Chapter 4 Constantine #2
“Well . . .” She closed out of the photo she was working on and moved to her desktop, where she had folders and more folders.
Folders within folders. She was definitely organized.
She opened a folder labeled Favorites and then clicked on the first picture there.
“I feel the best photos are ones where the subject doesn’t know they’re being photographed.
I’m not exactly sure what was going on with this couple, but it looks like she got cold feet and he came to talk to her.
They didn’t know I was still in the room.
” It was a picture of a young couple, him in a suit and her in her wedding dress, and she was sobbing.
An ugly cry. But he looked at her like she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
Just pure love in his eyes. “The way he looks at her . . . I can’t even describe it. ”
“Yeah, I see what you mean.”
She clicked on another. It was an older woman who looked sick and emaciated and had lost all her hair. She stood at the open window with the sunshine pouring through, highlighting her pale skin. It looked like she could barely remain standing, clinging to the ledge with twiglike fingers.
I immediately knew who she was.
Aurelia swallowed as she looked at the picture.
“I came down the hallway to check on her . . . it was the first time I’d seen her stand in a long time.
She could have fallen and broken something, but .
. . I just let her have her moment instead.
It’s the last picture I took of her. She was gone the next day.
” She swallowed again, her eyes starting to tear up like the wound was still raw.
Then she quickly clicked on the picture and minimized it, as if she couldn’t look at it anymore.
I could feel the ache of her pain like it was my own.
Feel the weight of loneliness she carried on her shoulders.
We were two different bodies, but it felt like we had the same soul for that moment in time.
“Sweetheart.” I pulled her into me and pressed a kiss to her hairline.
I let my lips linger there as I held her close, as I tried to take away her pain in whatever way I could.
She took a slow breath and blinked back the tears. “Some days I’m okay . . . and then other days I’m not.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes.”
“But when those bad days come . . . they’re a lot easier with you.”
After I climbed the steps and pushed through the mahogany doors, I saw Medusa run at a full sprint toward me.
And then I noticed the green tennis ball she was chasing.
She pulled off a full stop with ease and then wagged her tail at the sight of me, jumping up on her hind legs and putting her paws to my chest. She was well trained and knew not to do that with anyone else—but with me, it was okay.
“Hey, baby girl.” I gave her a rubdown and then looked down the long corridor to where Aurelia stood in jean shorts and an orange blouse that showed her stomach and the little piercing at her navel. “Playing fetch?” I asked with a laugh.
“I bought a couple balls for her when I was out earlier,” she called from the other side. “Hope that’s okay.”
I grabbed the ball, squeezed it to make it squeak, and then threw it back to Aurelia.
Medusa took off at a rocket-speed sprint and chased down the ball in the other direction.
I headed over, and a minute later, I made it to Aurelia.
“Are you mad?”
I hugged her and squeezed her ass in both my hands before I kissed her. “Do I look mad?”
“I was careful not to hit anything.”
“All I care about is my girls getting along.” I kissed her again.
“Your girls?” she asked with a smile, like she was happy to be Medusa’s equal rather than offended by it.
“Hungry?”
“Just assume I’m always hungry until told otherwise.”
No one made me smile more than she did. Whether she was being playful or just herself, it always made me feel . . . something. “Good, I’m starving. How does pizza sound?”
“Pizza always sounds good.”
We left the house, and I drove us to my favorite spot, a little hole-in-the-wall place visited only by locals. We were given a table right away in the back, and when the waitress came over, I ordered our drinks without asking what Aurelia wanted.
She never complained about that, so I assumed she liked not having to make decisions, that she liked being in a relationship with a man who took the lead so she didn’t have to.
After fighting for a dead relationship, it was probably nice to be chased, to have someone order for her, to have someone drive her everywhere.
Someone to take care of her.
“How’s Cindy?” I asked.
Her good mood immediately soured at the thought of Timothée. “Devastated. She thinks he took off to Paris and ghosted her.”
I didn’t pity Cindy. Not when I’d done her a huge fucking favor.
Aurelia didn’t ask what I’d done to Timothée.
I spared her the burden of the details.
“I spent a couple days with her. She was there for me after Enzo, so I was happy to help her.”
I still hated hearing his name. Not because I was jealous or threatened. I just fucking hated him for how he’d hurt her. She was fucking gorgeous head to toe, and he decided to treat her like a plastic bag stuffed in a garbage can. “She’ll find someone else.”
“Of course. She’s gorgeous.”
“And find someone better.”
“Yeah, but she’ll be heartbroken awhile.”
“Then maybe you should tell her the truth so she won’t be.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know which is worse, honestly. And if I tell her the truth, she may not like you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t care if she likes me or not.”
“Well, I’d like my friends to like you.”
“I don’t care what mine think of you.”
“You don’t?” she questioned. “Because you seem to care what Rocco thinks.”
She had me and she fucking knew it—and I liked that. “I guess I care a little.”
“So . . . does he?”
“He said you were cool.”
“Cool?” she asked.
I shrugged. “He’s not a wordy kind of guy.”
“I was afraid he wouldn’t.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes flicked away to another spot in the restaurant.
“Why wouldn’t he?” I repeated, knowing she was hiding something from me.
Her eyes came back to me. “Well, I didn’t make a good first impression.
Got mixed up with a couple assholes, let one spike my drink, left the restaurant with him .
. . I looked like the biggest idiot in the world.
And then I’m sure you told him Enzo left me for a woman almost a decade older than me with two kids. It’s just not a good look.”
This drop-dead gorgeous woman with a heart of gold was in front of me, but she talked about herself like she was the most worthless human being on the planet. “Why are you so unkind to yourself?”
“I’m not. I just know how the world works. I know how people think.”
“Maybe assholes, but not people. Because Rocco never once thought any of those things—and neither have I. What happened to you was a crime. Those assholes have run that same skit before, because it’s worked before.
And Enzo is a dumbass. Stop judging your own worth based on how a prick treated you.
” My arms folded on the table, and I came closer to her.
“This is the actual story. Some dumbass miraculously gets the perfect woman but fucks it up because he was too stupid to know what he had. It’s his story—not yours.
His mistakes are not a reflection of your worth, sweetheart.
And I promise you.” My hand tightened into a fist, and I gave a slight thump on the table.
“He regrets it now, and he’ll regret it forever. ”
Her eyes flicked away again, like she couldn’t accept my kindness.
“And now that perfect woman is mine—and like hell am I gonna fuck it up.”
She hesitated before she looked at me again.
There was a shine there, not from tears, but emotion.
“I don’t understand how you’re real, Constantine.
Because you could literally have any woman you want, and you’re the one saying the nicest things no one has ever said to me.
” Her eyes dropped again like her emotions were volatile—and about to ignite.
All the anger and resentment I’d felt toward her were long gone.
So absent, it was as if it’d never been there in the first place.
Whenever I looked at her, I saw my whole world in a single person.
There was still so much we didn’t know about each other—our time together had been so brief—but I just .
. . felt so much for her. “Because I’m the man who’s meant to say them. ”