Conjugal Rights

Gripping his arm, tears streaming down her face, Callie finally burst out, ‘Elias, were you planning to hide all of this if I hadn’t noticed? Were you going to pretend as if nothing happened?’ ‘How can you do this?’ Her voice quivered with a mix of anger and pain. ‘My body, my choice. If I say it’s nothing, then these injuries are nothing to me,’ Elias replied nonchalantly. ‘How can you call this “nothing”?’ Callie’s voice wavered, her lip trembling. ‘Do you think I’m blind? This... If this isn’t something to you, then what is? You’re clearly hurt, in more than one place, yet you still came to Simon’s wedding when you should’ve been lying in a hospital bed.’ ‘I made a promise.’ ‘What?’ ‘I promised you that I would come, that I would be by your side, protecting you and not allowing anyone to harm you.’ A resolute gleam flickered in Elias’s eyes. ‘Once I make a promise, I always keep it.’ Callie stared at him, open-mouthed. She had agreed to marry him on an impulse, and legally, she wasn