“What about having an heir? You can’t exactly give yourself an immaculate conception. That horse left the barn a long time ago, sweetheart.”
She actually smiled at me for the first time, and before I could stop her, she darted in and kissed me.
I shoved her away a lot more roughly than I meant to. “Stop it!”
She stumbled back and stared at me in horror. “What the hell! I thought you…”
I turned away feeling sick. “Don’t do that again.”
She charged me and grabbed my arm. “Don’t walk away, Nicky! I didn’t mean to. I thought you wanted to. I thought after yesterday…”
“I do want to!” I roared. “Don’t you get it? Just leave me alone.”
I stormed off, but I only ended up walking deeper into the grounds. I couldn’t look at her. What in the holy hell was I even still doing here?
She caught up with me under the trees—the trees where she fucked Cesare right in front of me. The whole estate ate away at my insides now. I saw her fucking other guys everywhere I turned.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured in my ear.
“Well, don’t be. Just don’t fucking touch me. It’s hard enough with you getting ready to marry some other guy, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” I grimaced and fought down the urge to lose it right there.
She froze on the spot staring after me. She took a few seconds to snap out of it and come after me.
She grabbed my arm again and pulled me around to face her. “Just talk to me, okay? I didn’t mean to make it harder for you.”
“Well, you did! You can’t exactly make it less hard for me, can you?” I summoned my last scrap of courage and blurted out, “I’m leaving, okay? I’m resigning from the family.”
“No!” she shrieked. “No, Nicky! Don’t leave! I thought…”
“I have to. I can’t stand this. You’re gonna marry someone else. You’ll never marry me, and we both know it.”
“No, Nicky!” Her lip started to tremble and tears swam in her eyes. “Don’t leave. Please. I… I need you.”
“Don’t even say that,” I snarled. “Don’t you dare even say that.”
She gulped trying to pull herself together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
I waved the whole subject away. I wished more than anything I could waveheraway, but it didn’t work out that way. “Look. I can like you and you can like me and we can fuck each other’s brains out, but we can never have anything serious no matter how much we both might want it. You know it’s true. Messing around like this only makes it hurt more.”
She blinked, and two tears streaked down her cheeks. Then her whole face screwed up, and she started crying hard right in front of me. “Don’t leave, Nicky!” she wailed. “Please don’t leave.”
“I have to.” I spun around and started walking. My whole body felt numb, but I couldn’t stand watching her cry.
She couldn’t be crying over me like that. Me leaving couldn’t make her hurt like that. I couldn’t think that, or I might lose my nerve.
I stormed back to the house. I had to get out of here now. I couldn’t stick around waiting for the next time she tried to kiss me.
A couple of the security guys nodded to me on my way up to the house. I planned out exactly what I would do when I got there. I would go straight to Leo’s office and tell him I was quitting. That was all there was to it. The sooner I bit the bullet and did it, the sooner I could get rid of this gnawing agony in my stomach.
I jumped up the front steps and went straight to Leo’s office, but he wasn’t there. I came out and almost collided with one of the butlers. “Where’s Consigliere?”
“He went into town for an hour. He’ll be back later. He said to call him if we needed anything.”
Damn it. I couldn’t let this deter me. I went back inside, found a piece of paper in Leo’s desk, and scribbled him a note. I didn’t get too specific with the details. He would call me as soon as he got it, and then…
I had no idea what I would tell him then, but I had to be as far away from the estate as possible when it happened.
He would beg me to come back just like Gia did. He would promise me the world, but he didn’t know about yesterday. He didn’t know about me fucking Gia in the limo or playing with her at the mall.