I grit my teeth. I know that. I believe she has honest feelings for me. And she’s right. I’m punishing her for my own shortcoming because I have feelings for her. And therein lies the crux of the problem.

I tilt my head to the side and narrow my gaze. I need to end this. Now. And I’m going to have to hurt her to do it for her own sake. But before I get a chance to speak, she does.

“I’ll even go first.” She takes a deep breath in, clenches her hands, and steels herself. When she looks up at me, I see the child she was in her eyes. One who once trusted the world. “My father,” she says, her chin trembling, voice a quiet breath.

“Your father what?” I ask tightly, seeing how the emotion of what she’s trying to tell me is taking a physical toll on her.

She swallows hard. It’s a long minute before she continues. “The scars. You wanted to know who did it. And I’ve never told anyone in the world. Only Antonia knows because she found me that night in the chapel. She’s kept my secret even from Santi.”

A lump forms in my throat. Something familiar. But for Mercedes to have endured something as brutal as the beating that left her scarred, it’s just wrong. I have the urge to draw her to me and hold her. It takes all I have to keep my arms at my sides.

“How old were you?”

“Ten.”

“Jesus.”

“I wanted to stop playing the piano, and he basically told me I wasn’t stopping. It’s why I haven’t played since he died. It’s why playing here has meant so much.”

I drop into the seat behind me and rake my hand through my hair. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

Kneeling between my legs, she puts her hands on my knees and looks up at me. Fuck. She’s so hopeful. So vulnerable.

“Now you tell me why you won’t marry.” I watch her little face and brush hair back from her forehead. How could he have done it? But isn’t that what my grandfather did to my mother? She wasn’t ten, though. Still. What he was capable of. What I know I’m capable of. Violence runs in our family. “That’s how trust works, Judge. It’s how it grows.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She won’t understand the meaning of these words and how deeply I mean them.

Mistrust hardens her eyes. Wipes away any trace of the vulnerable girl.

I get up, grab the pajama set she must have taken off and left on the foot of the bed, and drop it on the chair I just vacated.

“Get dressed and go to your room, Mercedes.”

“What?”