“I’m just surprised you didn’t bring any food,” she said and smiled lightly. “But that’s okay. I can wait until dinner.”
My heart skipped a beat when I saw that left dimple, and the sweetness of her smile as it graced her face. I stepped back immediately and walked towards the door, closing it shut firmly behind me. I had to force the feeling away that was growing in my chest, making me feel as though I was floating.
It was just a smile.
Why was I feeling so overwhelmed when I was around her? I’d been with so many other women in my life, and none of them had ever made me lie about something like that to their faces. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d lied. I hated doing that to her, and I was worried when she found out.
My family has been killing other members of crime families for years. This wasn’t a new practice, it was just business. We had an empire to run and having people get in the way was something we didn’t need. That was all Antonio was. So, why did I lie to her about his death? She was the daughter of our enemy, but she’d managed to get under my skin. I couldn’t face telling her the truth about what had happened.
I was a coward.
As I ascended the old, wooden stairs, it suddenly dawned on me. I was excited by her sexually, and I wanted those encounters to continue. It wasn’t the sex. It was something else. Something deeper than that.
I was starting to care about her. I didn’t want to see her upset. Seeing the tears forming in her eyes had caused me to deflect the subject entirely. I hadn’t cared about a woman like that in a long time, I’d forgotten how it felt. The last person I’d felt that way about had been my mother, as she was one of the few women that I’d cared about at all.
But I’d never felt that way about someone that I was interested in sexually. She’d managed to do something that no woman could. As the realization dawned on me, I wasn’t sure how to react.
I kept mulling the idea over in my mind, trying to determine if that was the case.
I stopped at the top of the stairs and gripped the wooden railing. I didn’t know how to approach it, but I didn’t want to stop seeing her. Every step closer to her was another step away from my family, and I didn’t know when the glass beneath my feet would break.
13
Chiara
What was that reaction? The thoughts were racing through my mind the more I considered what had happened when I’d asked about my brothers. His silence, then the answer that they were fine. The awkwardness. How he’d left the room so suddenly.
There was definitely something off, and it caused my heart to race in my chest and my hands to become clammy. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that something had happened. His anxiousness around my asking was the sign that I needed. I wished I could have just run out of the room and gone to see Alessandra. I needed to see her. I also wanted to know if she’d found anything out from Savio. The chances were slim, but she might have information. It was not knowing that was driving me crazy.
I tore the blanket from my legs and walked towards the door, peering at it until it became a blur. There was no way to escape through the damn thing. I couldn’t even push it open from my side. Every time Marcello entered the room, he’d always leave the door open, because it was impossible to open from my end. There was no doorknob and there was a latch on the other side.
I brought my foot to the door and kicked it as hard as I could, feeling the pain ripple up from my foot straight to my hip. I clenched my jaw as the tears formed in my eyes. Fuck them all. I needed to see her. I also wanted to see my brothers. I wanted us to be a family again. I hated the Cavetti’s for what they had done and what they were continuing to do. I wanted to be free and to feel the sun against my skin.
My arms wrapped around my chest as I cried and felt the world crashing around me. Why did I care about him? That was the worst part. I could tell that something was growing. What had started as a game was developing into something that I couldn’t describe. He was still aloof, though, avoiding my question with the wordsthey’re fine. I could tell that he was lying.
I fell to the cold floor and rocked myself as I cried. No one else would do it, so I needed to console myself. It was just the difficulty and bitterness of the situation relieving itself finally. After weeks of not allowing myself to feel anything, it finally burst through.
And I couldn’t stop the tears.
There was a pain in my chest as I keeled over. I held my hands to my heart, the hopelessness of my situation ingraining itself into my body. I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this would be what my life would be like from now on. Would I be trapped forever? Would I be forced to be the Cavetti’s plaything until I was no longer useful to them?
The pain didn’t subside, even after the tears had.
The slit at the bottom of the door slid open and a tray was pushed through. I looked at it, unsure of what was next to the plate. I swept my legs from the bed and made my way to the tray, and saw the pencils and a new notebook. I felt his eyes on me as I stared at it, a small smile forming on my lips.
“Do you like it?”
I nodded lightly. “I do, actually. Thank you.”
Having him do something thoughtful for me was strange. I met his eyes, which were piercing. He was inspecting my reaction, as though searching for a deeper meaning in it. I was being scrutinized, and I felt as though I was a rat in a lab.
“I thought you’d want something to do since you said you were uncomfortable there.”
“It’s really nice,” I said, lifting the notebook from the tray. “I definitely wasn’t expecting it.”
“So, you like it?”
“Yeah, I do.”
