CHAPTER TWELVE
Tierney
I had too much to drink.
That statement had been true about three glasses of wine ago.
Now? Now I was positively hammered.
I’d been holding up great the entire weekend, fucking Achilles like it was my job and I was vying for the employee-of-the-month bonus.
I kept things light, casual, and toxic. I pushed my meltdown on the cliff into a drawer in my mind, where I also kept all the shopping site passwords I never remembered, pretending it never happened.
Normally, I abided by the one-drink rule to stay in control. But tonight called for liquid courage. I was trying to distance myself from what appeared to be the best date I’d ever had.
Was this a sick joke? Knowing Achilles, it was the only humor he was capable of.
On our last night in Naples, he’d decided to take me on a dinner date under the stars.
The seaside restaurant offered outside seating, cozy ambiance, delicious pasta, and divine wine.
The sound of the waves crashing against the shore cocooned me into relaxation, and I was loose-limbed from a chain of orgasms, a rigorous shopping spree, and hearty food.
After a weekend of showing me exactly what I was missing in the bedroom department, he was now determined to exhibit he was also capable of being a top-notch partner. A good fuck was a rare find. Good husband material? A mythical creature. Yet somehow, he turned out to be both.
The entire evening, he’d been attentive, soft-spoken, and in an agreeable mood. A total one-eighty from his surly, venomous self.
We bonded over neutral topics—food, vacation spots, our mutual hatred for the Red Sox.
Now he was just staring at me. Quietly. Contentedly Like a husband watching his wife, in a way that was both warm and familiar.
He seemed too pleased. Too sweet.
I knew it was a mind game. A way to make me squirm. I just didn’t know his angle.
“So.” I broke the disarming quiet, drumming my fingernails along the side of my wineglass, making the crimson liquid swirl and dance inside it. “Let’s talk about your stalking tendencies.”
I clung to our shared loathing like a lifeline. Hate fucks were familiar territory. Heart-to-hearts…not so much. And I especially didn’t want to lower my hackles in front of someone who had every intention of kicking me out of his life tomorrow morning.
“I don’t have stalking tendencies,” Achilles said evenly. “I only stalk you. It’s not a tendency. You’re an anomaly.”
I ignored the heat spreading across my chest. Stalking was not a healthy form of flirting. Even I knew that. I crossed one leg over the other. “Whatever. How often do you check on me?”
“Physically or remotely?”
I choked on my wine mid-sip, coughing into a napkin. “How do you check on me remotely?”
“Through your chaperones.” He waited a heavy beat, studying me. “And through the camera I installed inside your apartment.”
“There’s a camera inside my apartment?”
“And a tracker on your phone, which allows me full access to it.” He produced a cigarette from his soft pack, puffing it into life and hiding behind a cloud of smoke.
“Which reminds me. Can you please stop texting Hamish? It’s bad form to be doing that mere seconds after sucking someone else’s dick. You’re going to give me a complex.”
The delicious heat in my chest quickly morphed into an inferno of rage, spreading into my veins like poison.
The anger wasn’t just directed at him but also at myself.
I thought I’d been savvier than that. I had a strip of black tape on my laptop’s camera, a VPN, and made monthly checks of my apartment to ensure it wasn’t bugged.
Achilles read the embarrassment on my face and smirked. “You couldn’t have found it in a million years. I was precise and strategic about where I put the camera.”
“And where is that?”
“In the eye of the resurrection painting Lila gifted you for Christmas.” Achilles winked, finger-gunning me. “Jesus’s always watching you.”
I didn’t even like that painting. I only hung it because I knew how much it meant to my sister-in-law.
“You’re going to hell.”
“Was headed there with or without you.”
“I should put a knife into your chest for that alone.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you’ve done so much worse.” He exhaled sideways, taking a slow sip of his wine. His first and only glass. “To answer your question, I check on you several times a day. I like to know you’re safe. I like to know when you get home. And…”
“And?” I prompted, tilting my head sideways.
“To check you don’t have nightmares.”
“I don’t. I mean…not anymore,” I ground out. Again with this stupid, stupid pang of sympathy. I’d been so good this entire weekend, keeping it at surface level with him. And now this.
“No.” He grabbed the wine bottle, topping off my glass. “But that’s because you’re in denial about what happened. Find a good therapist when you settle down at your new place. Fuck knows you need one.”
“Well, if it isn’t my knight in shining bulletproof vest.” I crossed my arms over my chest, sitting back. “Don’t pretend to care.” My snark was my shield. It protected me from real conversation, which might lead to honesty, which might result in—God forbid—vulnerability.
He put his smoke out, scowling at the ashtray. “If I didn’t care about your happiness, you’d be married to me by now, popping out babies left and right. I spared you.”
“You’d marry me after what I’ve done to you?”
“In a heartbeat.” His gaze, dark as his soul, held mine from across the table. “Nothing would kill you more than sucking my cock at the end of every day and making my dinner.”
He was right. I was pretty sure if he made me marry him, I’d poison him.
“You almost forced me into marriage with a stranger,” I accused. “How is that better?”
“It’s not.” He looked deep in thought, rubbing a finger along his chin. “I wanted to hurt you, to punish you for not choosing me. If Stefano caged you, I could live with myself knowing you were miserable, just as long as I didn’t have to witness it every day.”
An unfamiliar feeling clogged my throat. Intense sadness for what we’d become.
“I speculated you were the groom.” I smiled, feeling tears burning my eyes again. Goddammit. I’d spent the last decade numb to everything around me. How could he undo so much in one stupid weekend?
Achilles smiled back. “We’d have made a terrible couple.”
“A recipe for disaster.” I agreed. “Harley and the Joker.”
He shook his head. “You’re no sidekick, Piccola Fiamma. You’re the main event. Always were.”
A tear slid down my cheek, and Achilles reached and scooped it with his index finger. For the millionth time, I loathed the simple fact I couldn’t tell him the truth about what had happened that fateful day.
That it wasn’t that I didn’t love him.
I loved him too much.
I knew his only chance to get the happiness he deserved was by getting rid of me. I was faulty. Broken. So I made the decision for him.
And spent the last eleven years going from hating myself for making it to hating him for punishing me for it.
“How’s your timer going?” I cleared my throat and looked away. Achilles never let anyone stare at his face for too long. He didn’t like his scars and made a conscious effort not to be in the same room with his nephews, Nero and Ciro, worried he’d scare them.
“Didn’t put one on this time. I wanted us to have one real date. No deadline.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Torture you, mainly. Is it working?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. It hurt to see this side of Achilles.
Laid-back and almost friendly. It was easier to think about him as the asshole who’d killed all my hookups and monitored my life in retaliation for what I’d done to him when we were teenagers.
Now, I was reminded that there was more to him than a cold-blooded murderer. “Can you take me home?”
He stood and offered me his hand.
We walked out of the restaurant looking like a normal, loved-up couple.
The one we could’ve been.
It was a ten-minute walk back to the hotel, and I insisted we make it by foot. I needed to reorganize my thoughts and hoped the fresh air would sober me up.
Achilles chivalrously matched my sluggish pace, slowed by my three-inch heels and half a bottle of wine. It pissed me off that he was so agreeable.
Three Camorra soldiers trailed us, quietly surveilling the area.
This was our last few hours together. After tonight, I had to split and move away for good, leaving my entire life behind. We’d agreed on it, but I still struggled to imagine myself without my family, friends, and social circle.
By the time we reached our presidential suite, I was no more clearheaded than I had been ten minutes ago. He closed the door behind us, and I used the opportunity to pounce on him, jerking him close so we were flush against each other.
“Fuck me like a whore. It’s what I deserve.” I hoisted my legs up and vined them around his trim waist, pulling him even closer. His cock pulsated between us through our clothes.
This was my out. My off-ramp from all these pesky feelings he stirred in me.
“It’s so cute when you pretend you can fight me.” He clasped my jaw with one hand while he ground his shaft along my center. Goose bumps cascaded along my skin. “Like a kitty trying to take on a tiger.”
I met him halfway, thrusting my hips, as we dry-humped against the wall deliciously, slowly enough to drive each other mad. I looped one arm around his neck, my other hand trailing his sculpted chest.
“Careful, Achilles. This kitty has claws. They might leave scars.”
“You always do, sweetheart.” His mouth latched onto the side of my neck, his straight, white teeth sinking into the sensitive flesh. “And I’ll wear them like a badge of honor.”
He devoured my neck, running his hot tongue along my pulse, nibbling softly, while I rode him through our clothes, running my fingernails along his back and leaving dents.
I darted my tongue out, tracing his stubbled jawline with the tip of it. I reached between us, unbuckling him with one hand.
Up until now, he’d only taken me either from behind or with a helmet. He never let me see his face, and we never kissed. His boundaries were clear, but I wanted to smash them to dust. I wasn’t sure I had any hard limits anymore when it came to him.
His cock leapt free from his black boxer briefs.
I ran my palm along the heavy shaft, thumbing a drop of precum and rubbing it.
He groaned, his minty breath fanning over my face.
My tongue traveled upward, tracing the edge of his bottom lip.
His mouth, God, his mouth. I only had a hazy memory of what it tasted like, but it was delicious, like every dark fantasy I’d ever had.
Mouthwatering and forbidden, conjured from the most depraved corners of my soul.
He froze and pulled away from me.
“F—Ford Prefect,” he choked out.