Page 167 of Vicious Intentions
Chapter 36
Annamaria
I toss and turn on the large bed, sleep evading me like it has for the last few days. My inability to quiet my mind long enough to fall asleep is starting to be a problem. Exasperated, I snatch my pillow and throw it clear across the room.
Your brain is fine, Anna. It’s just too hot in here. That’s why you can’t sleep.
The air conditioner humming softly in the distance contradicts my thoughts, though. It’s not the summer heat that’s keeping me awake. It’s my guilty conscience. My guilty conscience and Matteo.
The last time I was in the same room as my husband, he looked like his whole world had just ended. He looked… lost. Defeated.
“Good,” I mutter to myself, then cringe when the word echoes off the empty walls.
I don’t know why I feel this heavy weight of guilt on my shoulders. It wasn’t my fault that Matteo jumped to conclusions. I mean, it’s true I had a few shots, just enough to keep myhead from getting in the way of what I was trying to do. But kissing him had nothing to do with Raffaele. Absolutely nothing. Iwantedto kiss Matteo. It was as simple as that.
Still, he just had to twist it into something else. To him, the only plausible explanation was that I was either too drunk to know what I was doing or that I was pretending to kiss his brother.
Since that night, Matteo—the man who claims to love me—has avoided me every chance he gets. When I wake up in the morning, he’s already gone to work. And when I turn in for the night, he still hasn’t come home, off doing God knows what to God knows who.
I don’t even know which room he’s been sleeping in these past few nights. If it weren’t for Paolina telling me he came home late the night before, I wouldn’t even know he’d been home at all.
Not that I care. I don’t. What I care about is him questioning my honor. I would never kiss a man while imagining I was kissing someone else. I wouldn’t do that to him, or to anyone else. And the fact that Matteo thinks I would stoop that low aggravates me.
No. It does more than that. It infuriates me.
Stop thinking about Matteo and go to sleep already.
I let out a slow breath and close my eyes, willing sleep to come. But instead, my hand drifts to the empty side of the bed, and I hate how cold the sheets feel beneath my touch. Even his scent is gone. Stubbornly, I turn my back to his side, refusing to acknowledge his absence.
“Sleep, Anna. Sleep. You can do this,” I whisper to myself, trying to force my mind to quiet.
It doesn’t work, so I stare at the small clock on the nightstand instead, watching the hours crawl by. When it hits two in the morning, I give up.
Sleep isn’t what I should be fighting anyway. My so-called husband is.
Yes. That’s it. Maybe if I give Matteo a piece of my mind, then I’ll finally be able to get some rest. Once the thought of confronting my husband takes root, there’s no point lying in bed any longer. I push the covers off and slide out of bed, the cool floor grounding me as I grab my silk robe and slip it on.
If I have to search every room in this entire house to find him, then so be it. However, I don’t think it will come to that. There’s only one place he could be holed up in. The same place I’ve been avoiding—his office.
I descend the stairs to the second floor slowly, the quiet of the penthouse pressing in around me, each step louder than it should be. By the time I reach the landing, my pulse has picked up, though I’m not sure if it’s from nerves or anticipation. Probably both.
When I reach his office, I find the door slightly ajar. Without making a sound, I push it open a bit wider, just enough to slip inside, my heart kickstarting the moment I see Matteo. He stands behind his desk, his back to me, staring out at the New York skyline as if trying to lose himself in it.
If he senses me, he doesn’t say anything. But a goodcapois always attuned to his surroundings, so I’m sure he knows I’m here.
Barefoot, I move toward him slowly, the plush carpet silencing the sound of my steps. When I finally reach him, his name is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it down when something on his desk catches my eye. A tablet lies there, its screen still lit with a familiar message.
Anna:What beauty did you see today?
I pick up the tablet and realize Matteo has been hiding in his office, reading our messages. All of them. Every conversationand every line. Going all the way back to the first time he pretended to be Raffaele.
However, this doesn’t look like the original thread I had on my phone. It looks like he’s compiled them somehow, organized them into something permanent. Something he can revisit whenever he wants. Something that won’t disappear.
Our own little book of love poems to each other.
My throat tightens when I notice a separate folder with all my videos. I don’t need to press play to know what they are. They are little moments I sent him throughout my day to feel closer to him. Moments I wanted him to be part of. Moments that only felt real when shared with the man I loved.
How many times has he gone through our messages?
