Page 38 of Contempt

That lost soul of hers?

It all said the same thing … she’d seen him.

She knew.

The parts of her that mattered—they knew.

• • •

“I thought you weren’t coming. What took you so long? I told Diego you were here, and he freaked—”

Rose Zulla’s words instantly came to a stop when her gaze fell on Lucia. Standing on the other side of the apartment’s front door staring at Renzo’s sister, that was when Lucia knew without question that it had been Renzo outside. Rose was talking like she knew someone was coming over. As though she was certain she knew who it was, and that it was someone Diego would be crazy happy to see.

Someone like Renzo.

And instead, she opened the door to find Lucia standing behind it, and not the person she expected. That was probably why when she buzzed the apartment to be let in, Rose didn’t even come on the speaker to ask who it was downstairs. She just believed it was going to be someone else because that’s what was supposed to happen.

It shouldn’t have been Lucia standing there.

It should have been him.

Renzo.

Yeah, that’s when Lucia knew for sure.

“Lucia,” Rose said quietly.

Lucia felt the way her jaw tensed in an effort to hide the fact that her bottom lip trembled. Why she felt like crying, she didn’t know. She couldn’t explain the heaviness in her heart, either, or the tightening in her chest.

Like a panic attack was coming.

The breakdown.

She’d been holding it together for so damn long. Pretending was a game she had become good at playing alone. Everyone else thought she was okay, and she was so great at making them believe it, that she could trick herself into thinking the same thing.

Nothing was wrong.

Everything was just fine.

Fuck.

She was such a liar.

Nothing was fine.

It hadn’t been for a long time.

Rose stilled in the doorway, her fingers tightening around the edge of the door like she didn’t know what to do. There was concern shining back in her eyes even as she looked beyond Lucia like she expected someone else to be standing there, or maybe even coming around the corner. No one was; it was just Lucia in the hallway.

Still, it was another sign.

“I wanted to stop by while I was in the city,” Lucia whispered.

Rose’s gaze came back to her. “You’re always welcome here.”

Yeah, sure.

Lucia nodded. “He’s back, isn’t he?”