He’d no longer been the skinny, bookish kid and the bullies had known it. After one particular fight, when he’d broken the nose of the ringleader and blackened the eyes of two others, they’d left him alone.

He hadn’t wanted to hit anyone since then. Until now.

How could anyone call Alessandra a slut?

‘Too many to name.’ She answered his question with a shrug.

‘How could they say such things? You were a child.’

‘I was seventeen. Old enough to know better.’

‘Do not tell me you blame yourself?’

that I swallowed Javier’s lies.’ Her eyes pierced right through him. ‘I should have known not to trust the

all men are

staring at him with the same piercing

‘No!’ he said forcefully.

jailer, the few friends he’d permitted me to have turned their backs on me because their parents didn’t want me corrupting them and Rocco had the humiliation of reading untrue, lewd comments about his baby sister. I’m sorry, but I will never trust you, Christian.

He rose from his seat, ignoring the throbbing pain across the front of his face, and crouched on his haunches before her. Placing a hand on her neck, he

one touch of her softness, one inhalation of her scent and his body responded, his groin tightening as

slowly. ‘If you do not believe anything else, believe that that means something

said the same thing to

swore and inhaled

matching the intensity of his stare, close enough for his oaky,

still pressed against her neck, heating her skin. For a moment she lost her train of

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