Chapter Twenty-Five
Matteo
I sit in my car gripping the steering wheel so hard the leather creaks under my fingers.
Lily’s car is slowly disappearing down the road after dropping Erin off at The Atrium .
I know I shouldn’t be here. I’ve followed them like some deranged stalker without even knowing why.
I tell myself that it’s to make sure she made it safely home, but that’s a fat fucking lie.
I just need to know where she is. I need to see her, even if it’s only from a distance.
I know that tonight I’ve crossed a line.
Another one. I can feel the edge of my sanity crumbling beneath my feet, the ground giving way.
I’m losing control, and it’s all because of her.
With her sharp tongue, her stubborn fire, that defiant smile she throws my way when she’s trying not to look afraid.
Every inch of distance she puts between us feeds this ache in my chest, this madness that is eating me alive.
She’s under my skin, in my blood, twisting me up until I can’t tell the difference between rage and desire.
I know I’m spiraling but there’s nothing to catch me and break my fall. What a fucking mess.
‘I know exactly what I mean and what I don’t mean to you. You’ve made that very clear.’
Her words echo in my head. She doesn’t have a goddamn clue. She thinks she’s just an asset to me. Christ, if only she knew.
Every day I sit in the office with her mere feet away without being able to touch her feels like hell.
Every time I breathe, I smell her scent.
She smells like warm skin and something sweet and flowery, and it’s driving me mad.
Every time I lean over her shoulder, pretending to check the blurred lines of code on her screen, I’m breathing her in.
I’m fucking inhaling her. One wrong move, and I’ll bury my face in her hair like some animal.
Sometimes, she tilts her head ever so slightly and it takes everything in me not to press her against the desk and show her exactly what she means to me.
But I can’t. Because I know that if I cross that line, there will be no coming back.
I want to control it…I know I should control it.
But I can feel the grip I’ve kept on myself unraveling, thread by thread.
Every time she laughs with that fucker Dave, every time she looks at me with that mix of defiance and contempt, I can’t fucking breathe.
And tonight, when I saw her with him, smiling and teasing him, something inside me snapped.
When she looked at me across that karaoke bar, singing I Will Survive like it was aimed right at me, I swear, I almost dragged her out of there just to remind her who she belongs to.
Because maybe she can survive without me, but it hit me then with merciless clarity that I might not survive without her. My chest constricts, and for a second, I suffocate. I need to get out of my head or I’ll put my fist through the dashboard.
Without thinking, I pull my phone from my jacket and punch a contact. “Can I come up?”
Minutes later, I’m standing in front of Jade’s apartment. The hallway is quiet and I can’t keep my gaze from darting to the door on the other end of the hallway. My jaw locks before I force myself to knock.
Jade opens almost immediately, barefoot and wearing a bathrobe. Tonight is her night off. “Matteo.” Her brows knit in mild surprise when she takes in my state of agitation. “It’s past midnight. What’s wrong?”
“Can I come in?” My voice is rougher than I’d like, but she doesn’t question it.
She steps aside with a small frown, watching me warily like I’m some feral animal ready to snap. I walk in, every muscle in my body coiled tight. She closes the door softly behind me.
“You look like hell,” she says after a beat, heading to the kitchen counter where a decanter of whiskey is sitting. “Want a drink?”
I nod and collapse into one of her velvet armchairs. When she brings the glass over, I take it and thank her with a nod.
“What’s going on?” she asks gently, leaning against the counter with her arms folded. “You show up at my door looking like someone shot your puppy.” Suddenly she pales. “Oh my God, is it…”
I shake my head. “No, nothing new.” Then I let out a bitter laugh. “What a fucking failure.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “What’s wrong?”
I stare into the amber liquid like it holds answers. “I screwed up, Jade.” My voice is flat, defeat seeping through the words. “Worse than I ever have.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Work? Or…” She tilts her head, studying me. “This is about her, isn’t it?”
I glance up sharply, and she smiles. “You think I never noticed the way you look at the woman across the hall? You can’t even walk in here without trying to burn down her door with your stare.”
“She probably hates me,” I mutter, leaning forward and rubbing my face with my free hand. “And I don’t blame her.”
“Matteo…” She sits in the armchair opposite mine, watching me with a glass of wine in hand. “What exactly did you do?”
“Everything…I pushed her away because it was better that way.” My voice is rough. “But now I can’t stop following her, watching her. I need to know where she is, what she’s doing, who she’s talking to. And when she laughs with someone else, it’s like I’m fucking drowning.”
Jade says nothing, waiting for me to carry on as she sips her drink.
“I thought I could control it, control myself,” I go on, staring down at the glass in my hand.
“But the truth is, I can’t. And tonight…
” My jaw locks. “Tonight, I saw her with that bastard. Laughing and singing…and I fucking lost it, Jade. I showed up there like some goddamn lunatic and scared the hell out of everyone.”
I finally drink the whiskey, but the burn in my throat does nothing to alleviate the fire already raging in my chest.
Jade tilts her head and smiles, her voice softer now. “You really care for her, don’t you?”
The words hit me like a punch, and I can’t even deny them.
I just breathe hard, staring at nothing.
“I don’t know what this is,” I admit hoarsely.
“All I know is that I can’t breathe when she’s not near me.
And when she is, I’m either two seconds from kissing the sass out of her or two seconds from locking her away so no one else can touch her. ”
There’s a long silence, then she sets her glass down with a quiet clink. “And how does she take your…attention? You said you pushed her away, but now she surely knows the truth about how you feel about her?”
I scoff. “She hates my fucking guts and wants nothing to do with me. And after tonight she might just shut me out completely.”
Jade frowns. “Why does she hate you?”
“Besides telling her she was a spoiled brat and she should stay away?” I rest my elbows on my knees and let my head hang. “I bullied her into working for me,” I mutter.
Jade lets out an unbelieving laugh. “Why doesn’t it surprise me? That’s so…you.” Then her voice turns serious. “Did you tell her why you were here the night she saw you coming out of here?”
I look up, confused. “Why would I? What does me updating you on Lydia’s disappearance have to do with her?”
She lets out a frustrated groan. “It has everything to do with her, Matteo. She saw you sneaking around late at night and probably assumed the worst. You need to tell her why.”
I lean back, jaw tight. Tell her about Lydia? About the shitstorm I’m trying to clean up, about how Manticore took Jade’s girlfriend, and now I’m moving heaven and hell to try to locate her before it’s too late?
No. Erin doesn’t need that darkness. She’s already in deep enough, and if she knew the full scope of what I’m up against…it would paint an even bigger target on her back.
Better she thinks I’m an asshole than drag her into this darkness any more than I already have.
Jade shakes her head, clearly reading my silence for what it is. “You’re impossible. You think you’re protecting her by keeping her in the dark? All you’re doing is pushing her further away. She’ll probably think you’re only using her.”
Her words hit too close, and I feel my teeth grind. “She already thinks that,” I grit out.
“Then maybe stop proving her right,” Jade shoots back with exasperation. Then she leans forward. “Matteo, you are the smartest person I know and you are my boss and friend, but with all due respect, you’re an idiot.”
Yeah, that fucking stings. Because she’s a hundred percent right.
* * * *
I look at my phone and frown. Still no update.
It has been almost a week since that disastrous night at the karaoke bar, and I have forced myself to stay out of Erin’s way.
I’ve succeeded for most of the time, locking myself in my other office at Di Rossi Security Corporation on the ninth floor of The Bastion.
Although the shell company is run by a man I trust as the president, I make a point of showing up as the CEO whenever I can.
And today this office is my refuge from her. Or better, from myself.
I still stalk her like a lunatic, but a smarter one.
I don’t go down to the employees’ lunchroom anymore, but I watch the camera live feeds of the hallway angles, the lobby, the underground garage, the elevators.
Every place I can legally mount a camera without crossing a line that would land me in prison, or at least in HR’s bad books.
I don’t fight it anymore, this visceral need to see her every second.
I know her schedule by heart now—when she leaves her desk, when she steps into the elevator, when she brushes her hair back with her hand, when she chews on her lush lower lip when she is deep in thought, that adorable frown creasing her forehead. Every little thing she does drives me insane.
I unlock my phone, a sense of foreboding coiling in my chest.
Every night, without fail, her designated driver sends me a message the second Erin steps into The Atrium. But tonight, there’s nothing, despite her leaving half an hour ago, at six-forty-seven p.m. I know because I set up a protocol that alerts me the moment she logs out of her terminal.
At first, I tell myself it’s just a delay. Maybe he forgot, maybe the traffic is bad, maybe she went to the store or out to get takeaway before going home.
Is she at The Atrium ? I type.
No, Mr. Di Rossi. We never left. I am still waiting for her to come down .
My pulse spikes. A cold, sharp edge slices into my chest like a blade.
Fuck, where is she? She must have come across another employee and they’re probably chatting in the hallway.
That must be it. So I wait, eyes burning into the live feed of the underground garage camera.
Fifteen minutes go by. Then thirty. But the thirty minutes stretch into an hour, and by eight p.m. I’m tearing through the security feeds like a man possessed.
I start at the third floor the exact minute she logged out of her terminal.
There she is . The grainy footage from the operation floor hallway shows her stepping into the stairway at six-fifty p.m. I frown.
Why is she taking the stairs and not the elevator?
I switch cameras to the one of the underground garage where her driver is waiting for her.
But she never makes it there. She’s gone.
I rewind to retrace her steps through various camera feeds. She moves down the stairs, a large duffle bag slung over her shoulder and opens the door to the second floor. Then she slips into the gym locker room and doesn’t come out. She is still in there .
Just when I’m about to charge down there, the door to the locker room opens and she comes out.
And I forget how to breathe.
She’s not in her work clothes anymore. She’s wearing a dress.
A goddamn red dress made of fire and sin, in a sparkling fabric that clings to her like a second skin.
Her golden hair is flowing down her back in lush, silky waves and her lips are painted red.
She looks like temptation incarnate. My blood roars in my ears, and a slow, red-hot rage coils in my gut.
Where the fuck is she going? Who…?
My jaw clenches as I switch to the next feed and see her gliding down the corridor into the elevator. I switch to the elevator live camera feed. She steps up to the biometric scanner and presses her hand against it.
Access granted .
I frown and pull up the authorization logs of the building. And my blood runs cold, understanding slamming into me. She hacked her way into Second Circle.
Of all the goddamn places …
I switch cameras. The reception desk comes into view next, and that’s when I see it—the bracelet the hostess is fastening around Erin’s wrist. Crimson.
I stand up so fast my chair topples over behind me and slam my hands on the desk.
She wants to play with fire? She’s about to meet the fucking inferno.