Page 6 of Secrets of the Brother
Her eyes widened as she raised her arm and gestured behind me. “Unlock that door this instant.”
“No.”
God, she was gorgeous. She looked like a Fellini film suddenly burst into glorious color. She was the living embodiment of Sylvia, my own unattainable woman.
La Dolce Vita.
La Vita Amara.
Thoughts of her over these last few months had tortured me. The idea that I couldn’t touch her, hold her, protect her, had been slowly driving me insane.
The only thing worse than being separated from her was the heart-wrenching knowledge that I had no one but myself to blame.
I had caused this beautiful, sweet creature pain and for that I deserved every twisted, tormented moment of madness.
Unable to stop myself, I stepped toward her, my fingers flexing as if already anticipating the soft, warm feel of her skin pressing against my palms once more. The feeling was like a drug, and I craved it more than my next breath.
Bianca backed away, placing a leather chair between us. “Don’t come any closer.”
Her dark eyes were bright and alert with fear as her gaze darted about the room. The same fear added a warm pink flush to her cheeks. I really had degenerated into a sick bastard for thinking the terror my very presence inspired actually added to her natural beauty.
I ran the tip of my finger over my lower lip, studying her, measuring my next words carefully. “I owe you an apology.”
It was thin broth, a meager statement of fact given the magnitude of the destruction I had wrought and yet I hoped against hope that the simplest, most straightforward appeal, unweighted by any self-serving prose, would get her to just… stay… here… with me, alone in this room, if only for a few minutes more.
I just needed her to stay.
I couldn’t let her go, not just yet.
Pressing her lips between her teeth, she stared at the ceiling and blinked rapidly before rasping, “I don’t give a damn about your apologies.”
I crossed the room until I was within an arm’s length of her. “Please, Bianca. I need you to understand.”
Her hat slipped from her fingers as she staggered back a step, bracing her palm against the flat surface of my desk.
The tears she was trying so hard to hold back fell down her cheeks, leaving a watery, light-gray stain from her mascara.
“What part do you need me to understand, Enzo? The part where you said you loved me? Or the part where you broke up with me over atext messageand thenslept with my sister?”
I raised my arm and swung my fist out to slam it into the side of a nearby bookcase. “Dammit, Bianca. I have told you that it wasn’t me who texted you that night. She put something in my drink.”
Bianca jumped at my show of violence and skirted around the desk.
“I know that. You think I don’t know that? I know what my sister was capable of. I know what she was like. But why? Why did you have to go and marry her?”
I deliberately flexed my fingers, forcing them straight, when all I wanted to do was curl them into fists and rage with my frustration. “You know why.”
“You could have waited. Made sure she was really pregnant. Made sure the baby was yours.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “She threatened to… you know what she threatened… unless I married her as soon as possible. I couldn’t take that chance. I didn’t have a fucking choice.”
She slowly shook her head as she twisted her fingers in the fabric of her dress. “There’s always a choice… and you made yours. You know what, it doesn’t matter. None of this matters. It’s not like we had been dating that long. We weren’t engaged or anything. You said you loved me, but we hadn’t even… not like you had with her…so…obviously you and she were better suited. Right?”
The raw pain of betrayal in her voice brought me up short.
It was that final question, the one practically begging me to agree with all the bullshit she just said.
This whole building could crumble into dust around me, and I wouldn’t notice.
