“No,” he said. “But with how I feel about the sanctity of the institution, what it means to the Church… to force you into marriage… whatever our arrangement otherwise, I can’t do it if it’s going to torment you like this.”

She looked away, her eyes studying the black and silver pattern on the shower curtain. “Please don’t call it off.”

Leo pulled her back into his arms. He pressed his lips against her cheek. “I won’t.”

They got under the spray together, and he gently washed her. She leaned against the wall, quiet and still as a trophy as he ran his hands over her with the soap, not moving until he pulled her under the water to rinse her.

He put the soap in her hands and groaned as she lathered him. Faith lingered on his cock, stroking and squeezing with her soapy hands. She didn’t slow down until he came. He hadn’t asked her to do it. She’d seen his raging erection and had taken care of matters because she understood it was her duty to keep him satisfied. He gripped her shoulders as he rode the fading strains of his orgasm.

Then she went back to washing him as if nothing had happened. When she reached his back, she started crying again. Tears she couldn’t stop or control.

The scars.

When he’d asked Esmeralda to make him pay for what he’d done, he hadn’t thought about how the scars would be a permanent reminder, not just to him, but to Faith, and not just about what he’d done to try to make it right, but what had precipitated the event to make it necessary: that night that could never be erased, no matter how much blood flowed to cover it.

But Faith’s words surprised him. “Your poor back. How could you let someone do this to you?”

Her fingertips traced over the scars as his silent tears blended into the falling water.

19

Faith sat in front of a mirror in the many-windowed room in the east wing. Her wedding veil lay before her on the vanity table. Gemma had offered to help her get ready, but it was a ruse to try to talk Faith out of marrying her brother. It was anathema to her that Leo should be happy after killing her husband.

“I know my brother is very charming, but you know what he did to Emilio. What makes you think you’re safe with him?”

As if Faith needed more things to fear. Though Leo hadn’t harmed her since that one night, it always existed as a possibility now.

“Leo loves me,” she said. It hurt to say it because he’d never uttered those words, and she had no reason to believe it. But people assumed marriage was about love, and if she didn’t speak in terms of romance and candy that his sister could relate to, someone might see through the whole ploy. And they were so close to the end.

“Leo loves Leo.”