Chapter 27
Princess
I should have known better than to trust a fuckboy. I don’t even know why I agreed to those stupid terms as if he has a right to me. To my mind, my soul, my body.
He hasn’t answered any of his texts, and with the amount of texts I’ve sent him, not to mention the goddamn calls, I’m not only looking desperate as fuck, but also pathetic. All this over a fucking man.
I’m pacing my room, my nail beds wrecked with the amount of times I’ve ripped off the skin around them. A nervous tic of mine that my mother couldn’t beat out of me.
I don’t even know why he is doing this to me. Is it to mock me. To test me? Or was the whole thing all a lie?
The urge to grab my phone and call him again is strong, but I don’t even know what the hell I’d say. I’m not the one completely shutting him out and refusing to pick up or even text back.
And it’s not like I can look and see him through the cameras because he hasn’t been home since last night. So I’m fucking screwed.
The thing that’s eating me alive isn’t the fact that I don’t have access to him. It’s that I don’t know the reason for all of this. It’s the only question that seems to float around my damn fucking brain, and I wish I could think of a different thing to ask other than “why.”
Instead of wallowing up in my room, I yank my door open, leaving the urge to just lie in bed in my room and making my way down the marble stairs. Today is a beautiful day. Why should I waste it on him? He doesn’t even care enough to answer me.
The house is quiet. My brothers are probably out doing business.
Dad is at another appointment with his doctors, and the witch is probably with him.
Some of the staff are running around the kitchen.
The black, heavy double doors leading into the garden are open, a soft breeze drifting in.
I can hear the low notes of the windchime as I head out.
The sun is a ghost behind the thin veil of clouds, casting a muted golden light over the garden.
I forego the slippers and just step outside onto the cool stone steps; the air is thick with the scent of the white roses that are planted in black vases all around the garden.
The family townhouse looms behind me, ornate and elegant with its gilded balconies and intricate cravings, a monument to a forgotten century.
My fingers skim the vines curling around the black facade, clinging to the edges of the windows. I walk past the manicured hedges, my eyes on the shimmering pool, a couple of petals floating there.
I drop into the black lounge chair and grab the book that was abandoned on the glass table in front.
The book practically falls open and lands on a page that is worn around the edges, as if it has been returned to over and over again.
I can’t really read any of it, because it’s not in English.
If I’m not wrong, I think it’s in Italian.
My eyes skim over the underlined line “omnia causa fiunt.” I kinda wish I had my phone with me because I would have been able to Google translate the phrase.
“Is there anything you want, young miss?” Alberta, one of the staff, asks. Her eyes are soft, the skin framing her eyes wrinkled, smile lines etched into her face.
I give her a small smile. “No, thank you.” She moves to leave, but I remember she grew up in Naples, so I ask, “Can you read Italian?”
She stops for a second, her hands twisting a small towel around. “Yes, I can. Is there anything you’d like?”
I get up, moving closer and opening the book, pointing my finger to the line. “Can you tell me what this phrase means?”
“Ominia causa fiunt.” She reads the line, her Italian accent even stronger. “It means everything happens for a reason.”
I let the words sink in, Alberta says something else, and when I don’t respond, she heads back inside.
Everything happens for a reason.
It feels like God, the universe, or whoever is laughing at me. As if I’m some sort of joke.
The sound of a car horn in the distance breaks me out of my trance. I drop the book back onto the table, and instead of staying out here, I decide to head back inside. The anxiety of not knowing what the hell is going on is eating me alive.
I don’t even know what the hell I’m supposed to do. Was he being truthful when he said he wanted to give us a go? If there is an us.
I pull my laptop off my desk and settle on my bed. The cursor hovers over the security camera program, the one thing that is letting me into his apartment. The app takes a couple of seconds to open, the screen loading in.
I have four options: Camera 1, Camera 2, Camera 3 and Camera 4. I flick through them, hoping I’ll see that he’s in his apartment, but…nothing. There’s no one there, and his place looks untouched. Coffee mugs sit on the table, dishes on the kitchen island.