The Body #2: Lucio and Janie

Chapter 27 (Janie): The One Thing I Can't Give You

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

"Love?" I repeated, pushing back from Lucio's hug. "What do you know about love, Lucio?"

Had I not been watching him so closely, I might not have seen the brief look of vulnerability in his eyes before he wiped all trace of emotion from his face.

"Not much. Nothing, really," he admitted. "But I'd like to know more. I always wanted what Santo's parents had."

"I'm trying to imagine how your brain could process that: hey, I want a loving marriage so the way to achieve that is to bring another woman into my home and fuck her on my wedding night."

"I've explained that, Ginevra. I've apologized for it. I've told you how much I regret what I did and how much I hated hurting you in such a calculated way. I've told you that living with the knowledge of what I'd done to you and what it cost me is the hardest thing I've had to live with. But despite all that, I still can't change what I did that night."

"In all my life, no one had ever set out to teach me a lesson like that, Lucio. But it was five years before I knew it had been a lesson. All that time, I thought you were just rejecting me and I wondered what was wrong with me."

"Had you not run, little ghost, you would have seen that it wasn't a rejection the very next morning after our wedding. I woke up and told Chiara to leave, arrogantly intending to start our married life together. Told her I was done with her for good and wouldn't be seeing her anymore. I intended to be married to you, Ginevra, to be your husband fully and faithfully. Then I looked all over the house and grounds for you and realized you were just...gone. No trace of you anywhere. And nothing scares me, but the thought of you being out there and Dario finding you...that scared me. And I'm not a man who registers sad, but knowing that what I'd done had made you leave me, well, that gutted me. I'd failed you because I was busy being the man Dario wanted me to be, and not the man I wanted to be. "

"So much so that you were still trying to fuck other women that first year."

"I was. I already told you I was. My wife had disappeared, and I was pissed and not handling it well. Another way I'd proven my immaturity and another thing I'd change if I could. I kept hearing Dario in my ear telling me it was OK if I wanted to fuck other women, it was expected, it didn't matter...but strangely enough, not one woman would go there with me. How did you keep the women away from me?"

Shit. He kept proving he knew more than I thought. Fortunately, he didn't wait for an answer.

"Janie, I'm not perfect. That's one thing we can one hundred percent agree on. But I'm trying to be better than the way I was raised for you. I'm trying to fix all the things that I can between us, even knowing there are some things in our history I'll never be able to change. I showed you not one bit of respect on our wedding night, but can you see that's no longer true? Do you see how much I respect you? I'm not the least bit hesitant to show that in front of others, including all the Heads. And if you don't think people aren't talking about you, you're wrong, Janie. You're changing not only the Feroce Body, but the other Bodies as well. They're seeing that women have a place in the Body and have just as much to contribute outside the home as they do in it."

"They always have, they were just never allowed."

"You're right. And Santo and I have been working to change that. I knew the Body changes couldn't erase your pain, but I was hoping it could alleviate some of it by showing you I'm evolving just like the Body is. You know I'm a man focused on goals. I see a problem and I have to fix it. But your pain has been eating at me because I don't know how to make it go away and I want to."

"Pain doesn't disappear just because it's inconvenient for another person, Lucio," I said softly, wondering if this was something he could grasp given that he didn't deal with any kind of pain other than physical. "This isn't something you can problem solve, work out a solution to and voilà! The pain is gone."

"I don't expect your pain to just disappear," he said. "But I've been struggling with how I can help you hurt less. I don't think repeated apologies are the answer and no fucking way am I going to start crying. So to me, it has to be through changes. Within me. Within the Body. That's the only way I can show you that I'm not the man who would do that to you. I'd never teach you a lesson again. You're not my wife to control; you're my equal, Janie."

"Some might say your superior," I said.

At that little snipe, Lucio smiled. His smile was beautiful and not seen very often because being the Head of the Feroce Body didn't lend itself to levity. It was a difficult, demanding job that required him to carry the burdensome weight of the Body on his shoulders. Santo helped tremendously, but it was Lucio who was the last word on everything.

"I would agree," he said easily.

Thinking back to his request to let him love me, I could see it for a minute. But maybe that was my version of love. Who knew what that looked like to Lucio?

"Tell me what you meant when you asked me to let you love me."

"I don't know if I can put this into words because it's fucking emotions and shit."

"Worried they'll revoke your Body card?"

That smile of his again!

"All I can tell you is what you do to me on the inside and I don't know if it's love. It doesn't feel like anything I've ever had in my life. What I do know is you change my focus, Janie. For years I was focused on surviving my childhood and then our three years of training, then I was focused on taking Dario down, and then I was focused on making changes to the Body. Ever since I came to bring you home, all I can focus on is the two of us running the Body together because it feels right to have you by my side. You're the first woman I want to be near outside of bed because you've captured my mind -- you're intelligent and quick-thinking and sarcastic as hell. I like the way you point out the things I've missed out on, and I can understand them the way you explain them. I like knowing that you have amazing skills. I like that you're a natural leader who is also kind because that's not what I know. I feel protective with you. I find I want to give you whatever you want."

"Except a divorce," I reminded him, and I knew he could hear the heat in my voice.

"I can't let you go, Janie." His voice was harsh. "That's the one thing I can't give you."

"You could but you won't, you mean."

That brought those inscrutable eyes to mine. For a moment, there was that vulnerability in his eyes again, the little boy he'd had to suppress to survive was peeping out. Love me. 

"Do you really want to leave me, Janie? Do you think you could ever forgive me and we could have a good life together?"

I'd been wondering that myself lately in my weaker moments, times when I'd be watching Lucio and I didn't see the man who hurt me, but the man he'd become. The man I didn't believe would ever hurt me like that again.

Then I thought it was too great a risk because I'd be leaving him very soon.

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA