Chapter 31
CHRISTIAN
I t’s been two weeks since Dante announced his wedding plans with Helena. It’s all set for next week.
I can’t say that I’m happy about it. I think he should hold it off as long as possible, but apparently, Leon is calling the shots, and Leon says it’s a go.
Begrudgingly, I guess he’s right. At least Dante has excuses for stopping at his city apartment and reasons to be here.
He stayed over last night.
Carmela goes to the coffee shop today; she’s a woman of routine.
Which is convenient.
She put his necklace back on. Guessing she’s forgiving him for abandoning her.
It’s not my concern anymore. At least, she won’t be soon.
I haven’t told her anything about Dante turning up today.
It’s not a given that he’s going to. If he thinks anybody’s following him, then he will abort.
Don’t want to get her hopes up. Assuming she has hopes and doesn’t slap him across the face when she sees him.
That would be fun…
No, she won’t slap him. Her slaps belong to me. I fucking love them. I get off on them. The fact that I rile her enough for her to lose control, yeah, I like that a lot.
Dante’s different. Maybe not that different anymore. But he’s never going to give her everything she needs.
I don’t know where that thought springs from, but I shut the fucker down.
I pull up outside the coffee shop. As per usual, I open the door for her and follow her in.
“Morning, Mrs. Gallo,” Tony calls from behind the counter.
It’s pretty quiet in the seating area, although there’s a line for takeout at the counter. She usually sits by the window, but I catch her arm and propel her in the other direction.
“What the hell, Christian?” She glares at me and tries to snatch her arm away.
I smile and carry on. “This way, Mrs. Gallo.”
She huffs out her breath. I’m pretty sure she’s thinking about smacking me around the face right now, and it puts an extra spring in my step.
I direct her into a seat, this one tucked around the corner where Tony, who is a nosy fucker, won’t be able to see. She looks down at the reserved sign and then back at me. “What is this…” Her voice trails off as I pick up the reserved card and move it to another table.
Then I head over to the counter, skipping the queue where Tony is already finishing her cappuccino.
“Thanks, Tony. I’ll take it over.”
She hasn’t moved, so that’s something. I put the coffee in front of her—she glares at me—and I head back to the counter, where I slip into one of the high stools at the far end so I have a view of the door and Carmela.
“Coffee for you?” Tony calls over.
“Yeah, thanks, Tony. That would be great.”
“It’s not her usual seat,” he says.
“Yeah, some twat was gawking at her through the window last time we came. Made her really uncomfortable.”
His face blanches.
“Don’t worry,” I say cheerfully. “I dealt with it.”
He goes back to making coffee. I take out my cell phone and thumb through it. The stream of customers is steady, and soon, the tables are filling up, keeping Tony and his barista busy.
My phone bleeps. I glance from the message to the door and then over to Tony, who is chatting to a customer at the other end of the counter.
I message back.
A few moments later, the door opens, and a man wearing jeans and a T-shirt with his baseball cap pulled low slips inside the door.
CARMELA
I’m sure Christian sat me here just to annoy me. Sometimes, I almost feel like he’s my friend… one with benefits. Yes, I can’t miss that part out. But the rest of the time, his actions seem designed to infuriate me.
He’s not my friend, I remind myself. He’s my bodyguard and the brother of the man I was supposed to marry.
I hardly sleep anymore. My husband has been increasingly distracted, and on the one occasion when he took his conjugal rights, I didn’t even try to pretend that my mind was elsewhere.
After he’d done and lay snoring in the bed, I quietly took myself off to the bathroom to wash the evidence of him away.
I feel hollow inside, like I’m trapped in a nightmare. There are brief moments when I experience feelings, but for the most part, feelings don’t serve me well.
I take a sip of coffee. My seat faces the wall.
I can’t see a single person, not even the window.
This is supposed to be my normality fix, the time when I top up on watching people and life.
Instead, Christian is doing what he does best: driving a train wreck through what little sanity I have left by manhandling me into the worst possible seat.
It’s packed now. It’s not like I can go to another table.
Why did I stay here?
I’m lost in these aimless considerations when a man slips into the empty seat opposite me.
My thoughts slam through scenarios where this man, whoever he is, ends up as a body dropped outside a hospital.
I can’t do this, not today. I carry the mental scars from the last time some poor fool made this mistake. “The seat is taken.”
I sound like a bitch. I’m not even using it. The coffee shop is packed. Any normal person wouldn’t mind.
“So it is,” he drawls. “Taken by me.”
My eyes lift and clash with dark ones that I see more often in another face. Dante’s have a few lines at the corners. There are as many similarities as differences in their two faces, and I catalog each one: the way Dante’s jaw is a little more defined, his nose sharper, and his lower lip fuller.
Christian smiles easily and often, but his eyes are colder.
I’ve stopped breathing. The burn in my lungs rouses me from my catatonic state.
He’s wearing a black T-shirt underneath his jacket with his baseball cap pulled down low. I’ve never seen him like this. He looks younger… and hot.
He smiles. “It feels like a long time since I’ve spoken to you alone.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “We didn’t exactly speak last time, did we?”
“No,” he agrees, his smile widening. “We didn’t.”
“Christian arranged this, I assume.” I mean, it’s obvious he did, but I’m talking because I’m nervous. Being this near to him is making everything go haywire in my body.
Memories resurface, startlingly clear. His mouth is on mine, and his cock is inside me, taking my virginity.
He didn’t get all my firsts, but my heart believes he took the most important ones, and I’m glad he did.
“It’s for the best that we’re somewhere public this time,” he says dryly. “Because, for once, I need to talk to you.”
I tear my gaze away from his. It’s too much seeing him, being close to him. I blink down at my coffee. My hands are shaking so badly there’s not a chance that I could take a sip, even for the pretense of acting normal.
I glance back over my shoulder. I can’t see Tony from here, but I can see Christian. As always, he’s found a seat that places me in his direct line of sight.
He’s staring straight back at me. He’s not smiling. His expression is dark and a little unsettling. When I turn back to Dante, he’s looking at Christian.
Does he know what Christian and I have done?
Fresh heat fills my cheeks. I feel like I know Dante, but also, I really don’t. He was distant with me at first, understandably so when I was still a child. Then my world turned upside down, and what might have been was snatched away.
I know Christian better. He’s been inside me a hell of a lot more, but even without that, there’s a connection, a twisted one that pulls me back to him time and time again. Do I really know him, though?
Do I know either of them?
No, I don’t think I do.
Dante’s eyes turn back to me. “I don’t have a lot of time. So I’m going to keep it short.”
With those few words, the passage of time between our meetings disappears. I see that he wants me—still.
But he’s marrying her.
I swallow. His eyes lower to track the movement before they settle on the necklace at my throat. He reaches out, his fingertips tracing down the line of the chain before stopping at the diamond heart.
It’s barely a touch, yet it electrifies me and sends white-hot need pooling in my core.
He moves his hand away. “I thought you might have thrown it away.”
“I tried,” I say honestly. “So many times.”
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t know why those simple words make me want to cry, but they do.
“Please don’t.” I blink the sting from the back of my eyes. “It’s been a terrible year, Dante.”
“I know.” His voice is so different from Christian’s. There is no hidden jibe waiting in the wings. Personality-wise, they’re poles apart.
For all their differences, I’m drawn to them both.
I draw in a ragged breath and let it out slowly. “You’ve been talking to my father.”
“I have,” he says. “Information has come to light. Suspicions I long held confirmed… change is coming.”
“That’s what my father said.” Bitterness laces my tone.
“You should trust in him.”
“I did once,” I say. “And look where that got me.”
“Baby, I’m so sorry… I trusted him, too.”
I don’t know what that means. Suddenly, I’m exhausted, overwhelmed.
“Things will probably get worse before they get better,” he continues.
I suck my lower lip into my mouth and bite down. No, I don’t like the sound of that.
“I’m taking the fact that you’re still wearing my necklace as an indication that you might still want me when this is all done. There hasn’t been a single day that I haven’t thought about you. It’s been a hard year, but what destroys me is knowing it’s been so much worse for you.”
He gets up and exits stage left, his words leaving me more shattered than I thought possible. My head swings around to watch him as he stalks out of the door.
Hell no. That wasn’t anywhere near enough after more than a year. Half answers? He didn’t say anything about his marriage to Helena. And I really wish he had given me something, anything that will keep me going through this fresh hell.
The view before me turns blurred, and I quickly blink away at the tears, stumbling from my seat.
Christian is at my side instantly. “You okay? What did he say? I’m going to fuck him up if he’s upset you. I swear to God I love my brother, but sometimes he’s a dick.”
I don’t want to go home. Not into a house that reminds me of Ettore. I don’t even want to visit my father. “Will you take me to my mother’s grave?”
“Yeah, of course,” he says. “You want to stop at the flower shop on the way?”
I nod blindly. “Please, just get me out of here.”
I sit in the car feeling more wretched than I have in months.
Dante gives me the words.
Christian gives me the escape.
Maybe Dante is right. One day this will be over. Only, when that day comes, I’m going to have to choose.