"Um, Silas, maybe I can manage this myself."
The headboard was slightly raised. Elara leaned against it,
looking up at him and blinking, trying to mask her profound embarrassment with
a show of nonchalance.
In the brightly lit room, the man had locked the door. His
sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, a basin of warm water beside him. His
muscular forearms, slick with water, gleamed under the lights as he looked down
at her.
"Darling," he said, his voice a low, patient
rumble. "I'm your husband. Taking care of you is the most natural thing in
the world. You need to get used to it. Or have you forgotten how you looked
after me when I was shot and feverish? You weren't a stranger to me then."
He understood her shyness and was determined to coax her
through it.
"And you have bruises on your legs that need a warm
compress. Can you reach those yourself?"
With his logic laid out so plainly, refusing felt childish.
She gave a hurried nod.
"Alright, alright, fine."
She could just close her eyes. If she couldn't see him, the
embarrassment would be more bearable.
True to her word, she squeezed her eyes shut and spread her
arms in a gesture of surrender, as if to say, 'I'm at your mercy.'
Silas felt a surge of fond exasperation.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he began to undo the buttons
of her soft, grey loungewear top. The pale fabric made her skin appear even
more luminous, and as it fell away, the smooth expanse of her skin glowed under
the light.
It was a scene that should have stirred desire, but all he
felt was a profound, aching tenderness. There was not a single impure thought
in his mind as he gently wiped her body with the warm, damp cloth.
He changed the water several times, his movements methodical
and careful. He paid special attention to the dark bruises marring her legs and
pelvis, applying the warm compress with a reverence that made her breath catch.
Finally, he tenderly dressed her in a fresh, clean set of
clothes.
Elara kept her eyes tightly shut, her senses heightened in
the darkness. She felt every gentle stroke, every careful press of the cloth,
with crystal clarity. He was handling her as if she were the most fragile
porcelain.
In that moment, her shyness and her aches faded away,
replaced by a wave of overwhelming safety.
The spell was broken by his soft, smiling voice. "You
can open your eyes now. Rest. I'm going to take a shower."
He dimmed the lights. When she opened her eyes, the room was
cast in a soft gloom, and all she could see was his tall, broad-shouldered
silhouette disappearing into the bathroom.
Her fingers drifted up to the gauze bandage on her neck, the
skin beneath it throbbing with a dull, persistent ache.
Silas emerged from a cold shower, a towel slung low on his
hips as he rubbed another through his damp hair. He approached the bed,
thinking she was asleep, but found her awake, her bright, clear eyes fixed on
him in the dim light.
"Still awake?" he murmured.
"Waiting for you," she whispered back.
This private luxury suite lived up to its name; the hospital
bed was significantly larger than standard, spacious enough for them both to
lie comfortably.
"Such a good girl," he chuckled softly. "Just
let me dry my hair. It won't take long."
True to his word, within five minutes, his hair was dry and
fluffy. He slipped into bed beside her. The moment his warm, solid chest
pressed against her back, she rolled over, wrapped her arms around his neck,
and buried her face in the hollow of his throat.
"Silas…" Her voice was a hoarse, muffled murmur
against his skin.
"I'm here. What is it, my love?" His heart
clenched at the sound—a mix of unspoken grievance and tentative probing.
She guided the hand he had draped around her waist up to the
gauze on her neck.
In that same muffled, vulnerable tone, she asked, "You
haven't changed my bandage. Do you… do you mind that he bit me? That another
man left his mark on me? Are you disgusted?"
Silas was momentarily stunned, then let out a soft,
incredulous chuckle. "What foolish thoughts are you thinking?"
He drew back just enough to lift her face, his thumb
stroking her cheek. In the dim light, her almond-shaped eyes were wide and
searching.
His gaze was intense, unwavering. "I mind that he dared
to put his hands—his teeth—on you. But what I mind more, what I will never
forgive myself for, is that I failed to protect you from it."
"I know he did it deliberately to provoke me. It was
his revenge. He wanted me to taste the bitterness of seeing my woman marked by
another man."
His voice was deep, thick with a guilt as heavy as the night
itself.
Hearing his raw, unfiltered honesty, Elara's eyes shimmered.
She remembered Steven's hate-filled screams, the name he had hurled like a
weapon. Her emotions became a tangled knot.
Elora Cohen… What had she really been like?
She must have loved him desperately.
The twisted history between Silas and the Cohen siblings
seemed to have been fully laid bare last night. As a woman, Elara could
viscerally imagine the horror Elora had suffered. How could she possibly judge
the things Elora had done, for good or for ill?
Silas seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts. He
pulled her back into his embrace, his voice taking on a distant, haunted
quality as he spoke into her hair.
"In those days, the Winslows and Cohens were like
family. Our parents were close. Elora was three years older than Steven and me;
she was just the sister I grew up with. That lasted until I was fourteen. That
was when Ingrid uncovered the truth—that my grandfather's and two uncles'
deaths weren't accidents. They were murders, meticulously orchestrated by the
Cohen family."
"The fallout was immediate and brutal. Ingrid drove
them out of the country, forcing them to flee to Italy."
"I was young, fuelled by rage and a thirst for
vengeance. I also felt deeply betrayed by Steven. How could he, knowing what
his family had done to mine, still act as if we were brothers? He had been my
closest friend..."
"So I took a team of my own men and followed them to
Italy. It took time, but I tracked them down. When I confronted them, it was
Elora who met me. She begged me to spare her parents. She swore they were
innocent, that it was her grandfather's plot, and that he was already dead. She
said the feud could end."
"I didn't listen. How could they be innocent? Ingrid
had survived countless assassination attempts. I was kidnapped when I was five.
My parents' car 'accident'... it was all part of the Cohens' plan to wipe out
the Winslow line and take everything."
"But I was reckless. Arrogant. I didn't see the trap.
The Cohens had already cut a deal with the Italian Mafia. They lured us into an
ambush."
His voice grew thick with remembered pain. "The men I
brought with me... they all died. Every single one. I was the only one
left."
"I was shot, too. I thought that was it. But then Elora
found me. She saved me. When the Mafia closed in again, she told me to run. To
take the car and go. She said she'd hold them off, that they wouldn't dare hurt
her because of her family's alliance with them."
"I believed her. I was bleeding, half-delirious. I got
in the car and I drove."
"What I didn't know... what I couldn't have
known..." He took a sharp, ragged breath. "Those men were animals.
They didn't care about alliances. They assaulted her. And they filmed it, to
blackmail the Cohen family into total submission."
"I crashed the car not long after. I was in a coma for
a month. When I woke up, Steven was there. He was the one who told me what had
happened to his sister. He blamed me for leaving her. And in his eyes, I knew I
deserved it."