Page 8 of My Dark Fairy Tale
Cazzo, this girl was entirely alone and without a penny to her name.
“What am I going to do?”
I startled at the quiet voice behind me and glowered as I turned to face Guinevere. “Did I not tell you to stay in the car?”
She ignored me to lean stiffly into the driver’s seat beside me. “What’s the point in even leaving my purse and wallet if he was just going to take everything inside it?”
I didn’t have an answer for her, even though I felt enraged on her behalf. I’d never heard of Galasso, but it shouldn’t be hard to find the man. I had contacts throughout the region, and it was a fairly uncommon name.
A sniffle drew my attention back to Guinevere, who had one hand braced against the side of the car, eyes squeezed shut and torso swaying.
“What am I going to do?” she whispered before collapsing to her knees and vomiting into the gravel.
Without thinking, I crouched beside her to hold back her hair as she emptied the contents of her stomach. When she was finished, she slumped heavily to the side, and I used my body to prop her up.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracking slightly. “I’m a mess. I promise I’m not usually a damsel in distress. I can hold my own. If you could just give me a ride to the nearest town, I can file a police report a-and call my dad to wire me some money to tide me over until I can get new credit cards. I-I just need ...” She sucked in a huge, wet breath through her mouth to steady herself. “I just really need you to drive me to the next town, if that’s okay?”
The man I had spent the last four years honing myself into like the sharp edge of a blade shattered into pieces. The contrast of herchin-tipped, trembling-lip bravery against the dark, tear-glazed vulnerability was simply impossible to guard against. Some part of me wanted to think she was pathetic, crumpled on the ground beside her own sick, having lost everything because of girlish naivete. But I couldn’t force it.
I found myself admiring her gumption, moved by her tenacity.
I wanted to curl her tight into my side and use my body to shield her from all the horrors of her Italian dream turned nightmare.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to be someone’s knight in shining armor.
“No,” I found myself saying. My fist was still loosely wrapped in her hair, but she didn’t pull away, and I liked the silk texture against my palm.
She deflated slightly, and I paused to see if she would finally fall to pieces. Instead, she sucked in another bracing breath through her teeth and pulled her shoulders back like she was preparing for battle.
Something in the fallow soil of my heart germinated and threatened to take root.
“No,” I repeated, softer, my hand sliding from her hair so I could stand and offer her my hand. “You will come home with me and stay until you are on your feet again,capisci?”
She blinked up at me with those large dark eyes, and for a moment, I couldn’t push air through my lungs.
“Are you serious?”
“Deadly,” I said with a grin, the edges sharp enough to hurt my cheeks.
She didn’t seem intimidated by the offer, which made me irrationally furious with her. Where was her sense of self-preservation?
If she so much as looked in my trunk, she would know I was not the kind of man anyone should accept help from.
“I don’t think I could impose on you,” she said, worrying her lower lip as she took my offered hand and let me lift her from the ground. “You seem like a busy man.”
Her gesture encompassed my car and the three-piece suit that had become rumpled beyond belief.
I shrugged one shoulder. “I am. But no matter what I am, I refuse to be the kind of person who leaves a girl alone in the dark on the side of the road to fend for herself. Now, get in so we can get you cleaned up and checked out.”
“You’re sure?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is this an American tic? I have said I am sure, and each time you ask, it merely delays the inevitable. Now, are you coming with me, or am I leaving you here to enjoy the quiet countryside?”
Her answer was to move, haltingly because of her side, to the passenger door of the car.
“I thought so,” I muttered.
Before driving off, I decided it would be prudent to check the contents of my trunk, so I unlocked it and opened the hatch.
