"Pack a bathing suit," Giovanni calls out, his skilled hands working over our lunch. My apartment smells of rosemary, mint leaves, and lamb, which will go over an apricot couscous. Just the ingredients listed out are enough to make my mouth water. As I stride out of my bedroom, having almost forgotten my bikini, I tuck it into the front of the packed suitcase, my eyes wandering to Giovanni, hand-squeezing ripe lemons into a pitcher.

I shouldn't be so awed by his flair for the details. His life is revolved around it.

"Do you need help with anything?"

"I'm nearly done."

Since he won't let me touch the food, which is probably a very good idea, I work on setting the table, attempting to remain calm.

In a few hours, we'll be boarding a plane for Italy. For his shows, Giovanni rents a private plane for privacy. When he told me that was what we'd be flying to Italy to keep our vacation a secret, I had trouble believing it.

I have never done anything like this, which is probably why this is the perfect time. My life is up in flames, and for once, my urge is to bolt away from the problem.

I want to bask in the sunlight with Giovanni. I want the both of us to find our way back to each other, and I think disappearing off the public radar will do just that.

When a knock sounds at my door, we collectively turn to the sound, as we are both completely aware that I am not expecting anyone and even if I were, Rog would have called me to let me know of a visitor.

When I start toward the door, Giovanni holds up a hand, dropping the towel he'd been cleaning his hands with. "I've got it."

I'm still as stone in the middle of my living room when Giovanni opens the door. He stands so tall I can't see who it is, but when the tight shirt of Giovanni's back suddenly ripples, his muscles hardening with tension, I know whoever it is will not be good.

"Martinelli."

There's a long pause before Giovanni finally utters, "Officer."

I only had to hear Dixon say Giovanni's last name to know it was him, but from Giovanni's grumble, I know without seeing him that he's come decked out in attire. When Giovanni shifts, I catch sight of Dixon, who peers around Giovanni into the apartment until his eyes land on my own.

Six months ago, Dixon was a dim shadow of the man I once knew. But now, the frailness is gone. His skin has cleared. The hollowness of his features is full and bright, probably burning off of the ego that has to have him soaring after all the media coverage these past couple of days.

He's wearing his old uniform; his stiff hat is in his hands. His hair is a shiny blonde color, tousled over his forehead.

"Scarlett."

I force my teeth apart. "Did Rog let you up?"

"I informed the guy that I had business here. He isn't allowed to tell me to leave."

"You're fucking crazy if you think you're coming inside this apartment," Giovanni snaps, stepping forward. I nearly sprint around the furniture to stop him from doing something that will end up with him behind steel bars. I place my hands on his back, rubbing reassuringly, remembering the ferociously unstoppable force Giovanni turned into in the presence of the man who's tormented me for years.

"I am an–"

"We know our rights. Unless you've got a warrant, you're not making it through that door."

Dixon's head cocks, his eyes alight with a deep, deep hatred. There's a different shape to his nose, and after only seconds of focusing on it, I realize it's been broken. Giovanni broke it.

"Is that so?"

"Leave."

"That's how you want to do this?" Dixon hums, oddly cheerful. I keep a hand against the wall of Giovanni's back but move to the side enough so I'm in the doorway too.

"How the hell are you back on the force?"

"Rehab. A breaking point. Corey got me help after your gallant knight beat on a man who couldn't defend himself. A real catch you've got."

I caress Giovanni's back nervously. "I don't understand. Corey was here that night. I told Corey what you'd been doing."

"You should have told him what he'd already done," Giovanni whispers menacingly. "What this fucker did to you."

Dixon's eyes remain firmly on Giovanni. "I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing–"

Giovanni's head snaps back. "It's almost funny. You seem to think that's a sufficient explanation."

I feel sick.

"Just leave, Dixon. Now. Don't come here again," I say through my awakened fear. Pissing him off further will set him off, and now that he's a cop and Giovanni has such a quick temper, Dixon is more dangerous than he's ever been.

"I want to speak with Scarlett."

"Are you deaf?" Giovanni snarls, and I immediately shoot out a hand between them, snatching onto the side of the door, slamming it shut in Dixon's stone-cold face. The wood quakes from the force of my reaction.

"We're not done here," Dixon says eventually behind the door, and I hear his heavy boots begin to move against the ground, echoing. When I press the button to summon the front desk, Giovanni snaps the lock with finality and bounds with anger in his step to the kitchen.

"This is Russ. How can I help you, Miss Bardot?"

My eyes close. It wasn't Rog. "An officer just came up. Dixon Routh."

"Yes, he's just gone outside."

"Russ, next time he comes, tell him he cannot come in."

"He's a police officer. I have to let him on the premises. Unless he's reported, you have to be the one to turn him away from the door. Has he done something wrong?"

"He's my ex-husband. And yes, he has. Rog knows all about it."

I hear Giovanni pulling the food from the oven, nearly slamming it down onto the stovetop.

"I will tell him you're not home if he shows up again. How about that?"

It's the best I'm going to get right now. "Yes, that will be fine. Thank you."

I let go of the button. I expect Giovanni to be up in arms, shouting, but he's eerily silent, his arms working over the lamb with extensive force. My hand rubs my head, a deep lodged pit in my belly.

I had hoped that Dixon's reinvigorated fame and purpose would lead him away from the toxicity of his old marriage. It seems it hasn't. He's angry. And he's not just intent on tormenting me. Giovanni is now also in his destructive path.

I just wish I knew what it was. What he thinks he'll accomplish by showing up here. Piss us off? Catch us off guard? Disrupt our harmony? Or is it something far more sinister?

A memory snapshotted into my brain appears, knocking the breath from my lungs. My hands against the carpet of our old apartment. They were reactively bouncing off of the ground from the sheer strength of my trembles. Dixon had just had his hands around my throat, suffocating me like a deathly boa constrictor. I remember the way I vomited the minute he let me go, scrambling on those trembling hands.

I twist my head to the side and shut my eyes as if that will make it go away. When I open them, I've gathered myself enough to focus on Giovanni. He's completely still, both his hands on the sides of the stove. His head is bowed, but his posture hasn't softened. He's livid, and I can tell just by the back of him.

"Giovanni, I'm sorry," I whisper. I hear him inhale.

"You did this last time. I don't want to hear you apologize for him, Scarlett. Don't. You have to see how fucked that is."

"I'm not apologizing for him. I'm apologizing for me. I should have done things differently, and I didn't, and now–" I lose the sentence with an exhale.

"If you think I'm going to reprimand you, you're wrong. You were a scared woman who was still in love with a man who knew exactly how to make you care for him."

Something that has captured my mind for some time now makes me speak. I've spent months pondering the thought. "That's the horrible thing... I don't even think I loved him."

Giovanni turns, his eyes sharply aware. My fingers curl around one another.

Keep going, Scarlett. Keep talking.

"I think he made me believe I did." My chest expands. "It has to be that... because nothing I felt for him came within a hundred miles of what I feel for you."

His features soften, but the mask I'm so used to seeing is still up, concealing all the raging emotions within him.

"I'm sorry for this. So much could have been prevented, and now, he may make our lives harder."

"Then we will handle it when it comes," he responds. "We will handle it together because I know what he wants is you and I apart. That's probably why he came back here after all this time. Because we went public."

I step up to the table, placing both hands on the chair. "I'm scared he's dangerous."

His brows furrow at my words. "I will protect you, Scarlett."

"I know you will."

We simmer in silence, both shaken by the encounter. I loathe when Dixon is near because it brings back my old life, who I used to be, like a tsunami, a threat to destroy the new world I've begun to build for myself.

"I need you to tell me what he's done, Scarlett. You've told me he was abusive. I know nothing else... I have to know how much of a danger he is."

I tear my face away, blood drawing quickly from my face.

"You told me you would never ask me to do that."

"I know I did. But things have changed since then."

All I can think of is how much I don't want to even think of this, how much I wish we had just left and gotten on the plane we're just hours from boarding.

"You know I wouldn't ask you this if it wasn't important," he adds at my lack of an answer.

"What he's done is in the past, Giovanni. He was a bad person, who, yes, could definitely be dangerous."

"Scarlett."

"What?"

"He's hit you?"

I blink at him, aghast. He's not going to deter from this.

"Yes."

"He's strangled you?"

I nearly bite my tongue. I now feel my face heating up rapidly- with fear. "Yes."

His knuckles are white against his crossed arms. When he swallows, steeling himself, I know what's coming next without asking.

"Has he raped you?"

His words send off a distress signal within me, and I enter a state of uncontrollable panic. I want to run. "H-He–"

Giovanni nods reassuringly. "Tell me, baby."

"There were a few times... I was asleep. I'd wake up, and he was... I'd tell him to stop..."

I can't get a coherent sentence out, and that frustrates me, so I focus on my hands.

"He raped you. If you did not want it, then he raped you."

"It was a few times..."

"Say it, Scarlett," Giovanni demands, despite my unraveling. "You need to say it out loud. You need to know it."

I close my eyes, trying to picture sunny skies. A crowded street I saw in a movie once of Italy. A gelato. An unmade bed. Anything to transport me from this conversation.

For so long, I forced myself to push the sexual situations Dixon would put me into away, to focus on the beatings. The sex seemed like something else. The beatings were a foreign thing; the sex was something he and I had regularly as a married couple. But I knew. I'd beg him to stop, try to throw him off to no avail because his strength always overpowered my own. I always knew he was forcing me.

"He raped me," I whisper as a confession, unable to look over at the man in my kitchen. I shouldn't be angry at him for forcing me to say it, but I am. He won't ever let me stay in my denial. He forces me to feel this fucking pain.

When Giovanni finally speaks again, the words he utters softly make my heart come to a full, screeching stop.

"I want you to move in with me. In Los Angeles."