I hear Lucian’s breath hitch—a rare slip of his cold mask.
“We—hestumbled on her in a café,” I blurt out. My mind is racing, trying to find a way to frame it that doesn’t show him I was on a date with his brother. “She said some… unsavory things to him.”
“Charlotte,” Lucian snaps. “Isabella has avoided this family like the plague since she escaped. She wouldn’t voluntarily walk up to a Morelli in broad daylight. You’re hiding something. Tell me.Now.”
I swallow hard, the cold coffee sitting like poison in my stomach. I have to tell him.
“We were having coffee. Together. Outside the office,” I confess, the words tumbling out. “She approached us to warn me away. She told me to run. It triggered him, Lucian. It blew the whole thing apart.”
“Interesting,” Lucian mutters. His anger has cooled into something more calculating. “A coffee date. Is that the ‘treatment’ I’m paying for?”
I don’t answer, my cheeks flushing red.
“Listen,” Lucian sighs. “I’ll try to convince him to come in today. But he’ll only humor me so much. No one forces a Morelli to do anything they don’t want to do. This is your only chance, Doctor. If you can’t convince him in this session that therapy is worth it—thatyouare worth it—he won’t come again.”
If Valerio walks out that door today, he won’t return. I’ll lose him forever.That can’t happen.
“I understand, Mr. Morelli,” I mutter.
“Make it count, Charlotte.”
The line clicks shut.
I put my head in my hands. I have maybe an hour before Valerio walks into my office. I need to figure out what I’m going to say so he won’t give up on us and himself. I can’t lose him when I was just having him. He deserves happiness, and I’m sure I can give him that. I want to give him that.
Please, Valerio. Don’t give up on yourself. Don’t give up on us.
Three hours later, Valerio walks in, and the room temperature drops ten degrees. He’s wearing a charcoal suit, buttoned to the chin, black leather gloves pulled tight over his wrists. He looks exactly like he did the first day. There is no trace of the man who breathed my name into the crook of my neck yesterday. The scent of bleach follows him. He completely scrubbed any last trace of me off of him.
“I saw the news, Valerio. Blackwood.”
He sits in the chair calmly. “Prisoners die every day, Doc. It’s a high-stress environment.”
“Forty men don’t die in a ‘glitch.’ You’re spiraling because of yesterday. Because ofher.”
“I don’t spiral,” he spits. “I was getting soft. I had to remind my nervous system what it’s actually for. It’s for ending lives, not holding hands in coffee shops.”
My pride is stinging, but my heart—that stupid thing I usually keep locked—is currently pinned to my sleeve.
“When you made love to me, Valerio… it wasn’t the touch of a monster. I feltyou. I enjoyed it. I thought our date—”
“Date?” He lets out a harsh laugh that cuts me open. “Making love? Is that what you’re calling it? You think you can keep a Morelli just because you spread your legs for him? You’re a therapist, Charlotte. You’re supposed to be smart. My skin was crawling the entire time. Yes, your pussy was good, but I’m sure it’s nothing special. I can find the same pleasure in any club in this city without the boring conversation.”
His words fucking hurt.Fuck him, his wordskill.
But one of my greatest sins has always been pride. Valerio isn’t the only one who knows how to build walls; he just handed me the bricks himself.
The heat in my chest turns to dry ice. I blink once, and when I open my eyes, the woman who wanted to save him is gone. My expression is as flat as his.
“You’re right, Mr. Morelli,” I say. “I apologize. I clearly misinterpreted a biological release for more. That’s a failure on my part.”
His brows furrow. He shifts in the chair, his eyes searching mine for the hurt that was there seconds ago. He expected me to cry, to beg, to be the victim. In his bloody dreams.
“I’m going to cut our session short today,” I continue, closing my notebook with a thud. “I have another requirement to attend to, and frankly, we’ve reached a stalemate with your current trauma processing.”
I stand up, smoothing my skirt.
“However, if you ever find yourself needing specific sessions for… engaging with women, if you’re struggling with performance or the ‘filth’ aspect of sex, I can refer you to a specialist. Or, if you prefer the familiarity, I can try to help even though it’s not my specialty, provided the rate is adjusted.” The green-eyed monster slithers into my soul as I speak, but I push it down as best as I can.
