Chapter 22 #2
I step closer, breath catching. A shard of glass sticks out of the thick part of his palm. Blood wells around it.
“Oh my god,” I whisper. “Lorenzo, why didn’t you—”
“I’m fine,” he mutters, attempting to pull away. His movements are clumsy.
“You’re not fine.” I reach for his wrist gently. His skin is warm, trembling. When he doesn’t pull away, I take a breath. “We need to get this out.”
“There’s a first aid kit in my bathroom,” he murmurs. “Top drawer.”
My chest tightens. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t. But underneath the anguish and anger and the choices that shattered us, he looks… lost. Broken in a way I’ve never seen him.
Part of me wants to turn around and let him bleed. Let him feel something that hurts as much as I do.
But the other part—the part that remembers every stolen moment and every whispered promise—moves first.
“Come on,” I say, slipping my hand beneath his good arm and helping him to his feet.
He sways, leaning into me just long enough that I feel the weight of him.
He whispers, voice rough, “You shouldn’t have to take care of me.”
“But I am,” I say softly. “Just this once.”
We make our way down the hall, his arm slung around my shoulders. He leans heavily into me, the weight of him more than physical—regret, liquor, and everything we never said pressing against me. His scent of expensive cologne dulled by whiskey wraps around me with every step.
Inside his room, he sits on the edge of the bed, shoulders bowed, eyes unfocused. Vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen. I slip into the bathroom and grab the first aid kit, ignoring the tremor in my hands.
When I return, he watches me through half-lowered lashes, like he’s trying to memorize me.
I kneel between his knees.
The shard comes out with a soft click. Blood beads up again. I clean and disinfect the wound, trying to keep my touch clinical. Detached. Unaffected. But his gaze burns, following every brush of my fingers, every breath I take.
“There,” I whisper. “I think I got it all.”
I start to stand, desperate for distance before I do something stupid but his good hand closes around my wrist, stopping me.
“Why are you trying to leave me?”
His voice is raw, scraped down to the bone.
I force myself to meet his eyes. They’re glossy, not just from alcohol but from something far more dangerous. Emotion.
“This was never supposed to be permanent,” I say softly. “In fact, I wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place.”
His brows draw together, like the words wound him.
“It’s okay to let me go,” I add, voice barely above a whisper. “I promise I’ll be fine.”
He exhales, shakily.
“I won’t be.”
The ache in my chest is instant and crushing.
“You will,” I say, forcing a smile I don’t feel. “You won’t even remember me after a while.”
His fingers tighten just slightly on my wrist.
“I already know," he murmurs, eyes locked on mine, "that forgetting you is the one thing I’ll never be able to do.”
I swallow hard, because I already know I never stood a chance of forgetting him.
“Lorenzo, I—”
His eyes lift to mine, unguarded, glassy with exhaustion and whatever he’s been drowning himself in. “Will you stay with me? Just for tonight. I don’t want to be alone.”
It hits me like a blow. Lorenzo Conti doesn’t admit weakness. He doesn’t ask. He takes. But right now, he’s just a man sitting in the wreckage of too many unspoken things.
I know I should say no. I should walk away before I become something harder to leave behind.
But I can’t.
I nod. “Just for tonight.”
He releases my wrist and pulls back the bedding, a silent invitation. I slip beneath the covers, and the sheets are cool, unfamiliar. He stretches out beside me. I can feel the heat from his body, radiating like a furnace. I try to stay on my side. I try to keep space.
I fail.
The mattress shifts and then his arm slides around my waist, taut and certain, drawing me into the curve of his body. My back fits to his chest like we were carved from the same shape. His exhale ghosts across my neck, warm and unsteady.
Neither of us speaks.
The silence presses like a confession.
Sometime during the night, exhaustion finally drags me under. When I wake, the light is soft and pale, filtering through the curtains. The first thing I feel is warmth. The second is the steady, slow rise and fall beneath my cheek.
I blink awake.
Lorenzo is watching me.
At some point during the night he shed his shirt, leaving smooth, warm skin beneath my palm and my face resting against his bare chest just like we’ve slept for the past week. His arm is still around me, hand resting on my hip like letting go might hurt.
For a long moment, neither of us moves.
His voice is low, rough with sleep—and something that sounds like regret. “I’m sorry about last night. I shouldn’t have come home in that state.”
His thumb strokes once across my hip, barely there.
He’s apologizing but not for the drunkenness. For the vulnerability. For needing me. For letting me see him crack. And God help me, it’s the most dangerous thing he’s ever done.
“Yes, you should have.”
His brows pull together, confused, like he isn’t used to someone disagreeing with him.
I take a slow breath, searching for words that don’t shatter me.
“This is your home, Lorenzo. This is where you should feel safe.” My voice softens. “I’m the one who doesn’t belong.”
He opens his mouth, but I press a finger gently to his lips.
“No. Let me finish.”
His eyes darken. Not with anger, but with something dangerously close to pain.
“I understand why you chose her,” I say, even though the words scrape my throat raw. “I really do. And I meant what I said last night. I was never supposed to be here.”
My gaze locks with his, my truth laid bare.
“You have to let me go. It’s not fair to keep me here when I can’t have you.”
His jaw tics, muscles working like he’s holding back a thousand words.
“It’s not safe,” he finally says.
“So make it safe.” I give him a small smile that hurts more than any wound. “You’re a man of many talents. I’m sure this is nothing for you to handle when you give it your full attention.”
His exhale is sharply, like I just hit something dead center.
“She’s pregnant,” he says.
The words don’t feel like a blow. They feel like a detonation. Of course Francesca is pregnant. Of course she has the one thing I never could have with him.
A future.
Something inside me caves but on the outside I just nod.
“I’ll give you a month, Lorenzo.” My voice sounds steady when I’m anything but. “Find whoever hired those men who tried to get Sienna at our party. And then let me leave.”
I swallow hard.
“If you haven’t found them in a month, I’m still going to go. I have to.”
His hand tightens on my hip, possession in every line of his body.
“You may be the only person on this planet I’ll allow to speak to me like that.” His gaze drags over me, burning. “I have my own stipulations.”
“Such as?” I whisper.
“I will take care of the Kansas City problem and make it safe for your return within one month.” His thumb traces my skin, slowly. “But you are going to stay in here, with me, cara, in my room and in my bed. We will have each other as much as we can in those thirty days.”
Heat surges through me, instant and uncontrollable. He isn’t asking. He’s claiming.
“So you want to have sex?” I ask, because pretending it’s anything else feels too dangerous.
He shakes his head once, jaw tight, eyes fierce.
“It was never just sex. And you know it.”
The truth hangs between us like a live wire.
“Why?” I whisper, voice breaking. “What good will it do to tease us with a bit of happiness when we already know the ending?”
His hand cups the back of my neck, pulling my forehead to his.
“Because if I can’t have you for the rest of my life,” he breathes, “I will make every moment count.”
I should tell him no.
I should sit up, pull the sheets tight around me, and say the logical thing. The sane thing. That this is reckless. That it’ll only make everything harder when the month is over. That I’m already too attached, too tangled in him to walk away clean.
But when I look at him—at the man who has held power like armor his entire life and is now offering me every unprotected piece of himself—my resolve fractures. I touch his jaw, fingers trembling.
“Make love to me, Lorenzo.”
For a heartbeat, he goes still. Not like he didn’t hear me, but like the world just stopped spinning.
His eyes search mine, hungry and disbelieving.
“Is that a yes?” he asks, his voice rough enough to unravel me.
My breath stutters, but I nod. “Yes. It’s a yes.”
“Then I’m not going to rush,” he whispers, leaning his forehead against mine. “I’m going to take my time, because I already know this is the moment I’ll replay for the rest of my life.”
And the way he says it? It tells me he understands the finality of this just as much as I do.
His thumb traces my lower lip, slow and reverent, as if he’s memorizing the shape of the word yes while it still hangs between us. For a long moment, he just looks at me. No smirk. No power. No empire behind his eyes.
Just a man.
“Elizabeth,” he whispers, like my name is a prayer and a sin all at once.
His hand slides into my hair, guiding my face closer. When his lips touch mine, it isn’t hungry—it’s grateful. A slow brush of warmth that steals my balance more than any fevered kiss ever could.
He kisses me again, deeper this time, and every thought I had about consequences dissolves. I pull him closer, needing to feel him, needing to forget the ticking countdown on our time.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, breathing hard.
“You have no idea,” he murmurs, “how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this without feeling like I was stealing something.”
My chest tightens. “You weren’t stealing.”
“I was,” he says softly. “Because you were never mine to keep.”
His forehead rests against mine, his breath warm and uneven. His fingers slide slowly along my spine, gentle, careful—as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he touches me too boldly.
“Lie down,” he whispers.
It isn’t a command.
It’s a request.
I lie back against the pillows, heart racing. He follows, bracing his weight on his forearms so his body hovers over mine. He studies my face like he’s imprinting it into memory.
“I don’t want this to be a moment you regret.”
I shake my head. “I regret every second we wasted pretending we didn’t feel this.”
That pulls a sound from him—part laugh and part groan.
He kisses me again, deeper this time, slow and searching. My fingers slide into his hair, and the soft sound he makes against my mouth tells me he feels all of it too.
The world narrows to warmth and hands and breath and the impossible ache of wanting something I can’t keep.
When his lips trail down my neck, I realize something terrifying and beautiful:
This isn’t sex.
This is goodbye in slow motion.
His hands map my body like a man learning a country he’ll never be allowed to return to. Every touch says remember me. Every kiss says I’ll never get over you.
Just before he slides into me, he whispers against my throat—
“I will spend the rest of my life wishing this night had been our beginning instead of our ending.”
And I know I will never walk away from this unchanged.