Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Giovanna
‘ N o fucking virgin, Marco,’ I shouted the words at him, the ones I’d just heard him speak, the second the door opened wide enough for me to see the whole of his traitorous face. ‘How could you? How could you tell him?’ I asked the question as a single sob left my mouth, before releasing the shoe I was holding and throwing it directly at his face.
Strangely, Dante didn’t even lift an arm to defend himself. The heel of my Manolo Blahniks caught him on his cheekbone and then clattered to the floor, leaving us in a heavy, encumbering silence. My eyes swept over him, searching for any sign of the Dante I thought I’d found once again, but sadly I found nothing recognisable. Truthfully, I’d expected something, anything from him. I’d felt sure he’d explain that I’d heard him wrongly or apologise and say it was all a joke, before he wrapped me up in his arms and kissed me again.
‘SAY SOMETHING!’ I screamed at him, as I watched blood come to the surface of his skin and start to run unfettered down his cheek. When he still said nothing in response, I shelved all the emotion that wanted to follow it, because I was becoming increasingly aware that the man stood in front of me, for whatever reason, no longer deserved it.
Dante, leaving the door open wide behind him, slowly righted his head. He swept the longer strands of his hair up and away from his face and looked at me, with his bright blue orbs taking every single part of me in as though he was committing the picture in front of him to memory.
‘Never raise a hand to me again, Giovanna, a second time would be bad for both of us,’ he warned.
‘Or you will do what?’
‘Don’t test me, amore mio.’ He stepped closer and grabbed at the arm I had just wielded my weapon with, before using it to pull me up to my tiptoes and squeezing my flesh just enough to cause me pain. ‘Don’t test me.’ He forcibly released my arm, pushing it away from him, and making me grab hold of it in response, as I fell back onto the bed.
‘What I said was true,’ he added, and I wasn’t sure if he was asking the question or merely stating a fact.
‘I’m engaged to be married,’ I replied, as I watched everything I had only moments before been dreaming about, fracture into a million pieces and shatter to the ground around me.
‘You are married TO ME!’ he bellowed.
‘I didn’t know if you were alive, let alone if you still wanted me. He asked me to marry him, and it was a chance at a future. I knew it would never be anything like the marriages our siblings have, and most certainly nothing like I had dreamt a life by your side could be. But it would have been something, when all I’ve had for years is nothing. Nothing but pain and loneliness.’
‘And you wanted him,’ he accused.
‘I never wanted him; it’s only ever been you.’
The hurt caught up between us was visceral. It was strengthening with each second that passed, and very soon I comprehended that it would be insurmountable. How on earth what had been so wonderful between us only an hour or two previously, could descend into this, was beyond me.
‘So, like the good Calabrian woman you pretend to be, you opened your legs wide and let him have you… If I’d have known you were that engaged…’
‘You’d have what? Come on… if you’d have known, what would you have done?’ I taunted, as with my hurt growing, my anger began to take a hold to protect me.
‘I would not have taken you to my bed tonight.’ Pain hit me like a sledgehammer swinging hard and fast into my chest, and for a few seconds my lungs refused to try to reinflate. Watching me struggle, Dante removed his eyes from mine and walked over to where I’d previously seen his clothes neatly folded. Pulling out a drawer, I watched as with his back facing me, he pulled on a pair of black tracksuit shorts and covered up his nakedness.
In response, I gasped at the oxygen I was craving, and needing to put back on the armour I had walked in with, I stepped back into the dress I had collected earlier. Sliding it back up and over my still delicate feeling skin, and shaking where I stood, I thrust my arms back into the thin straps. The fine metal was cold against my body and forced goosebumps to appear on my exposed skin. My panties and weapons of choice he could damn well keep when I walked off his boat with my head held high. Because whatever else I wanted, I knew without any doubt that was exactly where this conversation was leading to.
I should have told him.
And if I had, would it have made a difference? I couldn’t answer, so I stood and waited for Dante to turn to face me once again.
‘ That engaged?’ I questioned, as I rubbed at the flesh he’d so roughly held, ‘What did you expect?’
‘You said you didn’t and had never loved him.’
‘That’s the truth!’ I implored, and although I knew he couldn’t see me, I lifted my hands up to him in anguish, as I begged to his back to see sense and to falter from the path he seemed hell bent on driving us to.
‘You gave yourself to another man and that’s supposed to make it better?’ he shouted, before pushing both of his hands through his hair in exasperation. ‘I expected my wife to keep her fucking panties on, and to not offer her sopping wet cunt to anyone who paid her attention, because of her uncontrollable lust.’ He spun around, making the vehemence in his voice doubly powerful with the movement.
‘How dare you!’ I shouted.
Suddenly, he was crossing the few steps between us, until his face was only a few inches away from mine.
‘I dare because I was your husband and you committed adultery with another.’ As he spoke, he leant in even closer, and I could feel the power of his words rush over my face.
‘Was?’
‘Was,’ he confirmed. ‘I think you should get back to your fiancé, in Calabria, before you or I ruin any chance of you ever getting married.’
‘You don’t want me, yet you’d tell him what happened between us?’
‘It’s possible.’ He shrugged, as though I had never meant anything to him at all.
‘Who are you, Dante? Where has the boy I fell in love with all those years ago gone?’
‘Maybe you just made a mistake thinking you knew me at all?’ His blue eyes bored into mine as though he was wordlessly trying to tell me something his mouth just couldn’t manage. But as to what it was, I couldn’t discern.
‘I think you and I have said enough.’
‘Yeah?’ he mocked. ‘Then can I suggest you get the fuck off my boat and out of my fucking life once again, before I say or do something we’ll both regret.’ Dante pushed his hands into his pockets, making his leather wrist straps move up his wrists and the elastic waist band travel down, exposing the V of muscle I loved so much.
Moving fast, I barged past him, picking up my handbag as I walked towards the open door. Lifting it up and onto my shoulder, I delved onehandedly inside. Miraculously, my fingers found the exact thing I was looking for in a side pocket. Wrapping my fingers around it, I pulled it out swiftly.
‘The one thing I regret is accepting this in the first place.’
Without looking at him again, I dropped the phone he’d given me outside of my nonno’s rooms all those years before, and with a sense of satisfaction I watched as it broke apart.
Painfully my heart did the same.