Her glass slipped from between her fingers, hitting the floor. She turned around, about to run away. I stood up.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Nemesis.” My voice dripped ice and menace.
She stopped in her tracks, her back to me, her shoulders sagging, but her head was still high.
“Do what?” she asked.
“Turn your back on me when I’m in my current state.”
“And why is that? Are you going to stab me?” She twisted on her heel, her azure eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She was brave, but she was emotional. I mistook all her tears for weakness. No more. Francesca was definitely in the habit of going for what she wanted in life.
I cocked my head to the side. “Why must you Rossis always turn to violence? There are plenty of things I can do to hurt you beyond belief without laying a finger on your beautiful body.”
“Enlighten me.”
“I think I will, Nemesis. Tonight, in fact.”
Her throat bobbed. Her false façade was collapsing inch by inch with each ragged breath and shiver. She scanned her surroundings. Nothing was different about the room. Other than my invisible pride, shattered on her floor, with her footmarks all over it.
“Where is Ms. Sterling?” Her eyes slid to the window, then to the door. She wanted to escape me.
Too late, darling.
“I sent her on a mini vacation for a few days to freshen up. She doesn’t need to be here for this.”
“For what?”
“For when I break you like you broke me. Humiliate you in the way you humiliated me. Punish you the exact same way you punished me.”
“You’ve read the notes.” She pointed at the wooden box on her nightstand. I smiled, sliding my wedding band from my finger with slow precision, watching her eyes drink in my movement. I placed it by the box on her nightstand.
“Why else would I send you chocolate when I couldn’t even stand your face?”
The truth felt like ash in my mouth. But the truth was also a weapon I’d used to wound her little soul. I couldn’t breathe without feeling my chest tightening, and I wanted to slice her open in the same way she cut me. Bone-deep.
“Well”—a bitter smile fluttered across her face—“I suppose you know what the last note said.”
“I do.”
“Angelo sheltered me from the storm.”
This made me grab the box and slam it against the opposite wall, not many inches from where she was. The lid broke off, both pieces rolling on the floor. She cupped her mouth but stayed silent.
“Because he kissed you in the rain? Are you fucking kidding me? I sheltered you.” I stabbed a finger to my chest, advancing toward her and losing the remainder of my self-control. My anger was a red cloud surrounding both of us, and I could hardly see her through it anymore. I grabbed her shoulders, plastering her to the wall, forcing her to look at me. “I sheltered you from your father and Mike Bandini and Kristen Rhys. From every asshole who looked at you the wrong way because of your age or your lineage or your last name. I put my reputation, and career, and fucking sanity on the line to make sure that you were safe, and accomplished, and happy. I broke my rules. All of them. Demolished my own resolutions—for you. I gave you everything I could within reason, and you shit all over it.”
I paced her room, the words burning on the tip of my tongue, pleading to be said.
I want a divorce.
But I didn’t want a fucking divorce.
And that was a problem.
She loved Angelo, much to my disdain and fury, but that didn’t change what I felt for her. I still longed for her warm body next to mine. Her sweet mouth and quirky thoughts and that vegetable garden she talked to and piano sessions, stretched over lazy weekends, where I’d read the papers while she played a mishmash of classics and The Cure.
Besides, wasn’t that far more cruel than letting her go to Angelo? Watching as she stayed and wilted here, her heart blackening and hardening next to mine? She could fake her affection for me, sure, but our desire? That was real. And consensual. Wouldn’t it be far more grueling to have her suck my cock and cream my face while she pined for another?
Wasn’t revenge a good enough reason to keep her?
“I’m going to the Bernard’s gala tonight,” I announced, kicking a part of the wooden box aside on my way to her closet. I picked out a scarlet, skin-tight dress she particularly loved.
“I don’t remember seeing it in our calendar.” She rubbed her face tiredly, fleetingly forgetting that our calendar no longer meant shit because our charade was formally over. I’d hand her one thing—she was a good actress. I was an idiot enough to buy into it.