Chapter 4 - The Unveiling
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Take off the dress.
The words weren't delivered with romantic passion, nor were they spat out with crude sexual malice. They were spoken flatly, like a command given to a subordinate at the end of a long workday.
I stood frozen in the center of the Persian rug, my fingers clutching the heavy silk fabric of my skirts.
In the world I came from, a husband demanding his bride remove her dress on their wedding night meant one thing. It meant the debt was due. It meant the transaction was about to be fully consummated.
I had spent weeks preparing myself mentally for this exact moment. I had told myself that surviving Roman DeLuca’s bed could not possibly be worse than surviving Charles Whitmore’s study. I had built a thick wall around my mind, preparing to disassociate, to pull my soul far away from my body while he took what the contract said he owned.
“Evelyn,” Roman said, his voice lower now, taking a slow step toward me. “Did you hear me?”
“I heard you,” I whispered. My voice sounded thin, frail, completely lacking the composure I had maintained all evening.
I reached up with trembling hands to unpin my veil. My fingers fumbled with the delicate pearl hairpins, dropping one onto the rug. I pulled the veil free and set it on the edge of the dresser.
Then I reached behind my neck to find the top hook-and-eye closure of the dress.
The dress had been custom-designed with fifty individual, tiny silk-covered buttons running down the spine, from the top of the high lace collar all the way down to the small of my back. It was an intricate, beautiful piece of couture design—and completely impossible for a woman to undo by herself.
My fingers strained, reaching over my shoulder, but I could only manage to unhook the top two buttons near my throat.
I let out a shaky, frustrated breath, my shoulders slumping slightly.
Roman watched my hopeless effort for a few seconds. He set his empty whiskey glass down on the tray, unbuttoned his cuffs, and walked slowly across the room until he was standing directly behind me.
I went entirely still. Every nerve ending in my body screamed in high alert. I could feel the heat radiating from his chest through the thin lace of my dress. He smelled of rain, cedarwood, expensive wool, and aged whiskey.
“Let me,” Roman murmured. His voice was right near my ear, warm and heavy.
“I can manage,” I lied, my voice shaking.
“You can’t reach the middle buttons, Evelyn. Hold still.”
He didn't wait for my agreement. His broad, long fingers reached up to the back of my neck.
I closed my eyes tightly, biting the inside of my lip, bracing my entire body for impact, for a rough pull, for the sharp hands of a man taking what he believed was his property.
Instead, Roman’s fingers began working through the buttons with extraordinary, patient care.
One button slipped free from its tiny elastic loop.
Then a second.
Then a third.
His knuckles were broad and heavy, yet he handled the delicate silk loops with meticulous, surgical precision. He didn't rush. He didn't yank the fabric. He moved down my spine slowly, button by button, opening the heavy dress.
As the buttons came undone, the high lace collar parted, exposing the bare skin of my upper back and neck to the cool air of the room.
By the time he reached the twentieth button, near the middle of my shoulder blades, the thick silk fabric began to loosen and fall away from my shoulders.
And that was when Roman’s hands abruptly stopped.
The absolute stillness that descended upon the room was far more terrifying than any movement would have been.
Roman didn't undo the next button. He didn't step back.
His breath, which had been steady and slow against the back of my neck, suddenly hitched. A sharp, violent intake of air echoed in the quiet room.
“Evelyn,” Roman whispered.
His voice didn't sound angry. It didn't sound stern.
It sounded completely, utterly horrified.
I opened my eyes, my breath catching in my throat. I realized what he was looking at.
The extra lining I had asked the seamstress to sew beneath the lace had shifted as the dress opened. The high collar had fallen open completely, exposing my left shoulder, my collarbone, and the upper span of my back to the warm firelight.
Exposing the deep, sickening purplish-black bone bruise on my collarbone where my father had ground his knuckles into my skin at the reception.
Exposing the long, thin white track scars running across my shoulder blades—faded marks from a heavy leather belt that had caught me three years ago when I stood between my father and a terrified fourteen-year-old Olivia.
Exposing a raised, jagged scar near my ribs where a heavy crystal decanter had shattered against my skin when I was seventeen.
A map of ten years of systematic, brutal domestic torture.
Roman’s hand came up, hovering a fraction of an inch above my bare shoulder. He didn't touch me—it was as if he was afraid that touching the damaged skin would cause me physical pain.
“What... what is this?” Roman rasped, his voice trembling with a terrifying, raw emotion I had never heard from him before.
I pulled the front of the dress tightly against my chest, trying desperately to yank the fabric back up over my shoulders, panic flooding my veins like liquid fire.
“It’s nothing,” I said quickly, my voice high and frantic. “It’s old. It’s an accident—I fell down the stairs years ago—it’s nothing, Roman, please—”
“Do not lie to me!” Roman roared.
The power of his voice shook the room, echoing off the high stone walls. But it wasn't the roar of an attacker. It was the anguished, furious shout of a man who had just stumbled into a nightmare he hadn't known existed.
He stepped around to face me, his dark eyes wide, burning with an incandescent, terrifying fire. His gaze moved from my pale, tear-streaked face down to the exposed skin of my shoulder and collarbone.
He saw the distinct, undeniable shape of human fingers outlined in the fresh black bruise on my collarbone. He recognized the shape. He had seen enough violence in his life to know exactly what a human hand looked like when it was used as a weapon.
Roman’s eyes snapped back up to mine.
“Charles,” Roman whispered, the name leaving his lips like a toxic curse. “Your father did this to you.”
I couldn't speak. The lies I had spent ten years perfecting withered and died in my throat. I stood before him, clutching my wedding dress against my body, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes and running down my hot cheeks.
Roman took a slow step closer, his broad frame trembling with a rage so absolute, so vast, it seemed to fill every corner of the massive room.
He looked at the fresh bruise. Then he looked at the old, pale scars.
He put the pieces together in three seconds.
The high collars. The long lace sleeves in the middle of summer. My complete isolation from society. My immediate, quiet compliance. The way I had flinched when he reached for my veil. The way I had collapsed back into his chest at the reception when Charles had touched my shoulder.
He had thought I was a spoiled, fragile princess who was hiding behind her father’s wealth.
He realized in that second that I was a prisoner of war who had been living in an enemy bunker my entire life.
“He hit you,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a whisper so quiet, so cold, it felt like a razor blade sliding across silk. “He’s been hitting you for years.”
I lowered my head, my shoulders shaking as silent sobs wracked my body. “He... he didn't touch Olivia,” I whispered, desperate to defend the only thing that mattered to me. “I made sure he never touched Olivia.”
Roman closed his eyes for two long seconds.
When he opened them, the dark, controlled man who had married me eleven minutes ago to avenge his brother was completely, utterly gone.
In his place stood a monster.
A monster that had just found a new, singular target.
Roman reached out, his broad, warm hand coming up to gently, impossibly softly, cup the uninjured side of my face. His thumb wiped away a hot tear from my cheek with a tenderness that shattered what was left of my composure.
“Evelyn,” Roman said, looking directly into my eyes with a frightening, absolute vow. “Look at me.”
May you like
I looked up at him through my tears.
“I married you to destroy your father,” Roman whispered, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying, beautiful flame. “I thought I was going to ruin his life by taking his company. But tonight... tonight I promise you on my brother’s grave, Charles Whitmore will bleed for every single mark on your skin.”
