Chapter Forty-Three Larissa
Chapter Forty-Three
LARISSA
IMAGES OF TYLER holding Alexander threaten to resurface as I toss off the covers, the cool night air circulating doing nothing to aid against the heat pouring out of me.
It’s in his eyes, his goddamn lying eyes.
It’s the heated looks he branded me with, along with his confessions, that hold me a recaptured prisoner to the memory of us.
Of the way we collided and how perfect it felt, lie or not.
It’s the ache that lies to me now, telling me he’s the solution and not the cause.
Disgusted that I’m allowing it to haunt me, I enter a scalding shower, refusing to let my hand lower to the pound between my legs demanding relief.
Thoughts of what he might have done today, had I given him permission, attempt invasion as I scrub away each new lie.
His look and tone reeking of the same manipulation he used as he branded me, fucking brainwashed me to crave him.
The most damning recollection was the sight of his cock thrusting between our collective fingers as he whispered filthy words in my ear.
One of the hottest moments of my life, tainted by the truth behind it. Or rather, the lie.
After toweling off, I lather my body in scented lotion as I take inventory of the changes in my reflection. My breasts now twice their size, the curve of my hips amplified by their natural widening. Even with the imperfections, I don’t at all mind this altered version—the mother.
A mother who spent endless hours in labor, giving them life, thankful for the extra skin at her belly and the stretch marks, which remind her that she almost met her death to give the lives she created. Grudgingly, that Tyler and I created.
The minute I saw Alexander, I saw his father.
And still, I remain grateful. In studying my beautiful babies, I found myself forgiving the stupidity that brought me to this villa a heartbroken fool for the second time.
But the scars I’ve gained are now worn with pride for the same reason—love.
Though it was a woman’s love that made me a fool, it’s a mother’s love that’s made me a victor.
My babies’ growth, their kicks, and their first breaths having reinvented me one last time. The woman staring back at me now is the version the children will know as their mother. A woman they will remember as both healthy and mentally strong, so they will never be as haunted as I’ve become.
My vow solidified further by the squeak of my mother’s wheelchair as Tommaso guides her through the courtyard for her late-night stroll.
The remembrance of our reunion the day of her arrival as I knelt before her keeping me resolved.
The sight of her ingrained along with her most recent and condemning prognosis.
That her body will remain a useless vessel, bankrupt of a spirit that departed long ago due to heartbreak.
A fate I refused for myself as I made her my vow.
“I saw the lying stars for what they are, Mama. We were both weak, but I promise you, I will not fail them. My children will know real love.”
A mother first and always, maybe, but a woman and donna second.
And though my position as newly crowned donna awaits, one I’ll embrace further, but not today.
Tonight, I simply want to be a woman who satiates her needs without hesitation or remorse.
Even if the men surrounding me maintain the outdated belief that all sexual, restless spirits within a woman should die during birth.
Let them talk, and their eyes condemn me at church.
Let me be the scandal they believe me to be while fearing my wrath so much they mute their tongues from voicing it.
Fire lighting my veins to reclaim the freedom I thought I lost with Tyler’s imprisonment, I grab my keys and exit my temporary villa.
I’m only a few short steps from my door when I sense him in the shadows.
“Don’t go to him.”
An instant later, the guard manning the gate stalks forward, and I lift my hand to dismiss him. As his footfalls grow distant, I don’t bother looking back.
“I’m not your business, Marine, and I’ve made that clear. Go back to your children.”
“Don’t go to him, Larissa. He’s not who you want.”
“You’re being so fucking predictable,” I scoff.
“Am I?” he counters. “Surprise to me since I had no belief I was capable of this feeling again.”
“I’m not buying into your mind games.”
“I assure you I’m genuinely fucking jealous”—his lethal whisper slices through the tension pulsing at my back—“and fair warning, that’s never worked out for the other guy.”
“Don’t you dare threaten him!” I hiss, whirling on him. “He’s been through hell for me!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve already been down that road,” he exudes in a shaky rush, raking every inch of me before closing his eyes. “The fucked part is that he does deserve you.” When they shutter open, I see nothing but branding possession. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to step back and let him have you.”
“As if you have any goddamned say,” I huff, turning on my heels toward the gate. I’m halfway to it when his warning reaches me.
“You’ll destroy him by going to him this way, and you fucking know it.”
I stop my retreating heel, grinding it into the stone beneath me as anger starts to flood my veins.
Closing my eyes, I summon the energy to square off with him as Alonzo clouds my vision.
Images of both the boy and the man swarming me as I summon the will to fight for him.
For what we might be beyond the land mine at my back.
“You have no fucking right to speak for him. Save your manipulations for a woman willing to suffer you.”
“Maybe I don’t, but allowing him to believe he has a chance with you when your heart isn’t set on him will destroy what’s left of him.
” His steps silent, it’s his scent and heat that let me know he’s close—too close—as he speaks.
“Because I’m standing in what the loss of that chance feels like right now.
I know you don’t want to hurt him this way, so punish me. ”
Black rage wars with the feel of his lying warmth so close to me as I go utterly still, refusing my inhales, refusing him.
“Hate me.” His breath hits my neck. “Loathe me, but let me be the one to ease the ache I caused because you’ll destroy me by letting me touch you while knowing you won’t forgive me. I saw you make that decision today, I fucking felt it. I saw you resign yourself to a future without me.”
“I resigned myself to that in those woods,” I snap.
“No, you waited for the face-to-face with me today, and I’m clinging to the hope that could still mean something.
That some part of you wants to forgive me.
” His chest hits my back as his whisper caresses my skin, sending goosebumps along my chest and arms. “All today did was prove to us both that we left something there, and it’s not fucking going anywhere.
And I feel it, everywhere, because it’s starting to fucking rip me apart. ”
“You have no fucking right to me.”
“More than him, and not because it’s right or fair but because it’s the fucking truth,” he states as I reel on him again.
“He’s the man that deserves me, who should have fathered my children.”
His metallic eyes shutter closed as his expression goes pained. When he opens them, I see his struggle as they go from metal to liquid black and back again.
“I deserved that, but I’m telling you right now that I’ve tried to fucking make peace with it.
To imagine you with him. To blink you away and accept it, but after seeing you today, Jesus, I can’t let this go.
” His fists clench at his sides as his chest rises and falls rapidly.
“We could regret it all, Larissa. But I can’t now, because we have two of the most beautiful reasons in the world to forgive how they came to be.
Thing is, I’m beginning to believe neither of us wants to forget that, either. ”
The lamplight feet away licks flames along his profile as memory threatens to blind me. As desire spikes, I slam up my defenses to erase the whims of the foolish girl for the demands of the woman. A woman who welcomes the anger that dried her tears and lifted her head.
Eyes flaring, he dips before running his nose seductively along the curve of my neck as his words blaze a path down my skin. “Months apart have done absolutely fucking nothing to dull what’s between us, and we knew it the minute we locked eyes today.”
The sudden sting in my hand jars me before he slowly offers his reddening jaw to me, as if ready for a thousand more slaps.
“Do it again,” he urges, pressing into the receptive tells of my body. My nipples grow hard as he fills my senses. “I’ll take any touch you give me just to fucking feel with you again. I’ll take anything.”
“Our children are all that is between us,” I declare as I glare up at him.
“You just lied to me,” he fires, eyes flaring as he inches closer.
“Stop,” I grind out.
“Stop fighting? Not happening.” His lips hover an inch from mine with his delivery.
“I’m a born and bred fighter, Larissa. That’s who I am, same as you.
I just had no personal reason to fight for so long that I abandoned the man.
But you dragged him from his wife’s grave, and if you give what’s left of the man you unearthed access to the thing that he wants more than his next breath, how hard do you think he’ll fight for it?
I’ll warn you now, if you continue to give me access, I’ll never stop. ”
“Stop your fucking drivel”—I jerk my chin—“I mean it. Don’t make me regret allowing you here more than I already do, you bastard!”