Chapter Seventeen #3
After a couple of minutes, even Matteo’s glaring stare fades, dissipating into the background.
With every pull of my arms, my body glides through the water.
I focus. I breathe. I take hold of the feeling, and I just swim.
Length after length. I go until my lungs burn.
Until my muscles ache and my eyes sting.
I reach the end and stop. I drag in breath after breath.
I rest my forehead on the side of the pool for a second before gripping onto the edge and letting myself slip under the water before thrusting up and heaving myself out.
When I jump up and pull myself out, standing on the side, dripping.
Matteo steps up to me with a towel. I stare up at him.
He nods, gives me a tight-lipped smile. Wrapping the towel around my shoulders.
I stare up at him. It’s a tender moment as his hands linger, holding me so close.
I take a breath and open my mouth to speak…
“Well, isn’t this fucking cosy?” Vittorio’s gruff voice echoes around the pool. Matteo’s arms wrap tighter for a split second. Before he relaxes and takes a step to the side, still keeping me close, still touching me.
Vittorio’s dark eyes glare at me and Matteo.
The scowl that spreads across his face tells me more in that second than I’ve seen this whole time.
Vittorio crosses his arms, his thick chest flexes, and his black t-shirt stretches tight across his tense biceps.
The glare enhances his beauty, that deadly bad-boy look that works so well for him, the intricate lines and swirls of his tattoos, that dark hair rumpled and messy, hanging over his brow.
His jeans hang low on his hips, and my gaze roams down his body, taking in every delicious inch until I reach his bare feet.
I swallow. Fuck, that man is a wet dream.
I blink. Breaking the spell before I stare between them. I shake my head and stride away. I don’t turn. I keep going until I reach my room.
I slam open the door. I storm straight into the bathroom and into the shower.
I toss my stuff in the hamper, and I turn the water on.
The steam billows out, and I turn the temperature down.
I step into the warm water. Lean against the wall and just let the water beat down on my neck and shoulders.
I let it centre me. I know this is gonna be hard. Why are men so infuriating?
I blow out a breath. I know I need to set boundaries with Matteo.
I need him, and I know if I cross that line, it will all go to shit.
But those moments of tenderness, the way I catch him looking at me.
It confuses me and makes me want to let him love me, but that’s the thing, isn’t it?
He would undoubtedly love me. But would I love him in return?
I need to be strategic. I need to nurture powerful alliances.
And I need to start with Vittorio. I don’t know whose side he’s on, but I need to figure that out, and the only way I’m gonna do that is by having a conversation.
I think about what Marianne said, and I know she’s right.
I just don’t know how to let my guard down and let someone in.
I don’t know how to be me around anyone else.
I’ve been so used to giving everyone what they want to fly under the radar that to be the real me sounds impossible.
I don’t know if I can. Do I even know who I am?
I play the part, whatever part that person needs for me to get what I want, but it’s draining, masking all the time.
I want to be myself. I just don’t know if anyone will accept me.
The real me, I mean, the ruthless, nasty bitch that lives inside me, crawling to get out.
Instead of the sweet, sickly thing I portrayed for years.
The weak, pathetic waste of space—was that who Vittorio saw in the corridors?
Is that who he wants, some caricature of myself?
But the real me, I take. I hate. I survive.
I want to trust, but no one has ever seen me.
Even Marianne only gets snippets of the real me.
If I shed all the personas, what am I left with?
I fake emotion. I fake existence, but I want to take it all and burn them around me until their extremities crisp, turn to ash and blow away in the breeze.
Then it hits me. Bellino. Maybe he would have actually been a good match.
He’s ruthless. He takes. He spares no thought for the lives he destroys.
The decimation he leaves in his wake—it’s just semantics, irrelevant, if something’s in his way, it’s his problem, and he will remove it by any means necessary.
I shake my head. Have I fucked up? Did I make the wrong choice with Vittorio? What did he see in me as I skulked through the halls in pretty dresses? Demure glances and the sugary sweet exterior—is that what he thinks he’ll get? Fuck’s sake.
I blow out a breath as I pluck the shampoo off the shelf and scrub it into my hair.
Aggressively trying to figure through my thoughts, I’m giving myself fucking whiplash.
If I am so like Bellino, would Vittorio even want me?
They don’t seem close. Is that just a show to break my confidence, the walls I hide behind?
I crack my neck and just breathe. I take my time.
I form a plan as I rinse and pick up the conditioner.
I smooth it through my hair and then grab the sponge.
I lather up the soap and scrub my skin, closing my eyes as I smile at the pleasure that radiates through my body from the pain of how I get clean.
The rough sponge prickles at my skin as I scrub every inch of it until I’m red raw.
I rinse all the soap and conditioner off my burning, sensitive skin, then flick the water to cold. I sigh as my skin flares. The tingling sensation spreads over me, and I groan. Fuck, this feels good. I take a few minutes until the cold water no longer feels cold.
Before stepping out of the shower, I pick up a towel and wrap it around my hair, and wrap another around my body. I glare down. The towel barely covers me. I step out into my room and gasp.