Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
Raf
Life lesson number six hundred sixty-six: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Julian sent someone else to the deal that went sideways. He got word to AJ that when he gets the marriage he was promised, only then will he answer to a Gigioliotti.
The “acquaintance” that gave AJ the tipoff played him and is now in the wind.
AJ is ready to annihilate anyone who he suspects to be a mole, which is everyone right now given he thought he had watertight intel.
Marco is onto me if his warning texts to let him do the talking with AJ and let Avery do his fucking job are anything to go by.
And who can forget my moment of madness when I decided to take Chiara as my wife, only adding to the clusterfuck that is my current existence.
Add to the mix the envelope Chiara had me open thinking it was an event invite she had to rsvp to, only to reveal a letter that was meant for her eyes only, and it’s making the crazy thoughts I’ve tried to tune out sound much clearer and seem like highly rational and probable solutions—even on paper.
I turn over the SIM in my fingers that A, which I’m assuming is A for Alessandro, put in the envelope with the letter to Chiara—his Bella Mia.
The urge to squeeze tighter and snap it in half is so tempting, but that would make implementing the plan I formulated in my den while shrouded in plumes of cigar smoke and over too many nips of scotch very hard.
Chiara didn’t technically lie to me. She told me that she saw her ex in L.A.
, but she sure as shit didn’t fucking mention that she saw him the same day she was summoned to the meet and greet with Julian over a month ago.
I held her in that bath and she kept a lid on it.
It makes me wonder what else she’s keeping from me.
Can I trust anything she says and does when she’s a master at burying details that really fucking matter?
Like the fact that her ex, the one she loved so much she thought she was going to marry, is here in New York, and not only found her at her place of work but knows where she lives.
Where we live. I loathe being kept in the dark.
Being lied to. Another by-product of being blindsided by the person you thought you were going to be with for the rest of your life.
“What your ex did has left you with deep-seated trust issues, Raf,” Dr. Schafer said in my third therapy appointment.
“You can’t reconcile that you’re successful, loyal, and driven, but she still cheated on you.
This has led you to believe that you aren’t enough.
Maybe even unlovable. Does that sound accurate? ”
Too fucking accurate. Which is why I never went back.
Objectively, I know therapy is healthy, and a commitment to attending sessions and implementing the strategies discussed there pave a way to manage and maybe even overcome your biggest insecurities and emotional and mental blocks.
Except every session felt like someone was taking big grains of cooking salt and rubbing it in the gaping wound on the left side of my chest. That was enough for me to decide I’d rather patch it, let it harden and live with the bruises forever.
I had no intention of becoming attached in that way ever again.
Except now I’ve found myself in a situation far worse than simply loving a woman.
I’ve fallen for a woman who’s fast becoming both my obsession and my fucking downfall.
Everything I thought I had a handle on is in disarray again because I should not want her.
Not only is she almost ten years younger than me, but she’s the type of woman I swore I would never fall for again.
Vivacious. Beautiful. Free-spirited. The brightest light in any room.
Like sunshine. Except the last woman I fell for like this fucking burned me to a char.
I should put as much distance between us as humanly possible.
A wall. A barrier. A fucking ocean. And yet after one taste, she’s all I crave.
All I think about. All I see. A given since she’s still living in my fucking house.
Not for her lack of trying to find somewhere new to live, but because I’m a selfish prick who’ll find every excuse to ensure she doesn’t.
It’s a bad area. That rent is ridiculous. It’s too far from public transport. Too small. Too old.
The excuses for why all the options she’s shown me aren’t suitable are piling up like dead bodies.
Until there’s none left and the only thing to do is confess.
But I can’t. I won’t. I gave a woman all the pieces of me once, and on the day we were meant to vow ’til death do us part, I vowed instead never to love again.
Except unlike the woman who turned me into a cold, heartless bastard, Chiara knows darkness.
It flits on the edges of her sunshiny front, threatening to spill over.
And that darkness calls to me, because deep in my cold heart is a craving to be the one to save her from it.
To take it from her and carry it instead.
To protect her from being dragged under and letting her dark thoughts snuff out her light.
That’s what has kept me up, straining to hear her breathing from the other room, knowing full well that’s impossible.
But what scares me most in my relentless pursuit to protect her from the men who want her for their own gain is that I wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice everything—my relationships with my own family, my moral code, my own fucking soul.
I take the SIM and insert it into my phone.
There’s already a message waiting. I respond, opening the door to what will probably be one of the stupidest decisions I’ll make, but not the most dangerous—that one relies solely on uncovering why Chiara is lying to me.
Even if his messages make it seem she told him to fuck off, is it all part of a fucked-up plan to use me so she can get back at her cousin then run off and live happily with Alessandro like they planned all those years ago?
My stomach churns like I’m going to be violently ill.
Has she been secretly meeting up with him the whole time I’ve been away?
Impossible. Avery would have said something to me.
Yet, somehow she managed to have contact with him and Avery was none-the-wiser.
You would think I’d be better at spotting the signs of dishonest behavior having lived through one nightmare relationship.
This new information makes everything we’ve shared feel tarnished, shining a light on how much I’ve fallen under her spell.
I’ve been so focused on being the man she needs, I failed to realize she was keeping me in the dark the whole time.