“Stefano would always be there when I was a toddler long before Eloisa, but when I was older and still had nightmares, he was away training. He wouldn’t have allowed Phillip and Eloisa to come near my room. By that time, Stefano dealt with all of us pretty much exclusively in the parent department. Eloisa still made most of the decisions when it came to training us. I’ll give her respect when it comes to riding. She is an excellent shadow rider, and she definitely wanted all of us prepared for the severities of riding. Stefano is just as tough on us but in a different way.”
She was silent, her hands back to working on his scalp. He loved that feeling when she would start over, fingers soft again, moving in those slow circles, massaging every inch of his pounding skull before taking on strength and finding pressure points.
“Princess.” He prompted her with one word. He felt a little guilty. He’d convinced her she needed to talk to him in order to keep him from thinking too much about his failures. He wanted to hear about her childhood. Things even her older brother didn’t know.
She sighed. “Once Stefano left, things didn’t go well for me. Ricco was gone as well. Giovanni left on and off. They weren’t really supposed to leave until they were a certain age, but Eloisa didn’t like to have to deal with them, so she sent them away without Stefano’s knowledge.”
“Leave for where?”
“There are other rider families, so we’re often trained by other riders. I’m younger, so Eloisa and Phillip were stuck with me. I kept having nightmares and I’d scream bloody murder in my sleep. Eloisa’s preferred method of waking me was to slap me silly or throw ice-cold water in my face, drag me out of bed onto the floor and dump more water on me. I was disoriented and would start to fight. She would immediately fight back as if we were in the gym and I’d get my ass kicked. Then she’d leave the room and tell me to clean up the bed and myself.”
Valentino lay perfectly still, listening to the air moving through his lungs as he breathed. Blood rushed through his veins. He didn’t make any effort to contain the anger sweeping through him. He just let the sparks move from his body to hers along all those nerve endings they shared in much the same way they shared sexual need.
“Val.” She breathed his name. “That was a long time ago.”
“It was yesterday.”
“She viewed nightmares and screaming as weakness.”
In the same way Giuseppi viewed his migraines. “You disturbed her perfect world.” He reached his hand up and laid it over hers, stopping the way her hands soothed his terrible pain. “I don’t know how she managed to give birth to a perfect woman like you, Emmanuelle. Everything about you is beautiful to me. Everything. That little stubborn streak. That fiery temper of yours. You kiss like sin. Your laugh is pure magic. I wouldn’t change one single thing about you. Even when you fuck up, when you decide to make things right, you just do it, no messing around.”
“I wanted her to see me, Val. I always felt so invisible. I am invisible to her. She’ll never see who I really am.”
He hated that she sounded so lost. If he could have moved, he would have pulled her down over the top of him. He liked her sprawled out on him, straddling him. Right now, the best he could do was just try to let her know she was his world. He saw her.
“She doesn’t want to see you, baby. You have to accept it and move on.”
“I’ve already done that. Finally. I chose you. The moment I did, I knew she would never accept that choice. I’m no longer a rider to her. She’ll do whatever Stefano decrees, but she’ll disown me as a Ferraro and a rider.”
“She might come around.” He knew Eloisa never would.
“It’s too late as far as I’m concerned.” She kissed his hand and then let go of it. “You need to go to sleep. You have work to do tomorrow, and you have to get rid of this migraine.”
She was right, Valentino knew: no matter what, he had to be on his feet in the morning. There was no stopping his woman. She would be going to find his medication. He knew her.
“If you do go to get my meds, Princess, take backup with you.” He didn’t open his eyes. She had him floating. Drifting. He was already sliding away, not remembering if she gave her promise or not, but he thought she did. He did feel her kiss on his forehead and then his lips.
Emmanuelle didn’t want to ask one of her brothers to go with her to get Valentino’s migraine medicine, but he needed the shot. Sometimes, when he got a migraine, he would get a series of them. The shot would break the cycle, but if it didn’t, he could take it the moment he felt one coming on and prevent one.