"Great," I mutter. "Just great."
"Isabella—"
"Don't." I hold up one hand. "Just don't. Not tonight. I can't do this tonight."
I walk toward the cabin before he can say anything else. Before I do something stupid like cry or scream or ask him why he comes to the place where I broke my own heart.
CHAPTER THREE
Ishouldn't be watching her walk up to the cabin.
Fucking hell, I shouldn’t be in the same space with Isabella for more than five fucking minutes.
To give myself something to do, I start checking the environment, making sure we're secure, running through exit strategies in case someone finds us here. I am not watching the way Isabella's torn dress clings to her legs with every step, or how her hand pushes her hair back from her face.
Definitely not thinking about how she felt pressed against me on that bike, how she held on tighter every time I accelerated, how her body fit against mine like it was made to be there.
Fuck. This is a fucking disaster.
She walks into the cabin and stops just inside the door, looking around slowly and taking it all in—the couch where we usedto sit when she was younger, the bookshelf filled with books I've never read, the kitchen where Matteo and I used to drink bourbon and plan operations.
Four years and nothing's changed.
I close the door behind us and lock it, the sound echoing in the silence between us.
Then she clears her throat. "I… I need to change."
I look at her and she's gesturing at the torn emerald silk dress that’s barely holding together with dirt smeared across the bodice and blood on the hem where my rip goes from ankle to mid-thigh.
She’s not supposed to still look as good.
"I have clothes upstairs." I grunt.
"Of course." She doesn't look at me, her voice carrying an edge I recognize—sharp and defensive, the tone she uses when she's trying not to show she's vulnerable. "Since you come here so often."
I don't respond because what am I supposed to say? That I came here two weeks ago to process her upcoming wedding, to figure out how I was going to survive watching fucking fucktard Vittorio De Luca put his hands on her?
So, I just turn like a robot and head for the stairs.
She follows and her bare feet are silent on the wood, but I can hear her breathing softly. controlled and measured in that way she breathes when she's holding something back, when she's trying not to fall apart.
I really am obsessed with this woman.
My room is at the end of the hall and I push the door open to find everything exactly how I left it—bed made with military corners, dresser organized, nothing out of place. I open the top drawer and pull out an old t-shirt, and grey sweatpants that she'll have to tie tightly.
I turn to give them to her and she's standing in the doorway, not coming in, like there's an invisible line she won't cross without permission.
"Here." I walk over to her and hold them up.
She takes them and our fingers don't touch, but I feel the space between them like heat radiating across the gap.
"These are going to be huge on me."
"I figured." I watch her hold up the shirt as it unfolds and hangs long, nearly reaching her knees.
"Well, anything is better than this." She gestures at her destroyed dress with something like disgust.
"Bathroom's through there." I nod to the door on the left. "Lock works if you want it."
