His Corruption

Chapter 21

Cristian didn't react much. I waited for him to tell me how ridiculous I was, but then his gaze stroked the side of my face. Cool, collected like nothing else ever was in my life.

"I told myself I'd never do it, but I was pressured...I regret it everyday."

A slow breathe left my lips, but it cut off when Cristian stood and took a few steps towards the grass. Was he leaving?

Only he would walked over the grass like a psycho, I thought while lowering my head, but then he returned holding something in his hand. Something the opposite of the shadow holding it.

I stared at tattooed fingers wrapped around a thorny stem, upon which sat a white rose. Confused, I trailed my gaze up his suit jacket to meet his eyes.

I knew this man held darkness in his clutches, I just didn't know he could bend it to his will. I'd never seen such a deep, yet innocent look in his eyes.

He sat next to me, pulling off a thorn from the stem.

"Why are you pulling the thorns off?" The words fell from my mouth before I could stop it. I lowered my head, again, expecting a mediocre reply from him before he proved me wrong.

"Why do they have thorns in the first place?"

"I...I don't know." I replied, feeling a little stupid even though it wasn't general knowledge. Cristian pulled his attention to the cemetery ahead.

"They're so beautiful, they need the spikes to keep animals from eating them." He paused. "They were made by the tears of Aphrodite, and the blood of her lover Adonis."

"Aphrodite?"

He spun the thornless rose in his hand, a distant, troubled look in his eyes that faded as fast as it came. "The Goddess of Love." When he held out the flower, I waited only a second before taking it.

"Do you like flowers?" I asked, wondering how he knew so much about a rose.

"I like knowing things. It was always a distraction." He forcibly cut off his sentence like he'd just gotten a flashback he didn't want.

Before I could ask him about it he ran a hand over his jaw, standing. "Come on, let me take you home."

And for once, I listened.

I followed a pathway of concrete plastered with orange leaves and feared my fathers wrath, all while finding comfort in the shadow of a man I never thought I'd consider to be safe.

He drove me home. Stopped his car an estate away from my own, and didn't drive off until after he watched me disappear past the gates. 

Luckily for me, I had another man waiting on the other side. Papa stood by the front door, watching me approach with an anger that contorted his expression.

The years of verbal abuse made me an expert in his psychology, so I knew walking past him would make him erupt. "Where the fuck have you been?" He spat, following me to the kitchen.

I was too tired to reply, so I didn't but it only made Papa grow furious.

"Pietro told me about your trick, don't think you're going to get away with it. I'm this fucking close to getting another two bodyguards watching you."