Standing there, I let my head fall onto the subway tiles and banged it gently.
“Stop that.” The glass door opened, and Matteo’s firm, warm body pressed against my shivering one. Catching my hair, he yanked my head back roughly, arching my back and pressing my naked ass into his crotch.
“Stop fucking hurting yourself, Sophia,” he said with a growl.
“Why the fuck do you care?” I struggled against his grip, and a few strands of hair were ripped out by the roots.
Letting out a snarl, he whirled me around and slammed me back against the tile. “Tell me the fucking truth, Sophia. For once in your spoiled, miserable life, tell me the fucking truth.”
I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I didn’t have a chance to ask before his hand closed around my throat and squeezed, cutting off my air for a split second before he let go. “It makes me furious to see you cry.”
“You weren’t supposed to see me cry, Matteo,” I said roughly. “You snuck in and…”
“Stop lying.”
Swallowing hard, I went still and took a deep breath. My heart pounded away in my chest so hard and fast that I was sure he could hear it.
“I am crying because I am heartbroken.”
“What?” He sounded genuinely shocked.
“I don’t expect you to understand Matteo, but this is hard for me. I never expected to see you again. And here I am, and you are making my life…why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because.” He crushed his body to mine, melding me against himand pushing my back into the cold tile. Sliding his hands down my sides, his fingers splayed as he cupped my ass and lifted me, giving me no choice but to wrap my legs around his waist.
“Because I fucking hate you, Sophia. But do you know what I hate more?”
Through tear-filled eyes, I stared at him. I shook my head.
“I hate seeing you cry even more. I love you and I hate you and—"
“You love me?”
“Always, and that just makes me hate you even more.”
Chapter Thirteen
Matteo
“Always, and that just makes me hate you even more.”
I didn’t know what made me say it, but it was too late to unsay the words, and even if I could, I wasn’t sure I would.
Sophia needed to know the truth: that I would always hate her for what she had done. For the fact that our love meant so little to her that she had left in the middle of the night, just minutes after we had planned our future together.
She had thrown away everything we had and run away. Why? Because her brother and her parents’ people had told her I was to blame for their deaths?
I knew the rumors, I knew why Gio had retaliated. I didn’t care much about losing my closest friend, but her? I thought she knew me better.
Sophia had not only ripped my heart out, but shredded it as well. And this was what was left. This shell of a man, who felt nothing but hatred.
And that hatred warred with my other feelings for her. Maybe the love would have won, but she kept lying to me.
Not outright, but there were definitely things she was hiding from me.
Sophia side-stepped the truth like a pro, and I was tired of it.
I smashed my mouth on hers, silencing her before she could speak and make me even angrier with her. She met the first swipe of my tongue with an angry one of her own. Her hands yanked at my hair, pulling on it so hard that my scalp hurt, but not enough to get me away from her.
