“Then you shouldn’t have been shouting.” My hand closed around her wrist. “You told your parents you loved someone.”
She glanced down at my hand, and then warily lifted her eyes to my face. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Is the person you are in love with me?” I paused. Had I really just said that out loud?
“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated, completely dejected.
“It matters to me.”
Why was she making this so hard?
“Why?” A flicker of anger sparked to life in her eyes. “You’re the one who said we couldn’t see each other again. You’re the one who moved on to…” she waved her hand toward the pool.
“Are you jealous?”
“Go away, Matteo. I want to be alone.” She tried to turn away, and my hand tightened.
“Nothing happened between me and that girl. Nothing is ever going to happen.” I took a breath. “Nothing has happened with any other girl since the moment I saw you at the party last summer.”
She blinked in surprise. “Why? You could have any girl you wanted.”
Laughing, I tugged her into my arms. “Maybe, but there’s only one girl that I want. She’s kind of always been in my life, but I didn’t really see her until recently, and now I can’t see anyone else. I’m so fucking in love with you, Sophia.”
Her eyes widened.
“So tell me that the man you love is me.” I didn’t let her get a word in. “Or tell me you’ve met someone else…”
“I haven’t met anyone else.” Her voice broke. “But nothing has changed. They are still going to make me marry him.”
Tilting her head up, I brushed my lips against hers just once. “It changes everything, Sophia. Because now I know you love me, I can’t let you go. Do you think I would ever let you marry someone who wasn’t me?”
“Do you mean that?”
“With my entire heart. You’re mine, Sophia, not anyone else’s, and if you are going to marry anyone, it will be me.”
I meant that with every fiber of my being.
“But our parents…”
I caught her lips with mine, my tongue swiping against the seam of her lips and demanding access. We fell together. Our mouths never left each other as I fell on top of her on the bed and pinned her under me.
“Let me deal with them, Sophia. Trust me. I’ll always make sure you are okay, and if it comes to it, if they make me choose…”
If they made me choose between my birthright and taking over my parents’ criminal empire and her, then I would choose her.
“You said that night you would trust me, to always look after you.” I couldn’t help it. I brushed my lips against hers, over and over again, until her mouth opened for me. She pulled me down on top of her. Her tongue was as wild and demanding as mine.
“Trust me now. Tell me.”
She pushed at my chest. “There’s nothing to say. You lied back then, and so did I. Or maybe we meant it, and we were just young and stupid. We were never going to be forever.”
Rolling out from under me, she turned her back. “I don’t want to talk anymore, and I don’t want to listen either. The past is the past, Matteo. It’s time you moved on.”
Moved on? My brows slammed down. How could I move on when the past was haunting us still?
I wanted to scream at her.
And more than anything, I wanted to punish her, because even after all this time, I still loved her with everything I had.
