Reviving Bianca Read online

  Grayson stroked his fingers through Bianca’s silky hair as she spoke. He didn’t interrupt. Her gaze was fixed on a random spot across the room. But she was talking to him. Finally.

  “I think my mother was so relieved to have a place to live, food, shelter, clothes, that she swallowed the fact that her brother was abusive. I don’t know when it began with her, probably before I was born. All I know is that he often turned his anger on me, and it escalated as I got older. I can’t remember a time when he didn’t hit me for some perceived transgression.”

  Grayson pursed his lips to keep from making a sound. Who beat on a small child?

  “I couldn’t please him no matter what I did. He thought kids should already be obedient from a very young age, so he spanked me nearly every day. He wanted me potty trained, so he spanked me when I had an accident. He didn’t think I should cry, so he spanked me if I even whimpered.

  “It became routine. I was a shy kid. I didn’t have friends when I went to school. I didn’t want anyone to know about my home life. Hell, I was probably eight or nine before I realized other people’s fathers didn’t spank them.”

  Grayson held his breath, his heart aching for the little girl who had no friends and no one to turn to.

  “I learned quickly that nothing I did would alter his behavior. I lived in a sort of spiral. He would beat me as though it were somehow cathartic. And then he would stomp from the room. The next day he would wake up with a different personality, overly doting, making sure I had my lunch or money to buy hot lunch. He sometimes even told me he was so sorry he’d lost his temper.

  “I held my breath during those calmer days, waiting for him to swing the other way again. I kept a tally on the corner of the wall next to my pallet to mark the days before it started over again.”

  Grayson got stuck on the strange word she’d used—pallet, but again, he didn’t interrupt.

  “I knew I needed to toe the line, do as I was told, and work my ass off to get out of that house as soon as I could. So, I buried myself in books. The librarian provided me with a world of books I could escape in. She knew how I loved science, but she always stuck a fictional story in my stack.

  “I credit her with my life. She gave me an escape and an education that was far superior to anything I learned in my seven hours at school. By the time I went to high school, I knew I was way ahead of the other kids, but I did my work anyway, kept my head down, and impressed the hell out of my teachers.”

  Grayson smiled. That part he could imagine.

  Bianca sighed, a few moments of hesitation filling the space before she continued in a softer voice. “I remember the day he switched from spanking me to using a belt. I was seven. I spilled my milk at the dinner table. My uncle shoved his chair back so fast, I knew I was in serious trouble.

  “He was livid, ranting about how clumsy I was and how much trouble I caused him after everything he did for me. That I was wasteful and ungrateful and inconsiderate.

  “He yanked me out of my chair by the arm, tugged his belt through the loops, took me over his knee, and struck me so many times I lost count. I screamed, but that only made him hit me harder. When he was done, I rushed to the bathroom to be alone. I was bruised and bleeding from several cuts.”

  “Where was your mom?” Grayson asked softly, hoping she wouldn’t be jerked out of her story if he asked a few questions.

  Bianca laughed, but it wasn’t a good laugh. It was bone chilling. “She was there. She often tried to intervene. She would beg him to take his anger out on her instead. Sometimes he would laugh and agree to punish her in my place. Other times, he simply backhanded her to keep her out of the way. She would cry and plead and beg, but she never took me away from that house.”

  Grayson gasped internally, but he wasn’t breathing, so his reaction stayed inside.

  “I cleaned myself up as best I could that night and went to sleep on my stomach because it hurt too badly to lie on my back. I sobbed quietly for a while and then went into my mind and started what would become a daily pep talk to get me through the next ten years of my life.”

  “Did you have your own room?”

  Bianca shook her head. “No. I had a pallet on the floor in the corner of my mother’s room. I slept in the bed with my mother when I was little, but when I was about six, my uncle forbade me from doing so anymore, and I switched to a mat on the floor. I slept there until I moved out.

  “I never slept on a mattress again until I got to West Point. It felt so soft that it took me over a month to adjust. I even considered sleeping on the floor in my dorm room, but I didn’t want to cause my roommate to question my weird behavior, so I gradually grew accustomed to the mattress.”

  Jesus. “Was that the only time he hit you with a belt?” Grayson knew the answer already, but he needed her to continue the story. Get it all out. Now. So there were no more lingering secrets.

  That dry sardonic laugh filled the room again, bringing chills to his arms. “Not even close. No matter what I did, Jorge found a reason to beat me. He gradually got bolder until he switched from his belt to a whip. The kind you would use on a horse. He did, however, get more precise as I got older, carefully ensuring he didn’t strike me anywhere that would be visible, and choosing holidays and weekends for more serious beatings when I wouldn’t be at school where anyone might see my welts.”

  Grayson winced. Unimaginable. He swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat.

  “His hand and the belt were tolerable compared to the whip. He kept it in the corner of the living room, always visible. I learned young that I didn’t need to do anything specific to warrant a beating, so instead I made myself scarce as often as possible. I spent as many hours at school as I could, joining the track team in high school and staying late to work in the library until the last bus left.”

  “And no one ever found out? No one suspected? You never told a teacher?”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, he was careful when I got older. He often threatened to throw me and my mother out if we breathed a word about our family business. I needed to finish high school. I had goals. I had dreams. And they got bigger and bigger when some of my teachers started helping me by making suggestions about my future. I owe my admission to West Point to my high school counselor. Without her, I wouldn’t have had anything that huge on my radar.

  “And,” she blew out a breath, “although my mother was not emotionally available to me at any point during my childhood, she gave me one silent gift. She must have known I was applying to colleges because one day I came home and she had signed all the forms and left them in a pile under my covers. Not a single word.

  “I cried for over an hour that day. I cried for the mother who didn’t have the strength to save either of us. I cried for the little girl who had to grow up too young. I cried for the woman I knew I would never become.

  “I made a decision right then and there. Although I would never trust a man to get close to me in my entire life, I would become the best damn scientist alive. I would work my ass off to prove to anyone paying attention that I was not the worthless scum my uncle claimed.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I partly did it because I wanted to thumb my nose at him from afar. But I also just loved science that much. In any case, after I left that house and boarded a bus to New York, I never looked back, and no one made any attempt to contact me.

  “I suspect my mother never said a word, which would mean Jorge had no idea where I had gone. He probably thought I had run away, and that was my hope. As much as he obviously hated me, I assume at the time he was glad to be rid of me. A part of me knew he would have simply turned his wrath on my mother, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I had to save myself.”

  “Did you ever seek medical care?”

  She shook her head this time. “No, and Jorge had a pattern I learned. He would always strike me ten times. He counted. Each blow would be harder than the last. So, quite often it was the last strike that tore the skin and left a we
lt. I did my best to wash them and put ointment on them, but they left scars. So many scars, Gray.” She gripped his T-shirt with both hands, fisting the material.

  He ran a hand up and down her arm, praying to God she would take this last step so they could start to move forward together. “Show me, honey.”

  She tipped her forehead against his chest and held him tight, tears running down her face to wet his shirt. Her fist was tight against him.

  He held her close, his hands running up and down her back. He didn’t pressure her again. The ball was in her court. If she was ready, she would show him. If not, he would wait for another day. Either way, he would be by her side.

  She spoke against his chest. “I’m nervous. I’m worried I’ll never be able to fully relax in front of you or anyone for that matter. I’ll always be worried about what you see.”

  He leaned closer and kissed the top of her head. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. I don’t care about marks on your body. What if the roles were reversed and you found out I had some deformity from an accident or something that you hadn’t seen? Would you walk away?”

  She tipped her face back and met his gaze. “Of course not.”

  “Well, this is no different. I don’t give a single shit about your scars except to feel rage toward the man who put them there.”

  “But I don’t want you to feel rage or pity or sadness or anything at all. I just want you to go on picturing me perfectly whole in your mind. I don’t want the image replaced with the truth.”

  “Honey, being whole is a mental state, not a physical one. You couldn’t be any less whole if you lost both arms and both legs. It’s your mind I’ve fallen for. Now, I’m not going to deny that emotions will rise to the surface the first time you let me behind your walls. It will be unavoidable. But they will stem from the fact that I care about you. A lot. Enough that it hurts my heart to know someone struck you and dared to mark your body.”

  Seconds ticked by while she stared at him. There was a storm in her eyes. Fear.

  Finally, when he thought there was little chance of her revealing herself to him, she pushed away from his chest, wiped her eyes, and met his gaze. She held it for long seconds, and then she crawled off his lap, turned her back to him, and drew her shirt over her head.

  Grayson didn’t move a muscle. He held his breath as he let his gaze wander up and down her back. Dozens of stripes marred her otherwise perfect skin. Most of them weren’t raised but rather red lines that would never fully fade.

  She sat with her back to him stiffly, wearing nothing but a white bra, her T-shirt balled in her fists.

  After a minute, she started to move away, but Grayson reached for her waist and pulled her closer. He lowered her to her stomach on the bed, gently setting her head against the pillow. She kept her face turned away from him to the other side.

  Grayson set a palm on her lower back and smoothed it up her skin. She was a beautiful woman with so much energy and life. He hated that some asshole had used her as a whipping post. He hated that she’d been so emotionally and physically abused from such a young age.

  But he also knew he was falling in love with her. With the woman who was so strong she overcame her childhood singlehandedly. The woman who was a brilliant scientist. The woman who was so dedicated to her research that she’d spent the last few weeks studying every chance she got to catch up with the decade she lost. The woman who smiled at him and called him Gray. The one who’s breath hitched when he kissed her. The one who couldn’t keep her desire for him at bay.

  He didn’t care about the scars on her back that extended under the waistband of her jeans and probably ran in crisscrosses over her butt and down her thighs.

  He hated that the marks left her so emotionally scarred that she’d never shown a living soul. But he loved that she’d finally let him in. He knew how much guts it took. And he would cherish this trust for a lifetime.

  After trailing his fingers up and down her back, he leaned in and planted a kiss on one of the small welts against her shoulder blade. When she didn’t flinch, he nibbled a path up and down her back, kissing every mark, every welt, every red angry line of skin.

  When she sighed, relaxing into the mattress, he tugged his shirt over his head, eased his body to her side, and pressed his chest against her back. The skin-on-skin contact felt wonderful. The warmth. He slid his hand down her arm until he reached her fist, and then he wrapped his larger palm around her tiny hand and squeezed.

  Her breathing evened out as he held her. She didn’t try to move away or cover herself. When he decided he was probably squishing her too much, he hauled her to her side, keeping her back pressed to his front, clasping her hand in his between her breasts.

  He held her like that for a long time, his lips on her neck, still kissing her.

  “Thank you,” she finally whispered when he thought she might have been asleep.

  He couldn’t be sure what she was thanking him for specifically, but it didn’t matter. “Any time, honey. Relax. You’re okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

  He had no idea if his words would ever be true.

  Chapter 11

  Bianca woke up when a noise startled her. She was alone in the bed and she bolted to sitting in the dark. At some point Grayson had left her for long enough to turn off the lights and pull the covers over them.

  She was still dressed in her bra and jeans, but she’d slept hard in that uncomfortable attire with Grayson at her back the entire time.

  “Gray?” she called out softly, wondering what had awoken her.

  He stepped out of the bathroom. “Sorry, honey. I dropped something. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He kept coming until he sat on the edge of the bed and reached for her.

  “What time is it?”

  “Six in the morning. I think we should get back on the road.”

  She nodded, trying to get her mind to wake up fully.

  “I’ve already gathered our stuff. You want to take a quick shower?”

  She nodded again, sliding toward the edge of the bed next to him. She was fully aware she was wearing nothing but a bra, but somehow it didn’t cause her to panic. And she was exposed to him on two different levels. Not only had he never seen her back before last night, but he also hadn’t seen her in so little clothing.

  She lifted her gaze to his. The exhaustion of everything she’d told him still lingered. “Why did I stay in that house? Why didn’t I run away? I should have run. I was weak and stupid and dumb. No one loved me. My own mother couldn’t protect me. Why didn’t I run?”

  Grayson swallowed. “You were a child, honey. You did what you needed to survive. You endured his wrath while you prepared for your future. I’ve never met anyone as strong as you.”

  She tried to concentrate on Grayson’s words, forcing them to make sense. Was she as strong as he liked to think? She glanced down at her hands where she wrung them in her lap. “Am I, though?”

  He leaned closer, cupped her face again, and tipped her head back to meet his gaze. “You are. You became an amazing scientist. The government hired you to work on a secret project because of your strength. You persevered.”

  She nodded slowly, letting his words sink in. Why did he have to be so reasonable? “I’m not cured by any stretch of the imagination. There’s no guarantee just because I let you see my back, I can turn that into a healthy level of intimacy with you or any man.”

  “Well, you’re half right about that.” His tone was joking.

  She tipped her head to one side, questioning him.

  He smiled. “You’ll never have a healthy level of intimacy with another man. Not if I have a say in it. Just the one. Me.” He sat up straighter and grinned. “End of the line. Just think, you’ll never have to go through sharing all this information with someone else.”

  She groaned as she tipped her head back and looked at the ceiling. “Could you be any cockier?”

  “Probably. Every time I gain another piece of you, I silently
fist pump.”

  “Often not so silently, Gray,” she added as she tipped her head forward.

  He chuckled. “True. I’ll give you that. But only because you’re into me.” Another grin. “And it makes my heart swell to think I’m so lucky as to have gained your attention.”

  She inhaled slowly. “Okay. Where are we going?” She glanced at the room’s only window.

  “I lined up a safe house while you were sleeping. It will take us most of the day to get there—about ten hours—but no one will find us.”

  She tried to relax. Another safe house. Another group of strangers taking them in. Another week of being polite to people she didn’t know, when all she wanted to do was hide in a corner and stop socializing. “It’s gonna take a lot longer than ten hours if we continue to sit on this bed.”

  He leaned in, cupped her face, and kissed her sweetly on the lips. “Jump in the shower, then.”

  Grayson wasn’t wrong about the ten hours. He nailed the distance perfectly. They only stopped at gas stations and rest areas. Jane had packed them enough food before they left Nebraska to last for two days. Sausage biscuits for breakfast and sandwiches and chips and apples for lunch. They had a cooler with sodas and water.

  When Grayson finally pulled off the highway, she knew they were getting close, and she braced herself for the upcoming pleasantries. She was tired and antsy and didn’t feel social. But she wasn’t the sort of person to be rude to the people who were assigned to help them at this next stop.

  Grayson took several turns, winding through the mountains while Bianca watched the amazing views from the window. It was afternoon. The sun was high, and the sky was gorgeous.

  After a while, he turned onto a gravel road and took it for another half a mile before turning onto a driveway that led far enough off the road that she couldn’t see the house yet. When it finally came into view, she gasped. The quaint cabin took her breath away. It was small, and there were no other cars parked out front.