Chapter 19 Rome
ROME
Dude. Where the fuck did you go?
Sorry, brother. We got out of there when no one was looking.
—Text from Lucky to Rome
As quickly as Dillan righted her dress in that dark room, she threw a wall back up between us, putting enough emotional space there to dam up Niagara Falls. At least until she could get the physical space between us too.
And I let her.
What the hell else was I supposed to do?
At least until now. Until we walk through the doors of the house.
Now I’ve had about enough of this shit.
She storms in front of me into the house, and I slam the door and lock it behind me, frustration building and threatening to bubble over with each step I take behind her. “You about ready to talk about this shit, principessa?”
Dillan’s shoulders tense as she stops dead in her tracks in the middle of the living room and spins on me.
Wide, rage-filled eyes that were soft and sated less than an hour ago stare furiously back.
“At least pick a fucking nickname, Rome. Princess. Principessa. Baby. You threw a new one at me the other day I don’t even remember. ”
She remembers.
“Yeah, baby. That’s it.” I stalk closer, moving silently like I would in the cage. “Fight with me. Give me this because fighting means you give a shit. Fighting means there’s something worth fighting for. Not some bitchy little act of indifference.”
She tosses her purse to the couch and crosses her arms over her chest, perfectly framing her delectable tits. “You want to know why I have so many nicknames for you, Dillan?”
“Yes.” Her voice is strong and sharp, but this woman isn’t yelling. She isn’t screaming or stomping her foot. She’s standing in front of me, head held high, holding strong, and putting up a great front.
“You’re not going to like it,” I warn as I take the last few steps needed, closing the distance between us.
Her chest lifts as she sucks in a quiet breath, her nerves showing like a fighter’s tell before he throws a punch. “Try me.”
“You wear so many faces, Dillan. I’ve been watching them for years.
And before you say it, I’m not saying you’re like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
I’m saying you’re different for different people.
You slip into who they need you to be. Your family gets one version of you.
You’re smaller for them. I watched it the other night at dinner.
Your friends get another version. For us, you’re bubbly and smiling, but it doesn’t reach your damn eyes half the time.
And when you’re with a group of people you’re not completely comfortable with, you’re quiet.
You try to act comfortable, but you’re not. You are a complex woman, principessa.”
She throws her hands in the air, the only indication she’s losing her cool, and God, she’s beautiful. “What the hell is the difference between princess and principessa?”
I grip the back of my neck and look away, deciding how far I want to push her tonight. How fucking far I want to be pushed.
“Rome . . .” Her voice wavers, and my decision’s made before I take my next fucking breath.
“Princess is a tease,” I tell her, close enough to see the green flecks in her aqua eyes. “Someone who needs things done a certain way. Someone who’s been coddled their whole life. Someone who can’t and won’t do anything for themselves.”
“I am not—”
“That’s why,” I say slowly, needing her to hear me because I’m only telling her this once. “I said it was a tease. I know that’s not you. But damn, if the fire in your eyes when I call you that isn’t seventh-level-of-hell hot.”
Dillan’s mouth tightens as she glances away, unable to make eye contact. “And principessa is different?”
Studying her, I know this next part can go one of two ways.
Really good or really bad. And there haven’t been a whole lot of things with Dillan Ryan that have gone really good between us.
“Principessa,”—I reach forward and tangle a long soft lock of hair around my finger and tug—“might sound the same, but it’s completely different.
In my family, a principessa is someone who’s cherished.
Someone you protect at all costs. Not coddle.
” Her brow raises, but I keep going, obliterating any line I’m not supposed to cross.
“Not because she can’t protect herself, but because you want to protect her.
” I smile, thinking of the way Nonna explained it to me when I was still young enough to think girls were gross. “Because she’s worth it.”
She shakes her head the tiniest bit but refuses to look at me. She also doesn’t smack my hand away and lets me keep my hold on her hair, so that’s something. “And what about stell—”
She stumbles over the word I let slip once or twice. “Stellina.” I smile and lift my other hand to her face, forcing her eyes gently to mine. “It’s an Italian slang.”
“For what?” Dillan asks with a definite pout to her lips and what looks like tears pooling in her eyes.
“Little star,” I admit, and her lip trembles. “What can I say, you’re tiny, Theia.”
“I’m not that small,” she grumbles, and I drop my hands and move them under her arms, lifting her and carrying her to the glass doors that lead to the back porch.
Without the lights on outside, our reflections might as well be peering back from a dark mirror.
I place her on her feet, standing over a foot taller than her.
“Tiny, Dillan. Some days, I swear you barely eat. You weigh next to nothing, and I’m not entirely convinced you’re tall enough to be riding in a car without a child safety seat like my nieces and nephews.
” I wrap my arms around her waist and lower my face to hers.
“But if you weren’t so damn stubborn, you’d be fucking perfect. ”
“Why do you have to be such an asshole?” she asks, hurt filling her voice. “One minute, you’re sweet in a way no one would ever believe you’d be capable of, and the next minute, you make me wonder if I imagined it because you’re a complete dick.”
“Lucky, I guess.” The joke falls flat. “I’m going to need you to explain something to me.”
“What?” she asks, our eyes still locked through our reflection.
“How did I hurt you? That night at your parents’, I asked who hurt you, and you said it was me.” It’s fucking haunted me since.
She pushes out of my arms. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Stop running, Dillan . . .” I gently grab her wrist and tug. “Tell me.”
“Why? So you can tell Lucky tonight was just another night too? That I’m nobody important?
That I don’t matter? That the night we had was like any other night to you, when I swear to God, my world stopped spinning and tilted two years ago, and my mind quieted like it never had, only for you to screw me over the very next morning and remind me exactly why I don’t trust people? Why people suck?”
I reach for her as I try to wrap my head around everything she just said, but she smacks my hands away.
“Don’t you dare touch me now.” She takes another step out of reach.
“And if that wasn’t enough, you blackmailed me into pretending to be your girlfriend.
Blackmail, Rome. I know your dad is into some shady shit, but seriously, you blackmailed me.
So yeah, pick a time. You’ve hurt me more than once. ”
I stare at her like it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the real Dillan Ryan. Tears fall from the corners of her eyes. My fucking heart cracks wide open, and pain like nothing I’ve ever felt before hits me harder than any opponent ever has. “Are you kidding me?”
“About which part?” she snaps.
“Two years ago, I gave you the closest thing to the real me I’ve ever given anyone.
And the next damn morning, I wasn’t ready to talk to my shithead little brother about it, so I blew him off.
He was an idiot. A senior in college with a big mouth and a bigger attitude.
I wasn’t going to tell him anything about that night.
About you or what I was fucking feeling.
I’m a man, Dillan. We don’t do feelings well.
I don’t share that kind of shit with anyone, including my brothers.
It wasn’t his business. It was ours.” The initial guilt I feel turns to fury pretty fucking fast. “Tell me that’s not why you threw me out.
Tell me we haven’t wasted two years fighting because you overheard half a conversation and didn’t have the balls to ask me about it.
Because you might be a lot of things, but I never thought a coward was one of them. ”
“I’m sorry, what? I’m supposed to hear you say those things and be fine with it?
I’m not sure what whores you’ve slept with before or since, psycho, but that’s not me.
I don’t screw random guys who don’t mean something to me.
So yeah, hearing those words from you hurt, and I reacted.
It had nothing to do with balls and everything to do with self-respect.
That doesn’t make me a coward in my book.
” She walks away, stomping her way up the stairs to the bedroom, and I follow behind.
No way this conversation ends until it’s over.
And it’s nowhere near over.
Dillan grabs pajamas from the top drawer and spins furiously, like she didn’t expect me to be here.
I open my mouth to speak, but she puts her palm up, stopping me. “Don’t. Please . . . just don’t, Rome. You don’t understand. I might have thought maybe you could at one point. But I was obviously wrong.”
“Then make me understand. I’m not a mind reader. I can’t know unless you tell me,” I growl, refusing to give this up. Knowing damn well this fight matters because this woman matters. I walked away once without a fight, and for a fighter, that’s not an easy thing to do. “Please, Dillan.”
Her shoulders drop, like the sound of her name breaks her damn heart.
“I’m not like you, Rome.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I demand, blocking her path to the bathroom. She’s not escaping this.
“You ooze confidence. You have since we were kids. Even when you didn’t, you faked it until you did.
” Her voice is less angry now, and it’s like I’m watching her close in on herself in front of me.
“I’m not like that. I struggle with all the eyes on me.
I hate it. I don’t like the attention. I don’t like anything about it.
I don’t particularly like myself half the time.
It’s why I stopped working for Lilah. It’s why I struggle with social media.
It’s why I panicked tonight.” She wipes a tear from her face.
“So yeah, I opened up to you that night, and the next morning . . .”
I just lost the fight with a single sentence.
Not that this is about winning or losing, but damn.
Those words . . . How can I be mad at her when I want to kill whoever made her feel that way?
Even if it was me.
“You are incredible,” I whisper, scared she’s about to shut down and completely shut me out. “Why wouldn’t you like yourself?”
“You wouldn’t underst—”
“Stop. Stop thinking you know what I will or won’t understand.” I want so fucking badly to touch her, but I hold my ground. “What aren’t you saying, principessa? What are you scared to say?”
She stands in heartbreaking silence, neither of us moving. Barely fucking breathing.
I’ve never been this guy. The one who wants to fix something for someone else.
But I want to fix this. I want to fix us because after tonight, there’s no doubt left in my body that there will be an us.
The way I want to destroy whoever made this woman look at herself as anything less than fucking perfect is like a black hole threatening to consume me.
“I’m saying I’m tired,” Dillan finally answers with a voice that’s sounds like it’s been raked over sharp glass before stopping short on a quiet sob that doesn’t quite happen.
“I’m saying I can’t do this anymore tonight.
” She hugs her pajamas to her chest and closes her eyes.
“I’m saying—I’m telling you I can’t do this anymore tonight. Please.”
Please . . .
How the fuck am I supposed to fight that?
I can’t. I won’t.
Not again.
I’m not going to be the reason this woman cries again.
Not ever again.
“Okay,” I say gently. Not moving because if I move, this all ends. My hands will be on her, and any self-restraint I’m fighting for won’t matter.
“That’s it?” Her chest shakes with a breathy inhale. “You’re not going to fight me?”
“No, baby. Get changed and come to bed. We can fight tomorrow.” Fuck. Why does that sound so goddamned good?
A small smile curves her sweet mouth, and I realize that’s why. I’m giving her what she needs, but her being here—in my bed . . . in my home . . . in my arms—that’s what I need.
Sometimes you need to know when to fall back from a fight so you can fight another day.