The Sexy Enemy: A Fake Relationship Romance (Italian Nights Series Book 3)

37. Alessandro

One month later

“There you are. You’re a hard man to find, Conti,” Natalia says, stepping onto my boat from the dock and looking like a Greek goddess come to life. Dressed in a white summer dress, gold sandals, and gold jewelry, she’s close to one. “Greece looks good on you,” Natalia says, eyeing me up. I’ve let my beard and hair grow, I’m dressed in a white tank top and shorts, and my skin is sunkissed from weeks spent in the sun.

“It’s the ocean air,” I tell her as she stops in front of me. I can’t believe she is here, standing right in front of me. Night after night, bobbing around the Mediterranean by myself, I’ve dreamed of this moment. Wished on it every night as the first star came out.

“Cute. I got your letter,” she says, waving it in my face.

“Thanks for letting me know,” I say.

“You are the most infuriating man I know,” she shouts at me as she waves the letter in the air. “Why the hell do you think I am here?”

I can only hope it’s good news, but she could equally have tracked me down to personally drown me at sea. When I don’t answer she huffs. “Shall I read it to you?”

“I wrote it. I know what’s in it,” I say. Stop being a dick to her. I can’t help it. I’m nervous. I don’t want to get my hopes up. You don’t deserve to have your hopes up after what you did to her. I know. You don’t think I haven’t beat myself up over it all for the past month? That I haven’t cursed my father for messing me up, even in death. I had to tell my brother that the man who made his life hell wasn’t really his father. I had to deal with my father’s will, which left everything to me while excluding my mother and Rome. Even in death, he was still an asshole.

I made the decision to sell the family business, I wanted nothing to do with my father’s legacy anymore. He doesn’t deserve his dreams to continue when he shattered so many in his life. Natalia deserved a man that had his shit together not some asshole with daddy issues. Therapy has helped and will continue to help unfuck the shit my father did to me. I still have a long way to go regarding all that, but at least it’s a start. My therapist was the one who suggested I send Natalia the letter as it felt easier to express my thoughts that way. Plus, I wasn’t prepared to have the door shut in my face. Cowardly? Yeah, I’m man enough to cop to that.

Natalia rolls her eyes at my snappiness as she starts to read the letter.

Dear Natalia,

I’m not sure if you will ever read this letter. I wouldn’t blame you if you never did especially after all the failed attempts that you made to come see me during those dark days. I appreciated it more than you could ever know even if I never showed it. Survival mode kicked in, and I guess the stubborn fool that I am wasn’t prepared to relent for anyone. I thought I needed to be the person to hold my family’s world together at the expense of my own.

I owe you an explanation so that you can move on and that isn’t my ego speaking, even though we both know how BIG it is. It’s so you know that you didn’t do anything wrong in those moments that you tried. You need to know that.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been honest with you from the start, and I think once you know the truth, anything you think you feel for me will vanish. What happened in Vegas was planned.

Natalia looks up, and those blue eyes narrow on me. I try to swallow, but it’s like sandpaper in my mouth.

When I saw you out at the club glaring at me and my friends, the idea formed in my mind. I hated everything you represented in that moment, that you were the only thing standing in the way of my father being proud of me. You were going to be collateral damage in this messed-up world my father had created. I needed this win so desperately to prove my father wrong that all sense and logic flew out the window.

A single tear falls down Natalia’s cheek as she reads those words. My hands tighten beside me because all I want to do is take her in my arms and tell her how much of a fool I am.

Then you went and fucking kissed me in the club. And I wanted to keep kissing you and doing all the things you were whispering to me to do. In that moment, I didn’t want to be Alessandro Conti anymore. I wanted to be some random person in Vegas having fun with a beautiful woman. So, I did. Even though I could never get rid of that devil on my shoulder who reminded me that while having fun, I still needed to win. I tried to drown out the fucking devil with shots, and it worked for the most part, we got black-out drunk. Yet somehow, we still ended up getting married which was my diabolical plan from the beginning. Guess I couldn’t escape the devil no matter how hard I tried.

It was a shock waking up in bed with you in Vegas the next morning, but I’ll never forget the image of you screaming at me while being butt-ass naked.

You looked so hot.

Natalia looks up at me and raises a brow.

I’d forgotten about my plan in the morning till Nico told me our wedding photos were on the internet, and then the entire plan came back to me. I couldn’t believe I’d accomplished it. Couldn’t believe you married me.

I thought when we got back to Roma that you would fold.

But I hadn’t counted on you.

Fucking Natalia Fiorenzo.

Natalia smiles at that part of the letter. Fuck she is beautiful, radiant. Actually, she looks so good, I don’t think she’s been back at home in Roma pining for me. My stomach sinks at that thought. When a woman glows up, she’s done with you.

You became a force to be reckoned with. I didn’t think you had it in you to fight me. Honestly, I thought you would cry to your father, and being the loving father that he was, he would pull out of the deal to save you.

And I would win.

I was wrong.

Dead wrong.

You then fucked up my world by calling my bluff and blowing my carefully constructed plan and life up in smoke.

That was the moment I knew I fell in love with you.

You were fearless, stubborn, feisty, and annoying, but the fact you were fighting back was the hottest thing a woman has ever done for me.

Then Paris happened.

That moment you begged for me to help you was my undoing, Natalia. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but you were so far under my skin by then that I needed my fix. I was already addicted. I needed to know if what I felt with you in Vegas was just the alcohol or if it was real.

It was real.

And that scared the absolute shit out of me.

I didn’t know things were about to change so much between us.

You flipped the script on me again and forced my hand by moving in with me. I was equal parts impressed, annoyed, and shit scared.

What you didn’t know at that time was I had never let anyone live with me, not even Nico, Rocco, or Val. I always kept a wall up between me and the people I loved. I knew no other way to be. You came in like a wrecking ball and smashed the carefully constructed walls around me down.

She stops and grins at me. “Damn right I did.”

“Natalia,” I say her name, but she holds up her hand, I ignore it. “I know what I wrote in that letter. But I need to know if you have an answer to my last question?”

Those sapphire-blue eyes narrow on me. “This ….?” she asks as she starts reading what I wrote.

Natalia, I fucked up. You were the single greatest thing in my life, and I started it with a lie, and I ended it with a lie.

Those blue eyes flick up at me before looking back down at the piece of paper.

I lied when I told you I didn’t love you.

Letting you think that you don’t own my heart is the biggest regret of my life. You own me. Forever and always.

Another tear slips down her cheek.

Fuck.

“Natalia,” I say, taking a step toward her. I can’t stand here and watch her cry like this, it’s ripping my heart out.

She holds up her hand. “Don’t, please let me finish, you owe me that,” she says with steely determination, and she’s right, I do.

I don’t know how you could ever forgive me for the way I’ve treated you this past month, but if there is a chance that maybe we could start over again, that I could be worthy of a second chance of loving you, then call either Nico or Val, and they will give you my coordinates.

I’ll never stop loving you, Natalia, no matter your choice. Thank you for showing me what it’s like to be loved. I should have looked after your heart better than I did.

Tears continuously fall down her cheeks now as she looks up at me.

“You broke it you know. My heart.”

My stomach sinks as bile starts to rise. I hate myself for breaking her heart like I did.

“I know.” There are no other words I can say that can erase my actions.

“Then you had the audacity to write me this letter when you were ready to speak your truth, but you weren’t interested when I wanted to speak mine. Do you think I’m ready to hear it now?”

I swallow hard. This is not going to end happily ever after.

“I wasn’t. I threw your letter in the bin because I couldn’t read another word from you telling me what we had was a mistake.” My eyes widen at that. “You can thank my mother for being a busybody and reading some of it, okay all of it, before giving it to me and then making me read it,” she explains. “You left me alone, Alessandro. Alone.”

I lick my lips as I find it incredibly hard to speak. “I thought you were better off.”

“How can I be better off when you’re not in my life,” she says, sobbing.

It takes me a moment to realize what she said. “I’m an idiot, Natalia. I wish I could turn back time and do things differently. I felt so guilty that you’d fallen in love with me. Then I started doubting that you really loved me because how could anyone like you, this ray of sunshine, fall in love with me, this monster.”

“I never thought you were a monster,” she says quietly.

“It’s what I saw in the mirror every single day.”

“Fuck it,” she says, rushing the last couple of steps as she launches herself into my arms, and I catch her as she wraps her legs around my waist and her arms around my neck. “Fuck you, Conti, for thinking you know what is good for me. Because I’m no good without you,” she declares.

Wait. What did she say?

“Unfortunately, I can’t fucking live without you. I tried, it sucked, and that’s annoying. So here we are.”

This can’t be happening. I dared to hope but never thought …

“I can’t fucking live without you, either, and that’s been fucking annoying,” I confess, cupping her face as my thumb slides her tears away.

Natalia rolls her eyes. “Yeah, being stuck on a multimillion-dollar boat in the Med, must be really annoying,” she teases as she tightens her arms around my neck.

“Wanna stay and find out?” She bites her bottom lip, thinking over my question. “Just so you know, my hand is pretty sore from working overtime thinking about you this past month.”

She raises a brow. “I needed to buy a new toy.”

I’m an idiot.

“We have the boat to ourselves if you need some help?” I smirk.

“You think it’s going to be that easy to get me into bed after breaking my heart?” she questions me. My face falls. “Hey, I’m joking,” she says, looking at me. I feel relieved.

“You’re right, I deserve to grovel more. You deserve more groveling. I can get on my knees if you want. You know I’ve always been good on my knees,” I joke as my arms wrap around her tighter. I’m never letting her go.

“Later you will be,” she says, giving me a naughty wink. “And don’t worry, you have an entire lifetime to make it up to me for being the biggest idiot in the world for letting me go.”

“I was the biggest idiot, and if it takes me a lifetime to make it up to you I will.”

“Good, because we’re still legally married. I paid off the lawyer not to file your ridiculous paperwork.” She grins.

“We’re still married. The annulment never went through?” I ask, not quite believing it.

“Yep. You’re stuck with me now,” she says.

“Forever?”

“Forever, you up for the challenge, Conti?” she questions me.

“Are you? Because I sold the family business.”

Natalia stills. “You did what?”

“I couldn’t be associated with my father’s legacy anymore,” I explain to her.

Tears start to fall again. “You didn’t sell it because for me, did you? I would never have asked you to do that.”

“Babe, no. I did it for me. Me and my family need a clean slate,” I reassure her.

“Won’t you get bored?” she asks.

“I’m married to you. Life will never be boring. I love you, Fiorenzo.”

“I love you, too, Conti.”

“Now, will you come and climb my flagpole as it’s at full mast?”

THE END