been a single mother working multiple jobs, never knowing if I'd be able to pay rent, never knowing if my son and I would be homeless. At least with you, I know you'd move heaven and earth to protect us."
"That's not the same thing."
"Isn't it?" I reach for him again, pressing my hand against the front of his chest, and this time he doesn't pull away. "You want to know what scared me? Dancing at that club, never knowing which customer might follow me home. Living in that apartment with locks that barely worked, wondering if someone would break in while we were sleeping. Raising my son alone, knowing that if something happened to me, he'd have no one."
I see something shift in his expression, and I press on.
"But with you? I've never felt safer in my life. My son has never been happier. He asks about you when you're not here. Did you know that? He wants to know when you're coming home, if you'll go swimming with us, if you’ll teach him how to dive again."
"Sienna—"
“We could be something,” I whisper. “We could all be something, if you’d just get out of your own head, Damian, if you’d just?—”
He steps back again, once more pulling away from my touch. “I’ll ruin you,” he says quietly. “This life, this world, will change you. I can’t let you be infected by it. I don’t want you to suffer or hurt because of me.”
I stare at him, and I know that he sees what he’s doing, whether he wants to or not. “Then why are you doing this?” I whisper, and his jaw tightens.
“I’ve already told you why. I can't give you what you want." His voice is flat again, emotionless, hard as stone. “You need to drop this, Sienna. You’ll be happier when this is over, and itwillbe, very soon. I’m going with Konstantin to deal with Russo now, and when I come back?—”
“You’ll divorce me.” My voice sounds hollow, and I can see that his eyes look the same way, his expression flat and dead as if he can’t allow himself to feel anything at all.
“We’ll talk about it when I come back. Make arrangements?—”
