“What?!” she shrieked. “Why? Why didn’t he at least wait to talk to me first?”
“That was his choice,” Leo replied. “He wanted to do it immediately so he wouldn’t be able to back out on his decision.”
“But why?” Her voice rose even higher. “Why did he leave? What went wrong? Everything was fine last night.”
“Maybe he never really wanted to marry you at all,” Cesare replied. “Maybe he was just playing you… or maybe this was all some elaborate ploy by his family to fuck with us.”
She rounded on him in fury. “How dare you even suggest that? You son of a bitch!”
He waved her off. “He’s a Necci. What do you expect?”
“He did not do it to play me! He was serious.” She turned back to Leo. “Call him. Get him back here.”
“Give it up,” Cesare told her. “It’s over. He’s gone, and he won’t come back.”
She exploded in rage and charged him. She landed several punches on his chest and face before I reached her.
“He was NOT playing me!” she roared. “You liar! You did something to him, didn’t you?Youdid this!”
She swung her fists faster, and I lunged. I caught her by the elbow before she could knock his daylights out.
“You bastard! What did you do to him? I’ll kill you for this!”
I dragged her off him, but she still fought me to reach him. Her energy erupted in such a volcanic rage that she took all three of us by surprise.
Cesare shrank from her, pressing his wrist to his eyebrow where she landed one of her punches. He backed away and gave me plenty of space to wrestle her out of the room.
I finally got my arms around her waist and eventually lifted her off the floor, but she kept screaming at him and thrashing to attack him. “Let me go! You bastards! You did something to him! Let me go, Nicky! I hate you, Cesare!”
I hauled her into the foyer and onto the stairs before she finally gave it up and burst into tears. I didn’t let go of her, though.
I carried her up to her room, and when I set her feet on the floor, she crumpled onto her bed. She buried her face in her hands sobbing her eyes out.
I dared to run my fingers through her hair and then stopped myself. She wasn’t mine. Saying it while I fucked her was just a game. She would never be mine. She was crying over another man right now.
She flopped down on the bed, buried her face in the bedspread, and then twisted over on her back. Tears streaked sideways into her hair, and her eyes swam when she looked up at me. “They did something to him. I know they did.”
I couldn’t bear to see her hurting like this, so I sat down next to her on the bed. I petted her wet cheeks and raked her hair back. “You don’t know that. You don’t know what happened.”
“He didn’t do it to fuck with me.” Her features twisted up in a fresh wave of anguish. “He couldn’t! Everything was great between us last night.”
“I’ll find out what’s going on. Just stay here. Don’t go downstairs… and don’t go near Cesare. I don’t want to wind up in the hospital again.”
I tried to make it a joke, but saying that only seemed to make her more miserable. Her eyes snapped over to me. “Don’t start hating me again, Nicky, please! I can’t stand it.”
“I never hated you, Princess.” Calling her that stabbed me in the heart. I shouldn’t, but it seemed like the most appropriate thing to call her. “I just wanted… I wanted something that can never be. You have three amazing guys all vying for your hand. You could never marry me. It’s hopeless, and today didn’t change that.”
She burst into tears again. She covered her face with both hands and sobbed as though her heart would break. Her whole body spasmed and twisted in pain. I couldn’t watch this.
I got up and let myself out of the room. I could still hear her sobbing all the way down the hall to the stairs.
I went back to Leo’s office to find him and Cesare in the same places as before. They talked fast in low whispers, but they stopped as soon as I walked in.
Leo straightened up and faced me. “How did it go today?”
I shrugged. “Pretty standard. Nothing worth reporting.”
“That’s good.”