Page 111 of Merry Fake Bride

But if I say yes, he’ll see.

He’ll see what Axel left on me.

He’ll see my rolls of flesh, the curves and flab I fight so hard to keep hidden despite the obvious curves of my body.

Maybe he’ll be disgusted and immediately understand why Axel treated me so horribly, but just as that reflex bursts through my mind, guilt follows.

Kairo has never said or done anything cruel and it’s unfair of me to assume he will do something like that now.

But my mind won’t stop.

Maybe this is what I need. I need him to see and I need him to react so I can stop falling in love with a dream.

“Yes,” I say, and relief pulses through my chest that my voice didn’t betray my nerves.

His fingers shift at the base of my neck, then the soft whoosh of the zipper fills the air between us.

As it glides down my back, my breathing grows slightly easier as the tight material of the dress relaxes around my body.

The corset loosens, the sleeves grow relaxed around my shoulders, and the only tension comes from my clammy skin as my heart attempts to punch its way out of my ribcage.

The zipper reaches the bottom of my back, resting just above the swell of my ass, and heat prickles across my skin while the back of my dress gradually falls open.

Kairo’s breath hitches and I want to cry.

He’s seen it.

Of course he has.

A mixed patchwork of scars from Axel’s cigarettes across my shoulder, injuries from being thrown into furniture that cutskin and grazed my body, and one thicker scar just below my shoulder blade and sweeping toward my spine.

Where his knife tore into me the day I left.

Kairo doesn’t speak.

I’m suspended in fear, frozen as I imagine all sorts of looks crossing Kairo’s face.

But just as the smothering, desperate feeling to cover up rises like claws in my throat, he touches me.

Softly at first, with just his fingertips.

They brush against my lower back and caress over a small scar there, one of the many that I can’t tell where it came from.

I flinch, but Kairo doesn’t pull away.

His touch remains like a singular point of warmth that gradually becomes so intense that I need to move away.

Before I do, Kairo moves instead.

His fingers sweep up my spine and he very slowly maps out the patchwork of small scars across my back like he’s trying to draw a picture of my past.

Up and up until he reaches the worst ones. The burns.

Not once does he recoil.

Not once does he flinch like he’s disgusted.

His touch remains gentle and sure and when he speaks, it’s like he really sees me.