Chapter 21
Aurelio~
Staring up at me, Savina had no idea that I was never going to let her leave my penthouse again. She was never going back to her brownstone or even to her parents’ house. I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that she never set foot off Sartori territory ever again.
However, I couldn’t tell her that right now.
She’d fall apart if I did.
Her blue gaze looked vacant, but it wasn’t from the trauma that she’d endured. It was obvious to anyone with a pair of working eyes that she was past the point of exhaustion. She looked like the past two years had just come crashing down on her head, and she was one tick away from losing it, something that she was very entitled to if it came down to that.
“You can do all that here,” I told her.
Always having been stubborn, she said, “I think I’d be more comfortable at a hotel.”
“I didn’t ask you what you’d feel more comfortable with,” I snapped, not being able to help myself. Though I wasn’t mad at her, I was mad. I was mad, and I didn’t even know if the feeling was ever going to go away. “You’ll take your bath here.”
“Aurelio-”
“You’re not leaving!” I roared, my entire body vibrating with a rage that was dangerous for anyone that might need to be around me right now. “You’ll take your fucking bath here, and that’s final!”
“I don’t-”
“I also don’t have a fucking girlfriend,” I finally told her, no longer yelling at her. “Do you honestly think that what happened the other day would have happened if I had a girlfriend?” I was barely holding it together, so she needed to go take her fucking bath already. “There’s only ever been you, Savina.” Her chin went up, ready to call me a liar, so I quickly clarified my statement. “Yeah, I’ve fucked other women in your absence, but you’re out of your goddamn mind if you think that I’d been serious with any of them. After the way that you broke my heart, the fuck if I was ever going to sign up for that shit again.”
My chest felt like it’d just been kicked in when her tears started again, and I’d realized what I’d just said. She’d made a mistake, and she had paid for it in spades, so me reminding her of how she’d broken my heart had been completely unnecessary. Plus, given the choice, I’d let her break my heart a million times over, rather than allow her to endure what she’d been through these past two years.
“Baby-”
Savina took a step back as she shook her head. “Just don’t, Aurelio,” she said, leaving me with no choice but to let her call the shots right now. She deserved at least that much. “I just…I just really want to take a bath.”
Without another word, I reached down, took her hand in mine, then led her out of my office towards my bedroom. While I had extra bathrooms, she was going to use mine, and she was also going to sleep in my bed, despite the extra guest rooms.
When we reached the bathroom, Savina stood in the middle of the room, just staring at the tub, and I wanted to smash this fucking room to pieces as well. Memories of Nero losing his mind when Emil Schultz had taken Kasen started running through my head, and I could remember telling him how he’d had to get his shit together for Kasen’s sake, and now I could see how insignificant that advice had been. I felt murderous with just knowing that Savina had made a choice to be in an abusive relationship with Ashton Oliver, whereas Kasen had been shot and kidnapped by one of Nero’s enemies. It was clear as day now why Nero had gone after the entire Schultz bloodline, instead of just Emil himself.
“What’s wrong, baby?” I asked, instead of destroying the bathroom.
“I don’t have any bubble bath,” she answered, and her voice was void enough that it made my stomach tighten. “I also don’t have any clothes or any-”
“Hey,” I said, stopping her rambling. “I can take care of all that. Just…” I took her face in my hands, forcing her to have to look up at me. “Just…give me a few minutes, and I can have anything that you need, okay?”
Savina jerked her face out of my hands, and my heart felt like it was going to beat clean out of my chest as I watched her silently walk over to the toilet, then lower the lid to sit down on it. Not wasting any time, I raced out of the bathroom, then called Carlo Donatello, the only married Sartori man that lived in this building.
“Aurelio,” he greeted on the second ring.
“Does your wife have any bubble bath?” I asked.
“Uhm…I…I think so…” he stammered, and I didn’t blame the man.
“I’ll be right there,” I told him before hanging up on him.
Five minutes, three-hundred dollars, and one confused Carlo Donatello later, I had some bubble bath, and my anger was swift when I returned to the bathroom to see Savina still sitting on the toilet, that blank expression still on her face, her beautiful eyes still looking tired.
“I’ve got some bubble bath,” I informed her, and when she looked back up at me again, I knew deep in my soul that I wasn’t ever going to stop being angry. If I’d thought that her leaving me had fucked me up beyond repair, that was nothing compared to how I felt now.
When Savina didn’t make any effort to take the bubble bath from my hands, I made my way towards the tub, then started preparing her bath. Having never had a bubble bath before, I had no idea how much I was supposed to pour in the water, but I figured that she needed a lot of bubbles after what she’d gone through.
After the tub was filled with hot water and lilac-scented bubbles, I looked back over at Savina, and I was surprised to find that she was staring up at me. “What?”
“That’s a lot of bubbles, Aurelio,” she stated, and my heart dropped in relief that my Savina was still inside her somewhere.
Instead of ruining the moment with the anger still coursing through my body, I said, “I’ll go find you something to change into after your bath. If you need anything else, let me know.” I glanced back at the tub. “Take your time.”
“Thank you,” she replied quietly, and I wanted to yell the place down.
“You’re welcome,” I replied just as quietly before walking out of the bathroom to give her some privacy.
Two minutes later, while I was grabbing a shirt for her to wear, I got a text from Carlo, and so I quickly went to go meet him at his condo. After commandeering his wife’s bubble bath, I had ordered him and his wife to go buy all the things that I knew Savina would need once she got out of the tub. With everything about her burned into the back of my mind forever, I remembered everything that she used to use when we’d been together, so I’d given Carlo a list of what to buy, including more bubble bath.
Once I’d had everything, I knocked on the bathroom door, but was still enough of a dick not to wait for permission to enter. When I walked inside, Savina was up to her neck in bubbles still, and all the mirrors were fogged up with how hot it was in the room.
As I placed my shirt and bag on the counter, she asked, “What’s that?”
“A shirt to sleep in and a bag of what I thought you might need,” I answered. “There’s a brush, deodorant, lotion…” I started shifting through the bag. “…a toothbrush, those hair thingies, and there’s some other shit in there, too.”
“Did you really have someone run out and get all that stuff for me?”
I turned to face her, and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that there wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for her, but that wasn’t true. Once upon a time, she had asked me to go with her as she found a new life for herself, and I’d told her no. I’d chosen the life that I’d always known over the dreams that she’d had for us, and had I gone with her, then the past two years never would have happened. As I looked at her submerged in lilac-scented bubbles, I realized that Savina hadn’t left me, so much as she’d chosen herself just like I had chosen myself.
“Aurelio, are you okay?” she asked, her brows furrowing.
Instead of answering, I said, “I’ll put your clothes in the washer, so that you have something suitable to wear tomorrow.”
Not giving her a chance to respond, I left the bathroom, and I had no idea how I was managing to hold it together like I was. Regret and anger were eating away at me, and it felt like a poison with no cure setting in. Honestly, I felt like I was going a little bit insane with the knowledge of what Savina had gone through, and I wasn’t even sure if killing Ashton Oliver was going to be enough to bring me back.
Knowing that she was going to be in there for a while longer, I pulled out my phone, then dialed Nero.
“Hey, what’s up?” he asked after the second ring.
“I know that Kasen needs you, so I can do this alone,” I told him, prepared to do just that.
“I’m going to hang up before you really piss me off,” he said right before doing it.
Despite it all, I found myself grinning in thanks.