The last thing I want is for him to come here. It’s difficult enough to try to convince him over the phone; I don’t stand a chance face-to-face. He’ll turn on his intimidation, or pull some other method out of his bag of tricks, and I’ll end up doing something unforgivable. Maybe he gets the truth out of me. Maybe I hurt him, and he hates me for it. I lose no matter what I do. I betray Mateo or I betray Vince. Only one of those betrayals comes with a murder, so I know which one I have to sell. “Is it so unfathomable that I just changed my mind? I know this is… horrible, and I’m so sorry to do this—”
“Yes, it is unfathomable, Mia. Because it’s not fucking true. You didn’t change your mind,” he says, steel in his voice. “You don’t get to change your mind. I own you, remember that? Remember last night? The night before? The night before that?”
I flush, even though nobody else can hear. My stomach sinks with the weight of those tender memories, with the knowledge that Vince is costing me the opportunity to make more with him. I struggle to hold back tears, but my voice shakes despite my best efforts. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is. You have Meg. You won’t be alone. And it’s not like this is… This doesn’t… We’ll still see each other. I just can’t leave. It’s too hard. I’m so sorry.”
I’m trying to think of a way to subtly tell him this doesn’t have to change everything between us. Maybe Vince won’t let me leave him, but if he’s going to trap me into a relationship, I’m damn sure not going to stay faithful. Maybe he won’t let me move back to the mansion, maybe I can’t go on romantic vacations like we talked about, or spend whole nights wrapped in his embrace, but I can still go over anytime. I can still be with Mateo, just not the way we wanted.
I can’t think of a way to express that in front of Vince, so I don’t. I’ll go to the mansion and talk to him tomorrow. He didn’t seem to have an issue with me being with Vince the first time, or since, so it stands to reason he’ll still be able to deal with it. Eventually Vince will get tired of being with a woman who’s in love with someone else and he’ll let me go. We just have to wait him out.
“Tell me you love him,” Mateo demands.
My aching heart skips a beat. I swallow. This is pure torture. The last thing I want to tell the man I love is that I love another one, but I can’t really explain why I’m backing out if I don’t throw that in there. I swallow convulsively, trying not to picture his face right now, as he handles this confusing, out-of-left-field phone call from the one person he thought he could count on. It takes an eternity, and I think I might throw up, but I finally say, “Of course I love Vince.”
“Okay. Now tell me you love him more than you love me.”
“Please don’t make me do that,” I say quietly, my face crumbling.
This is exactly why I can’t handle face-to-face. I won’t be able to say these things to him if I have to look at his face, into those hypnotic brown eyes. If he shows even the briefest flash of real pain, my resolve will crumble, and what will that mean for Vince?
I wish I could pause the world. Pause Mateo. I wish I had a sliver of actual fucking privacy to plead with Vince one more time to let me out of this thing. He can’t want me this badly. I understand the men in his family do not excel at letting go, I understand they all have volumes of emotional issues, but surely I could reason with him if I could figure out the right approach.
Mateo’s patience is clearly running out. There’s no emotion in his voice now, so I can’t tell what he’s feeling. “I’m going to give you one last chance, Mia. Get in the goddamn car. Let Colin take you home and we can forget this conversation ever happened.”
I close my eyes, unintentionally squeezing out a few of the tears welling up around the rim. “No.”
“Tell me no again,” he dares me, his tone steeped in menace.
My chest tightens with anxiety. I try to rub it away, to draw a steady breath, and I fail on both counts. “You guys are tearing me apart, Mateo. I can’t keep doing this. I need peace.”
“Then you joined the wrong fucking family,” he states.
I don’t know how to respond to that, but it turns out I don’t have to; he hangs up on me.