CHAPTER 36
Roxanne
The hot water poured over my shoulders, down my spine, pooling at my feet, relentless and steady—like it could wash away the feeling crawling beneath my skin if I stood under it long enough. It wasn’t working.
Nothing was.
My eyes stayed shut, my palms flat against the tile, breathing uneven, thoughts slipping in and out of reach. I let the heat sink into my skin, trying to quiet everything clawing at me from the inside out. What I’d done, what I was becoming.
I had to think about tomorrow. I had to walk in—and walk out—with everything still intact.
I had to—
The sound of a soft click cut clean through the noise of the water. For a second, I told myself I imagined it. And then—
Strong arms sliding down mine, pulling me back against him, heat meeting heat, skin against skin like there had never been distance to begin with. My shoulders tensed instinctively. The water kept falling like nothing had changed.
“You left.” His voice was warm against my neck.
“I wasn’t feeling well.” I said, forcing steadiness into my tone.
Partly, it was true. Just not in the way he thought. He gently kissed my neck and I felt him shift behind me, felt the way his body reacted— unrestrained. He turned me, fast, like he’d run out of patience somewhere along the day, his mouth on mine before I could think, before I could stop him.
The water turned into a storm around us, steam rising, blurring edges, swallowing logic whole. But the second his body pressed into mine, the noise inside me quieted. Whatever I had been trying to hold together slipped. Everything blurred.
The water. The room. The noise in my head.
Gone.
All that remained was him.
My back hit the tile as he closed the distance between us, his body surrounding mine until there was nothing left but heat and the steady strength of him.
My hands found him instinctively, gripping his shoulders, sliding into his hair, holding on.As though he was my refuge.
Not the very thing I was supposed to survive.
His hand gripped my thigh, lifting it, pushing into me without hesitation in one deep, unforgiving thrust. As though the last hour apart had been punishment enough.
A broken sound left me, as my fingers dug into him.
“I can’t—” he breathed against my mouth, voice wrecked, uneven, as though he was already too far gone.
“I can’t get enough of you.”
My hands slid over his chest, damp skin slick beneath my palms, until my fingers brushed the ink stretched over his heart again.
‘Senza di lei
The translation hit fully this time like a confession.
‘Without her.’
My breath caught as my gaze lifted to his. And then, slowly, his hand covered mine where it rested over the tattoo. Pressing it harder against his chest. Against the violent thud of his heartbeat beneath my palm.
His eyes never left mine, as he kept thrusting into me, unrelenting.
Without you… this means nothing.
He didn’t say it aloud. He didn’t have to. The look in his eyes said it all.
Tears formed at the corner of my eyes as my heart clenched so violently I almost stopped breathing. His hand found the back of my neck as he kissed me fervently.
The water pounded around us, drowning out everything except skin, breath, the sound of losing control, fading everything except the way he felt. Inside me. Around me. Consuming every thought I tried to hold onto.
And for just a moment, I stopped fighting. I let myself exist in it. In him. In something that didn’t demand control or consequence or clarity.
The water was still running. I didn’t know how long it had been. I didn’t know when it ended. Only that he wasn’t inside me anymore. And my body noticed, pulsing, missing the feeling of where he’d been.
We stepped out, the air cold against overheated skin. I grabbed a towel without looking at him, wrapping it tight, like I could hide inside it, solid to hold onto.
My hands were shaking. My breath refused to even out, as though my body hadn’t realised it was over. My body still wanted him. And that terrified me.
I turned away from him, wiping water from my arms, my neck—anywhere but looking at him. As though I could erase it, and force control on myself. But it didn’t work. Because my head had drawn the line, but my body had already crossed it.
If I stopped and looked at him—
If I stood still—I would turn back. I would go to him. Again.And I couldn’t let that happen.
Because this wasn’t just losing control anymore. This was becoming a habit I couldn’t trust myself to break. An addiction I couldn’t stop.
We dressed in silence stretching between us, thick and fragile—like a thread about to snap. And it did.
“This can’t keep happening.” The words came out before I could alleviate them. Before I could think.
“I think you should leave.”
He didn’t react immediately. Like the words didn’t land all at once—but when they did, they settled deep. His brows pulled together, confusion flickering across his face before it sharpened to irritation.
“You didn’t seem to think that a minute ago.”
His voice wasn’t mocking. It was rough. Unfiltered. Frayed. And it hit exactly where it needed to. My stomach twisted. His gaze didn’t leave mine.
“That’s exactly the problem.”
My voice felt tight. “If you’re here—I can’t—”
I stopped. Because I couldn’t say it. Because saying it made it real.
“I can’t think,” I finished anyway.
“My head says one thing and my body—” I stopped, jaw tightening. “—doesn’t listen.”
I saw the flicker in his eyes. The quiet shift in his expression.
“Then let me help you think,” he said, stepping closer.
“Just talk to me,” he added, voice lower now. Gentler.
“Whatever this is, you don’t have to carry it alone.”
That almost broke me. For a second—a dangerous, fragile second—I wanted to. To tell him everything. To let him take over like he always did. Handle it. Fix it. Walk into the fire for me and tear it apart before it could touch me.
And I knew he would. He’d walk straight into it smiling. And then he’d burn the world down around it, making himself the bigger monster. And I couldn’t survive being the reason he became one. The thought alone made a cold blade twist inside me.
“My mess is mine,” I said instead. “Not yours.”
His hands fisted to his side.
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“I already have.”
His jaw tightened slowly, a muscle ticking once, twice.
“You really think I can just stand there and watch you fall apart and do nothing?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. Because yes. That was exactly what I needed him to do.
“I don’t know why I let this happen,” I said suddenly, the words spilling out sharper than I meant. “I don’t know why I react to you like this. I shouldn’t want this.” I looked at him then. “I shouldn’t want you.”
He let out a short breath, dragging a hand through his hair, turning away for a second like he needed distance from the frustration building under his skin. When he looked at me again, it was sharper. More certain.
“You think I don’t know that?” he said, his voice strained, like he was holding back and failing. “You think I haven’t been fighting this?”
He laughed, only it wasn’t humour.
“I walked away from you,” he continued, stepping closer now. “Two years. I stayed away. I did everything right.And it still didn’t go away.” His voice cracked. “I’ve been living in hell without you, and I’m not doing that again.”
My chest tightened painfully. “I’m with Marcello.”
I drove the blade right where it hurt.
“Then why…,” he said, his voice rough, breaking at the edges, “why do you look at me like that?”
I flinched.
“Why?”
“Because I’m messed up, okay?” I said, sharper than I meant to. “Maybe I just want things I shouldn’t. Maybe I always have.”
“Then what does that make me?”
My breath caught.
“Because whatever this is,” he said, tapping his chest, “it’s not going away. It hasn’t in three years.”
His voice broke—just slightly. “And I don’t want it to.”
“We’re not the same,” I whispered.
“No,” he said. “We’re worse.”
And I didn’t know how to defend that.
“It was a mista—.”
“Don’t you dare call this a mistake.”
He cut me off, voice dropping.
“Tell me I mean nothing to you.”
My breath faltered. The knot in my stomach started getting heavy.
“Say it.”
He stepped closer. “Look at me and say it.”
I couldn’t. God—I couldn’t.
“You know I love Marcello,” I said instead.
And for the first time, it felt cruel. He stared at me. Like that wasn’t enough. Like it never would be.
“And me?” he asked.
Just that. Two words. And that was worse than everything else. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out. The truth suffocating us.
“You should go.”
This time it came out quieter, but my voice didn’t shake. He stared at me like he didn’t recognise me. Like he was trying to understand how I could feel everything—and still choose this.
Then he reached for my hands, carefully, as if he already knew I was slipping through his fingers and couldn’t bear it.
“Please.”
The word came out so soft I almost didn’t recognise it. His forehead touched mine.
“Please don’t do this, Volpi,” he said, and this time there was no control left.
“Don’t—don’t push me away like this.”
His voice broke, as the plea slipped out, soft and entirely wrecked. He didn’t try to hide it or take it back. He just stayed there, completely undone, letting the desperate weight of his own voice hang in the air between us.
“Choose me.”
His fingers closed around mine tighter. He wasn’t fighting me anymore. He was begging. As if pride had finally abandoned him. My chest clenched, and the pounding in my head intensified.
“Tell me you feel it. Just—t,” his words cut off.
“Say you feel something. Just enough to know I’m not fucking crazy. I don’t need promises. I don’t need forever.”
His eyes searched mine as his throat worked.
“Just don’t tell me I imagined all of this. I don’t—fuck, I don’t even need more than that.”
My chest hurt. Actually hurt. It hurt so bad that every breath felt like breathing through straw.
“Put me out of this misery.”
He swallowed hard. His eyes closed briefly. As though hope itself had become painful and asking cost him everything.
“Because I can survive you hating me, but I don’t think I’d survive finding out I meant nothing to you.”
A sob broke out of me. His thumb pressed into my wrist like he needed to feel something real. I shook my head.
I could see it now. Not the anger. Not the obsession.
Him.
Vulnerable.
His throat worked hard. And for the first time since I’d known him, I couldn’t hold his gaze.
“I can’t,” I whispered.
And his face changed like I’d just confirmed his worst fear. The words came out small, but they shattered everything.
“Leave.”
“You know I’m not going anywhere.”
“Please,” I said, and this time my voice broke completely.
“Don’t make this harder.”
His eyes closed briefly. And when he opened them again, there was only exhaustion. A quiet sort of devastation.
“How?”
Because you’ll die. Because I’ll watch it happen. Because I won’t survive that.
But I didn’t say it. I couldn’t. Instead—I swallowed. And said the one thing I knew would destroy him.
“If you don’t leave…”
My voice dropped. Barely there.
“You’ll lose me.”
I held his gaze.
“Forever.”
His face drained of colour and emotion, like something inside him had given way. He inhaled sharply through his nose like the words had physically gone through him. Like I’d put a blade between his ribs and twisted.
His grip on my hands loosened slowly, reluctant, as if letting go cost him a piece of himself. He didn’t look away—just stared, eyes glassy, trying to understand how I could stand there and do this.
His hand fell away from mine completely then.
The absence hit instantly. Cold. Sharp. Final.
He stepped back, just one step. But it felt like a chasm opening between us.
Distance I already knew I would never know how to cross.
It ripped me apart from the inside out, and I wasn’t sure if that wound would ever heal.
I could hear something in my chest shatter into a million pieces.
My fingers twitched. I wanted to reach for him, to take it back, to undo what I’d just done. I wanted to stop him. I wanted—
But I didn’t move. Because if I did—I wouldn’t survive it. I wouldn’t stop.
And if he had touched me again—just once—I would have taken it all back. But he just stood there, bleeding quietly, giving me the one thing I’d asked for. Even if it destroyed him.
And somewhere between trying to save him, fighting him, and pushing him away just to fall apart in his arms, I’d forgotten one terrifying truth. No one asks the person they don’t love to stay. No one breaks their own heart trying to send them away.
Because the truth was, I had feelings for him too. I’d fallen too. And that was the cruellest part of all.