I sit up on the bed and wipe the corner of my mouth.
“Your eyes are out of the picture. It’s a mouth with a dick inside,” Alessio says.
I touch my hand to my forehead. “I can’t even begin to process what you did.”
Alessio hands me my phone. “Here you go. You can see where I sent it.”
The image went to Landon, my ex, who’s been blowing up my phone. I scroll back and see the last message Alessio sent him, which warned Landon to stop texting. Of course, Landon didn’t listen.
“A picture seems a little excessive,” I say.
“Excessive would be a bullet in the gut and a push into a soundproof coffin in an already-dug grave, where he’d suffer for five, maybe six hours before suffocating or bleeding out. A picture reminding him you’re with another man is the least I can do.”
Alessio isn’t for the faint of heart. “We broke up.”
“He doesn’t understand that. Let me deal with him since however you’ve been dealing with him isn’t working.”
I hate that Alessio is right. My ex and I agreed to remain friends, but every now and then, he tries to get back with me. Like now. He’s using my uncle as an excuse to reconnect with me.
“Given how you two parted, meaning you didn’t fall out of love with him, but you couldn’t put up with his drinking and drug habits anymore, he seems to think that now that he’s a few months sober, he can have you back. I need him to understand you’ve moved on.”
Alessio goes back into the bathroom, and I follow, not looking up from my messages and the heated exchanges between Alessio and my ex. Landon called Alessio several bad names and pretty much severed the dialogue that way. Alessio sent him the picture.
“This is—” I glance up when the shower turns on. Alessio’s naked and adjusting the water, and I look away. “Sorry.”
“Join me if you’d like,” he says.
“Please stop acting like sending my ex that picture isn’t a big deal.”
“I don’t act, Lake. It’s a big deal that I sent him the image of our intimate exchange, and I understand why you’re upset. But as you can read in the messages, he thinks you’ll forgive him and move back with him. Sending him the picture was necessary. The visual will smash some of the delusions he’s having about you and him. Every time he manages to show up for work three days in a row, you reply to him with little smiles, which gives him hope.”
Under the shower, Alessio wets his hair, then shakes it out like an animal before facing me in all his masculine glory.
I hold his gaze. “He’s trying.”
“He’s doing the bare minimum.” Alessio pauses because I winced. He’s right, but I don’t want to hear that I spent years with a man who gave me the bare minimum.
“Undeniably,” Alessio continues. “I’m a better lover, better provider, better in just about everything. You might be nonconfrontational with him because he’s a loose cannon, but you confront me just fine. You know why that is, Lake? Because you know that no matter what you say, I’ll never put my hand on you in a way you won’t like. For all those reasons, even if you don’t choose me, you can never go back to him or anyone like him. You’re a smart woman. Respect your choices. Breaking up with him was a solid one.”
“How often do you do these pep talks?”
Alessio smiles. “Not often. Only the people I care about get them. There’s more. I told you that if your ex calls again, it’ll be the last conversation he’ll have with you. Since Landon texted about your uncle, I made an exception. I don’t usually make exceptions, but I would do many things for you that I wouldn’t do for other people.”
He disarms me when he says things like this. “Let me deal with Landon.”
“A month after you broke up, he stayed the night at your place. A pity fuck was it?”
Now, I want to slap him over the head with a wet towel. “I’m not going to answer that.”
Alessio shrugs. “Our background check is thorough. We check everything, including the partners of anyone we hire.”
“That’s overreaching.”
He pours body wash into his palm and lathers it over himself. “You’re the governess of my nephew. Nothing is overreaching. Check on him on your way out, would you?” He steps back under the water stream.
I keep waiting for an apology for sending that picture, but I doubt I’ll get one. I check the picture again, and while yes, my eyes aren’t showing, it’s clearly my mouth and Alessio’s fat dick inside it.
“You like it?” he asks as he gets out of the shower.
