The car door slammed. My driver jerked awake behind the wheel.
“Home,” I choked out.
He didn’t ask twice. Tires screeched, city blurring beyond the tinted windows. I pressed my palms to my eyes, trying to hold myself together, but everything inside me was glass – cracking, splintering.
Everything that could’ve gone wrong… Had.
Rocco was dead. My father explicitly saidno bodies.
And Matteo…God,I cut him open with words I didn’t truly mean.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“You okay, Miss?” my driver asked, voice low, worried. I realized then that tears were slipping down my cheeks, hot and silent. “Should I tell your father?”
“No,” I said quickly, wiping them away with the back of my hand. “Everything is fine.”
He hesitated, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror. “Is… Matteo causing you problems? You know I have your back if he is.”
I let out a broken breath. Shook my head.
“No,” I whispered, almost laughing at the absurdity of it. “Matteo is really nice.”
Nice.
And there it was.
The truth I didn’t want.
The truth I was running from.
Matteo wasn’t the problem.
I was.
Chapter 28
Present
Upper-East Side, New York City
I WAS ON THE COUCH, home alone, sad and watching bad TV. I’d been alone for hours. Matteo hadn’t come back since our fight at three in the afternoon, and it was past midnight now.
I was just about to start rewatching the Twilight Saga when I heard thedingfinally announcing Matteo’s arrival.
I’d planned what I was going to say –or scream– at him for hours. But when it came down to it… I shut the TV off and ran off to my room before he could see me.
We’d been sleeping in the same bed for a couple days, but it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen tonight.
I was back in my old bedroom, in the dark and under the covers, as I listened to Matteo make his way up the stairs and down the hall, past my door. A breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, escaped me. However, that didn’t last.
Because once he opened the door to his bedroom –ourbedroom – and saw I was not already asleep in his bed…
I listened to his footsteps come back to my door.
I hadn’t locked the door.
Matteo entered with a soft click –without knocking of course– and stopped at the foot of the bed.
