Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
RAYNE
His heart thumps a pounding rhythm against my cheek, hard and frantic and entirely too human. Evidence that he was scared too. Maybe just as scared as I was. The realization lands somewhere vulnerable inside me, a place I’ve spent years boarding up and pretending no longer exists.
I go through my whole adult life not being stung by a bee, and the fuzzy little devil decides to sting me today, giving Enzo the perfect opportunity to rush in and play the hero.
Not that I can really hold that against him.
He actually did save my life. That’s twice in less than two weeks now.
He needs to be careful, or I might start to think he doesn’t hate me at all.
Although, of course he doesn’t actually hate me.
Not in the clean, simple way he wants to.
I can tell by the racing heart beneath my cheek.
The deep breaths he keeps dragging in and forcing back out, as though he’s trying to calm himself down before I notice he needs calming.
The way he’s holding on tighter than he has to, one arm locked around my waist, the other curved around the back of my head like he can keep the whole world from touching me if he only grips hard enough.
His fingers keep stroking through my hair in slow, almost absent-minded passes, but there’s nothing absent-minded about the way he checks me.
The subtle brush of his thumb against the pulse point beneath my jaw.
The brief pause of his hand at my wrist. The way his gaze keeps dropping to my mouth, my throat, my chest, making sure I’m breathing, making sure I’m still here.
It would be so easy to sink into this. Into him.
Into the enormous reassuring comfort of his body wrapped around mine.
He always used to make me feel safe. Protected.
Like the world could try and hurt me all it wanted because Enzo Medici would stand between me and anything that truly could.
And I hate that my body remembers that before my brain can stop it.
I hate that being tucked against his chest, blanketed in his warmth and surrounded by the clean, expensive scent of him, makes something inside me relax.
For one dangerous second, I let myself pretend.
That we’re not ruined, and that there’s not a chasm between us filled with all the things we never said and all the things he chose to believe.
I imagine that his arms around me mean what they used to mean, instead of being one more cruel reminder of what I lost.
But none of this, nor anything he did all those years before that awful day, can make up for what he didn’t do.
The worst day of my life, when I needed him more than I had ever needed anyone before or since, and he abandoned me.
Worse than that, he looked at me like I was something filthy.
Something he was ashamed to have ever touched.
He treated me with contempt and disgust when I was already shattered beyond recognition.
Over the years, I’ve found plenty of ways to move on from that pain.
Extensive therapy helped. So did my photography.
Long hikes beneath the late afternoon sun.
Cold mornings with my camera in my hands.
Quiet evenings in my apartment with too many plants and no one telling me who I was allowed to be.
I built a life out of all the little things that made breathing easier.
But being here with him rips the seams right open.
All that devastation and anguish comes rushing back, hot and raw and vicious.
The hurt becomes so sharp it feels like a blade sliding into my heart, carving out the parts of me that are foolish enough to still want him.
I cannot stay here like this. I cannot keep pretending that his arms around me are not tearing my heart out all over again.
I take a deep breath and put on my armor.
Piece by piece. Spine straight. Chin up.
Heart locked down. I remind myself that I’ve been looking after myself since I was a small child.
That I looked after my alcoholic father too, right up until he died when I was seventeen.
I remind myself that I survived Enzo Medici once already, and I can survive him again.
Carefully, before my stupid body can betray me by burrowing closer, I untangle myself from his embrace. His arms resist for half a second. Just enough for me to feel it. Just enough to make my chest ache.
“I think I’m fine to walk now.”
He blinks, looking a little shocked. Maybe even hurt. The expression is gone almost as quickly as it appears, shuttered behind that familiar wall of arrogance and control, but I saw it.
That’s simply because of what just happened though.
Enzo is impulsive and reckless, but I was right in my assessment of him the other day.
He’s not cruel. Not at his core. Watching me almost die on his kitchen floor rattled him too.
So it’s best I put an end to this cozy little reunion sooner rather than later, before one of us forgets all the reasons we’re supposed to hate each other.
Before we end up kissing again. Or worse.
“Are you sure?” His voice is rougher than usual, scraped raw around the edges.
I nod. “Sure.”
I stand on shaky legs and he jumps up with me, one hand already reaching out to steady me. His fingers hover close to mine, close enough that I feel the heat of them, and then he seems to think better of it. His hand curls into a fist at his side instead.
I’m grateful for that too. I’m already feeling vulnerable enough without him touching me, without him acting like he cares, without my traitorous heart trying to make a meal out of scraps.
“I think I’m going to go take a nap.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
For a long moment, I just stare into his dark eyes, unable to stop myself from remembering a time when we had the world at our feet. Once upon a time, I was certain there was nothing our love could not conquer.
What a silly, naive little girl I was.
“Goodnight, Enzo.”
His throat works as he swallows, and I wonder if he’s remembering too. I wonder if it hurts him as much as it hurts me, or if I’m the only idiot still haunted by ghosts we both helped create.
“Goodnight, Rayne.”
My legs are still trembling as I make my way down the hallway, but now it has nothing to do with the aftereffects of my bee sting, and everything to do with Enzo Medici.