“I know, darling. I hate you too.”
It sounds like one of the first true compliments we’ve ever given each other.
“You annoy me when you speak in Italian or French,” she says. “I don’t like not being able to understand you.”
“I know. That’s why I do it.”
“I figured.” She sighs, and it sounds oddly like contentment. “And it’s annoying how good you are at it. It’s hot, too.”
My hand pauses on her back. “Hot?”
“Yes,” she says with a sigh.
Well. That’s good to know.
For another long few minutes she doesn’t speak. Just shivers with less and less intensity. Maybe we’ll need to stay here all of tomorrow too. I can make that work. Just need to tell Karim that the plans have changed, and?—
“Rafe?”
“Mhm?”
Her voice is close to my neck, her arm slung over my torso. “Why do you do it? The fighting?”
I look up at the ceiling. The hotel has an intricate diamond shape in the wood, just barely noticeable in the darkness. Above us hangs a chandelier. Delicate little drops of crystal, each fragile on their own and strong when combined.
She has me cornered, and she’s taking advantage of that with this question. I can’t help but respect her for it.
She’s always played a damn good game.
“Rafe,” she says, and it sounds so weak and yet so determined that it makes me smile.
“It’s not easy to explain,” I say.
“I think you should stop,” she mutters. “Don’t go back to that place. It was horrible.”
This isn’t something I talk about. With anyone. James came with me the time before the wedding, but was silent damn near the whole time, and handed me the water bottle afterward. That’s it.
He knows better than to lecture others about bad habits.
But that doesn’t mean he understands. I’m not sure anyone would, if I tried to explain it to them. The way it cleanses the guilt from me in a way that makes it bearable.
“That’s not my regular place. When I’m in Como, I mean. And it’s rarely as… intense as when you snuck in there.”
When I had to fight to cover her transgression. It was savage in a way I rarely let myself get.Never the face, don’t break skin on the knuckles.Duck, kick, win.
And I was fucking terrified seeing her in there. She had no place there.
“Don’t do it again,” she says.
“I can’t promise that,” I say, and take a deep breath. Her hair smells good, fresh from her earlier shower. It’s the only way to handle the clawing guilt that sometimes threatens to drown me. Pain is good for that. It cleanses.
“You made me promise to never go there again,” she says. “Why can’t you promise me the same?”
“It’s different. You don’t belong there.”
She scoffs. It’s a faint little puff of air against my neck, so different from the fury and laughter she rains down on me on a normal day.
I brush my lips against her hair. “Do you care?”
