Page 59 of Entangled

Cara stiffened.

Gian didn’t miss it.

“Or so she said,” he added, knowing it wouldn’t make a difference. The words were out there, and they hurt to know. “I had no reason not to believe her, or to think, if she was pregnant, the child might not be mine. Things moved very fast from that point—her father was suddenly involved, and all the things people heard or whispered about that man were right in front of my eyes and very true. He’s dangerous and he’s volatile. He’s manipulative and evil. But aren’t we all, in some way?”

Gian shook his head, adding, “Elena wanted to get away from him, and that much was clear. I understood why, too, because he used her and he abused her. He was angry that she had been seeing someone behind his back; he’s so abnormally close to her, and controlling of her. At least back then. And when she refused to abort the pregnancy, he nearly beat her to death, and then had her sent to me.”

He dropped the spoon to the table with a clatter. “I saw a different Elena then, Cara. One that was scared and small, a victim of a man she just wanted to get away from. And to this day, no matter what that woman has done to me or what she might do in the future, I still see the Elena from that day. Bruised, and swollen, with a bloody, busted mouth, and dried blood matting her hair. I see her, and I never have to think why? I think, why not? Why not hurt, use, and manipulate to be free, to be happy? Why not use all the things your father taught you to do, in order to protect and advance him, to protect and advance yourself? It doesn’t give her a pass, sure, but it certainly makes more sense, in a way.”

Cara cleared her throat. “She was lucky she didn’t lose the baby, then.”

Gian chuckled darkly. “There was no baby to lose, Cara, but I’ll get there. Corrado pressured me to do the right thing, with Elena, but also where our family was concerned. He didn’t want to face a war with Gabriel on the streets, and he knew how dangerous the man could be. So, a marriage it was.”

“And that obviously happened.”

“Quite fast, within a couple of months of announcing the engagement.” Gian took Cara’s spoon from her, scooped some ice cream, and fed her the bite, waiting for her to finish before he continued. “Leading up to the wedding, we had to deal with the usual family things. Which put Elena front row and center for her father. His way of hurting her emotionally when he couldn’t hurt her physically, was to shame and embarrass her in front of me, or others. Does he know, her father would say, how you sucked the cock of the mayor’s son to pay off my debt? Things like that.”

Cara let out a shaky exhale, and looked away. “That’s terrible.”

“It reinforced my belief that I was doing the right thing, though I didn’t love her, and I knew what a marriage with someone meant in my world. It is for life, there is no out, except for death. But I thought, I was doing the right thing.”

“And then?”

“And then a week after we married, I caught Elena drinking wine. From the moment we walked out of the church on our wedding day, something changed with her. She no longer focused on me like she had once done—all that attention, the doting and the adoration, was gone. She didn’t need to pretend, you see. Not once she had gotten what she needed from me. I was pissed about the wine, because of the baby.”

“But there was no baby, you said?”

Gian nodded once. “She tried to say she had miscarried. We weren’t even having sex; we hadn’t fucked since the night we married, so how could I say for sure that she was or wasn’t losing the baby?”

“Was she?”

“No, there was no baby. I had her records at her doctor yanked, though it wasn’t my right to, and found there was no pregnancy, at least not within the months she had been with me. Six months before we had met, there had been an abortion on file. One of several over the years. She was actually on the depo shot, and had been since the last abortion, so a pregnancy was highly unlikely to begin with.”

“Oh, Gian.”

“Don’t do the pity thing,” Gian said, shooting Cara a lopsided grin. “Not for me. I overlooked a lot of things because I didn’t want to question a woman that was clearly in need of help. I was too busy feeding a hero complex and trying to do what everyone else wanted me to. By the time I realized how incredibly fucked I was, and how much Elena had manipulated me, it was too late.”

“You were married.”

Gian’s smile faded. “For life.”

“But—”

“There is no but, not for this. Not in the position I was, and while I wanted to send her back to her father with a fuck you and a smile, I couldn’t do it. And she fought with me daily, she raged at me. I gave her the things she wanted, a beautiful penthouse, new cars, furs, nearly a million in diamonds. I gave her everything she wanted, just to keep her happy for a short while, but that was the problem.”

“It only lasted for a short while,” Cara said.

“I couldn’t keep her happy, because she had gotten what she wanted from me, and as of that point, I was only a nuisance. So, I moved out, about a year after we married, though we hadn’t been even sleeping together or using the same bedroom from almost the day we married. We did it quietly, we were careful about our public side, making sure it still looked like we were a happy couple. We didn’t want to provoke her father, after all. Then, as time went by, we stopped pretending unless it was something big or important, like a wedding, a funeral, somewhere our faces might be shot on the news, or whatever.”

Cara reached out and stroked Gian’s cheek, surprising him at the tender touch. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, bella. It’s circumstance and details. That’s all it’s ever been, Cara. I don’t have a paper to say I’m divorced, because I can’t. Men like me can’t be divorced without ruining everything we worked for. And a divorce might push an already violent man over the edge—something else my family can’t afford right now.”

“What about … other relationships?”

Gian shrugged. “I haven’t had other relationships. For a while, even after we separated, I was faithful. Then one night, I met someone, and I was out of her place before morning even came. I didn’t have time to be in a relationship, or the effort it would take to keep up the charade. When you came along, I wasn’t so jaded toward women, because I hadn’t needed to be in a long time. I had no reason to distrust you, not when you showed your cards that first night, telling me what you did and didn’t want. And my God, there was something about you that made me sit down and pay attention. It just blew up from there.”

“And you were fucked again.”