Chapter 42 #3
I take a deep breath and open my eyes so I’m looking at my future while I speak of a past that convinced me to close off my heart to the possibility of ever finding my person.
“Remember that day in my office when you looked at me and asked who hurt me? Well that was the first time in a long time I felt such an intense gravitational pull to someone. When you stared me down and asked me that, it struck like lightning. I felt called out, like an imposter in my own life. I had the accolades, the wealth, the promise of being the future of Princi Law & Associates, and yet I couldn’t even make her stay.
” I swallow the taste of pride. “I was positive you could see the shame and embarrassment of being discarded like trash written all over my face.”
“If you think that’s what matters to me, or makes you worthy, then I need to tell you none of that means fuck all to me.
What matters is your fierce loyalty to the ones you care about, the way you never shy away from putting yourself on the line—like you did that day at AJ’s, like you did when you brought me home after the gas leak, or when you held me in the bath.
That’s what a worthy man looks like to me. ”
I pull her close to my chest and hold her there, pondering how someone so young, but who has endured more heartache in her short life than most may ever experience, can still find a way to see the worthiness in people.
In me. If I’m going to demand honesty from her about Alessandro, then I need to start by being honest about my own past. I kiss the top of her head and start from the beginning.
“Her name was—is—Victoria. We started dating in my final year of college. We met at a young lawyers event and instantly hit it off. She was confident, unafraid to be herself, and no pushover—you are very similar in that regard, which is another thing that scared the fuck out of me,” I explain honestly.
“Once we were both fully qualified, I joined my dad’s firm, and she went to work in entertainment law at another firm.
We moved in together one year after dating, and at first everything was great, but as time went on, we started living separate lives.
Both our careers were demanding and on upward trajectories.
I would never begrudge her for wanting what I myself was striving for.
We were lauded as a power couple and made some of those stupid lists and society pages every now and then.
She started coming home later and later, working weekends, but I didn’t think anything of it because she was working a big case.
I missed her, but I understood. I knew once the case was over, things would go back to the way they were.
Then I was sent an anonymous tip-off about a Shhh Don’t Tell Daddy blog scheduled that suggested she had been unfaithful with a coworker.
I leveraged every power I had to stop it from going to print and issued a permanent cease and desist of sorts, threatening to take legal action if either of us was ever featured on that blog again,” I explain ruefully.
“She swore she had never been unfaithful, that it was a smear campaign from her biggest rival. I believed her, not even a doubt in my mind. Her hours returned to normal—still long—but not like in the months before. She started talking about marriage and babies. I thought she was all in. It was the next logical step for us after all. So I jumped in with both feet. Proposed with the massive diamond ring. Had the engagement. The wedding planner. No expenses spared.” Chiara runs figure eights over my bare chest with her fingertips, soothing me, letting me know she’s still here even if she hasn’t said a word in a good ten minutes. Letting me get it all off my chest.
“On the day of our wedding, she sent me a text. She told me she couldn’t go through with it.
That she was confused because she loved me, but she didn’t know if she loved me enough to be with me forever.
She returned the ring via courier and took a job in L.A.
—to be closer to the guy she was fucking.
As it turned out, the blog wasn’t lies after all, and if I hadn’t done everything in my power to stop it, I would have seen the pictures that might have saved me a whole lot of grief. ”
“Raf, that must have been devastating,” Chiara says, tears lining her lashes and little shudders bouncing in her chest as she tries to hold them back for me. “I promise, if you let me, I’ll love you and never stop.”
I bury my face in her neck, inhaling, filling my lungs with her, hoping it will relieve me from the anxiety she hasn’t hinted at needing to come clean about her run-in with Alessandro, and the guilt gnawing at me for keeping things from her as well.
Like, despite my dysfunctional heart and soul, I think I might love her too.
Instead, I take a play out of her playbook and throw light on the shade.
“Baby, I know you said you wanted to wade in the messy with me—and as much as I love knowing that’s my cum dripping out of you—I think I much prefer putting it in you,” I say, looking down to my lap now well and truly messy with us.
She giggles and loops her arms around my neck. “Hmm, does my husband have a breeding kink?”
I squeeze her ass firmly, and she squeals as I stand abruptly and wrap her legs around my waist, striding towards my bedroom. “I think it might be safe to say I have a bratty wife kink.”