Chapter Five #3
She hoped that he’d cherished her friendship too, and not just as a silly diversion to build up his own ego. She needed him to understand that he’d hurt her, yes, but she could forgive him. That she still wanted him in her life.
Which made her insistent attraction to the man studying her so much worse.
“Which part did they not like?” Mr. Ricci asked, with the tenacity of a pit bull.
“Digging for dirt on Matteo is a little beneath you, don’t you think?” She scoffed. “Remind me to never introduce you to my parents. Mom especially.” There was no doubt in her mind that Alessandro would win them over in a second. Despite the cold remoteness, he was a natural leader, a protector.
“Why not?”
“You and she have too much in common,” she said, eyeing him greedily. If she introduced him as her lover, though… Mom would blow her top. The idea sent bubbles of delight through Sam.
“You are an infuriating puzzle made of innocence and strength, Ms. Fischer.” His gaze swept over as if he wanted to peel away the surface to see how she was put together. “As your parents, maybe they only see the first.”
“But they should know better,” she retorted, frustration coiling through her.
Even as she was amazed that he saw through to what grated on her so easily.
How had he gotten so close to her in three days?
What dark magic did he wield? “When life hits you with hard things and you endure them, it makes you tough, ready for things you haven’t experienced yet.
They expect me to be brave in one thing and then try to shield me from reality in everything else.
It doesn’t work like that. I can’t stay still so that they can feel better. ”
“Why are they so protective of you?”
He’d drilled down through all of that to come to the one question she didn’t want to answer. His gaze stayed on her, waiting.
Sam breathed hard, wondering why she didn’t want to tell him the truth. Why it mattered so much that he see her differently than everyone else in her life.
It was foolish. He’d find out sooner or later. She wasn’t going to be in his life for long, and anyway she wasn’t ashamed. She was a survivor.
But if she told him she’d had multiple heart surgeries by the time she turned eighteen, that she’d spent most of her teens in and out of hospitals, that she’d need medication and frequent checkups for the rest of her life, he’d look at her differently.
He’d treat her like everyone else did. As if she were fragile and needed looking after. As if her mind were also slow, not just her body. As if she were less than a normal person.
Her cousins, to this day, acted wary around her. Tiptoed around their accomplishments as if she couldn’t bear to hear them. Were condescending toward her—out of love, yes, but God, it was still infuriating.
Alessandro Ricci, on the other hand, had pushed her when she’d been ready to fall apart. Had made her angry to stop her tears. He’d challenged her notions about herself until she’d no choice but to go toe-to-toe with him.
Would he still talk to her like that if he knew? Or would he pity her too? Would he give her a different version of him—a softer, fake version?
“Ms. Fischer, come back to me.”
Sam licked at her lower lip, the resolute look in his eyes telling her he wasn’t going to let this go. And she was equally resolute that he see her as a woman, his equal, an object of desire.
Jesus, an object of desire? Why was her mind running away like this? And why was her damned body following as if an affair with this man was even within the realms of possibility?
The shrill ring of his cell phone broke the silence. He held her gaze for an eternity before he answered it.
Like a curtain being pulled shut, that austerity returned to his expression. His torrent of Italian was too rapid for her to follow.
“I have to leave. I will send another chauffeur to pick you up.”
Sam nodded, his forbidding expression cutting off her questions.
Shooting to his feet, he turned, then paused. “Why do you think you messed up in your relationship too?”
Sam stared at him, even as her confusion suddenly untangled.
Matteo wanted easy, surface stuff. Forget pain, he didn’t even want discomfort.
He didn’t want messy emotions and digging through one’s feelings and assumptions and the raw awareness that could only be found beneath one’s fears.
The fierce realness of pleasure once you’ve tasted the worst kind of pain.
A life with her would never be easy or fun. And not just because she’d already tasted the primal fear of losing life itself. But because that fear had also given her an appreciation for things borne out of pain and failure and grief.
Like attraction that went beyond looks. Like the connection between her parents. Like her perception of this man’s true nature within seconds of meeting him.
“I didn’t understand myself and clung to him for too long,” she said, finally seeing past her own insecurities.
It wasn’t her lack of adventurous spirit.
Not her wanting to cling to the safety of her parents’ home and love.
Not knowing that she’d changed from the eighteen-year-old who’d found Matteo so fascinating.
“I used him to feel safe, to feel good about myself.”
Alessandro stared at her, unblinking, those gray eyes consuming.
Ask me what I mean, her mind chanted relentlessly.
For a man who’d pushed and prodded her from the moment she’d arrived, he backed off now. The damned man could write a thesis on how to keep her unbalanced.
“Buona serata, Sameera.”
Sam shivered at the sound of her name on his lips. But he was already gone. “Good night, Alessandro,” she whispered to herself.
It was a long time before her thoughts stilled. Before she could stop thinking of how greedy and hungry she was for another moment—quiet or sparring—with Alessandro.
For another conversation.
For another day with that dark, stormy gaze consuming her.