“Because ofher?” Gabriella’s eyes cut to me. Her top lip pulls back slightly, just enough to show teeth. “This... thisnothing? This American trash you dragged in off the street?”
Elio goes still.
Very, very still.
The kind of stillness that comes before violence.
“Choose your next words carefully.” His voice drops so low I feel it more than hear it. “Because they will be the last ones you speak in my presence.”
Gabriella’s mouth opens, closes, opens again. For a moment, I think she’ll back down. Self-preservation finally overriding pride. Then her chin lifts.
“He’ll change his mind.” She’s talking to me now. Not him. Holding my gaze as her lips stretch slowly into a triumphant smile. “Enjoy him while you can,troia. I give it a week.”
She turns, shrugging out of the guard’s hold and walks away, heels clicking against stone, head high despite the guard shadowing her every step.
The garden goes quiet.
Just me and Elio and the jasmine-thick air and the words she left behind.
You’re a mistake. A distraction.
I fucked him so many times.
I’ll be there. Waiting.
The images won’t stop. Gabriella beneath him. Gabriella crying out his name. Gabriella knowing what he looks like when he comes, how he sounds, what he?—
“Violet.” His voice pulls me out of my spiral.
My hands are trembling at my sides, jaw clenched so tight it aches.
“Look at me.”
I don’t want to. Don’t want him to see whatever’s written all over my face right now, especially don’t want to examine why her words hurt more than Cicero’s threats did.
His hand finds my chin and tilts my face toward his, careful in a way that makes it worse.
“Whatever she said?—”
“I can’t believe you slept with her.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them, quieter than I intend, stripped of everything except the truth of them.
He pauses.
“Me neither.”
The admission hangs between us.
Not an apology. Not an excuse. Just truth.
I should feel vindicated. Like I’ve won something, having him confirm the regret out loud.
The hurt spreads anyway.
Because it doesn’t change anything. Doesn’t erase the fact that she’s had him. That her hands have touched what I?—
What you what, Murphy? What you think is yours?
The question echoes through my skull.
