Rich (Benson Security #5) - Janet Elizabeth Henderson Page 0,98
bathroom.
“It’s still on my skin,” she whispered. “I wore it every day. Touched it all the time. And it was tainted.” Her gaze met his, her dark eyes pooled with tears. “Like me.”
“Never,” he said vehemently. If only one thing got through to her, he wanted it to be this. “You hear me. There’s nothing tainted about you. Nothing.”
“I can still feel the chain on my skin, the weight of the locket around my neck,” she whispered, her hand drifting to her already torn throat. “It’s like a noose.”
Harvard settled her on the low stool in front of the bathroom vanity and started the shower before quickly shedding his clothes. With care, he undressed Rachel too. All the while, she sobbed silently, rocking back and forth, lost in herself.
He lifted her against him and stepped into the shower with her in his arms. The hot water beating down on them, Rachel lay limply against his chest.
“Can you stand?” he asked softly.
There was no answer, just those agonizing sobs. After carefully placing Rachel on her feet, he held her up with one arm while reaching for the shower gel and washcloth with the other.
“I’m going to make it all go away, Rachel. You hear me? We’ll get rid of what’s left of that necklace. It won’t be there anymore. I promise I’ll take care of it. Just hold on to me, let me do this for you. I’ve got you.”
He lathered the cloth and tenderly wiped her throat, aware that the soap would make the raw scratches sting. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “We’ll get some cream on those soon.”
“I wore it with everything.” Her agony-filled eyes met his. “It touched all of my clothes.”
He carefully ran the cloth over her breasts and stomach. “We’ll get you new clothes.”
“It was a family tradition.” Her voice was an agonized breath. “I was supposed to put my future in that locket. When I met the man I planned to marry, when I had children, they were supposed to go inside.” Silent tears fell from eyes that held such depths of pain. “They took my future.”
He shook his head. “No, they didn’t. Your future’s standing right in front of you. They didn’t take anything from you. Nothing. Because you’re too strong. You hold it all tight inside of you, where they can’t get any of it.”
“I was part of a tradition…” Her eyes begged him to understand, to recognize all that had been stolen from her, and his heart broke all over again. “One that ended with me.”
“We’ll start a new tradition. One that we can pass down to our kids.”
Her hand fluttered to her throat. “I can still feel it there.”
“I swear, it’s gone. You got it off, and you’ll never see it again.”
“Feel so dirty,” she mumbled, mostly to herself.
“Don’t you feel me washing it all away, Rachel?” He ran the cloth down her back and over her hip. “Concentrate on how it feels. Can you smell the shower gel? It’s like flowers in the spring. Daffodils. Take a deep breath; let it fill you. It smells good, doesn’t it? Fresh. New. Do you feel my touch, Rachel? My touch. Not theirs. Not anyone else’s. It’s just you and me here. Concentrate on that. On me washing all the memories away for you.”
He added more soap to the cloth before making sure he wiped it over every inch of her. Head to toe. “When we get out of here, all the bad memories will be gone. Everything will be clean and fresh and new. But underneath it all, there will still be you. The you nobody can change or damage because you’re strong and smart, and so courageous that you scare me half to death. All the rest of it, what they did, that’s just on the surface, and we’re washing it away. All that will be left is Rachel. The amazing, difficult, gorgeous woman I love so damn much.”
She pressed her forehead to his chest, her fingers curling into his hips as she cried herself raw. “Michael,” was all she said.
“Yeah, I’m your Michael.” He kissed her head before rinsing away the soapsuds and wrapping her in a thick white towel.
Once he’d dried her off, he carried her to the bed, where he climbed in and sat with his back against the headboard, Rachel cradled in his lap. He shut off the lights with the remote and held her close, protecting her in his arms as she cried herself to sleep.