Grace climbed out of the steaming shower and dried herself off. In the days since her trip with Matteo, life had seemed to settle into some sort of rhythm she enjoyed, with him helping out with the baby and her father seeming to reach to some sort of truce with her. She wrapped a towel around her head, a robe around her body, and stepped into her bedroom.

"Grace.”

She jumped a mile. There, standing in the shadowed corner of her bedroom, was Mason Petrovich.

Her hand went to her chest, emotions warring for the upper hand within her. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

He started to move, the shadows sliding off of his skin as he stepped into the light. There was the strong and handsome face she remembered, the one she had fallen in love with, the one she’d expected to be dear for the rest of her life. Her head was swimming, dizziness threatening at the edges of her consciousness.

"I had to see you.” His eyes roamed her face, her neck, and lower.

“But—”

His jaw hardened. “You're married.”

She nodded, unable to say more. She was confused, befuddled—a hundred words canceling each other out until there were none.

“It’s good to see your face,” he said. “Do you know how many times I’ve imagined you were in front of me just so I could look at you again?”

Her memory was recovering from the shock of seeing him, bits of history dribbling into her mind like rain through a leaky roof. “You left me,” she said. “You walked out the door and you never came back.”

“Shh. It wasn’t like that.” He reached out to touch her cheek and she jerked her head back.

“Do you know what that did to me? How scared I was when I couldn’t find you?”

“If I could go back to that day and make a different decision, I would in a heartbeat.”

She was shaking her head, anger rising up within her. “I thought you were dead. I wandered the streets looking for you for days. I checked with hospitals. I called the morgue, for God’s sake.”

“I thought you would be better off without me.”

“Bullshit.” She pushed his chest hard with both hands.

“I know you must be angry."

"Angry?" There was a hysterical edge to her voice she could hear beyond its volume, and she wished she could make it go away, wished she could keep him from realizing how deeply he had hurt her. "I’m not angry. I’m livid. How did you get up here? You have no right to be in this room. No right to be in my life.”

“We could start again. We can go back to Switzerland or somewhere else away from politics and away from your father. We can be together.”

“I would sooner see you in hell than be with you again.”

He moved so quickly she was unprepared for his attack. He pushed her back against the wall, pinioning her with his body.

She screamed, and his hand covered her mouth. When he spoke, his mouth was too close to her ear, his voice too deep, and she struggled to move away from him. “I remember what it was like, that first time, when I took your virginity.”

She pushed against him, struggling to get free.

“Do you remember, sweetheart? Because I can’t forget, you little witch.”

His mouth was on her neck, wet and hurting her, the sound of him working his belt buckle free loud like the clanging of a bell.

She opened her mouth wide and bit his fingers. He pulled his hand back with a curse, and she screamed as loud as she could, “Matteo!”

His open hand slapped her across the face, the force of it slamming her skull against the wall, then his hand was back on her mouth and he was opening her robe, yanking at the fabric.

She imagined she was someplace else entirely, laughing with Matteo as they lounged on the bed, the baby between them. Mason cursed in her ear and she squeezed her eyes shut, desperate to stay in her own little world where this man couldn’t hurt her anymore.

She felt his naked erection on her hip and struggled against him as he tried to lift her leg. She heard her own muffled cries and thought they were pathetic, barely a whimper against his hand, never enough to save herself.

“Get your hands off my wife.”

Then Mason was gone, and her eyes flew open to watch Matteo’s fist sink into Mason’s face with an audible cracking of bone. She wiped at her face with a shaking hand and pulled her robe closer around her, watching punch after punch until Mason was clearly unconscious.

Maybe dead.

She hoped he was dead.

Then Matteo stood before her, his eyes intense and searching hers. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

She dove into him, desperate for the safety of his arms, the warm, familiar sweetness of this man making everything better, like cold water on a burn.

His hand stroked her hair, her back, her arms. “Are you okay?”

She nodded against his chest and opened her eyes. There on the floor was the father of her child, his face red and swelling, his pants pulled down around his knees and his penis hanging awkwardly to the side.

Men in security uniforms came to the door, instantly talking too loudly for her. “Get me out of here, please,” she said to Matteo, and he pulled her from the room.