Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84446 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 338(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Wait for what?”
“For… for him to care about me,” I choked out.
A growl moved through Nico’s chest, and I wanted to smile at his older brother protectiveness. But I wasn’t sure I was capable of smiling then. Or ever again.
“He’s a fucking idiot if he doesn’t care about you, Lore. If he doesn’t love you,” he added. “You’re the easiest person in the world to love. No,” he said at the pained whimper that escaped me.
Because if I was so easy to love, why didn’t he love me?
“No,” he repeated, taking a deep breath. “What I mean is… if he doesn’t love someone as lovable as you, maybe the issue is he isn’t capable of it.”
I said nothing. Because that didn’t make me feel any better. It didn’t undo the damage to my heart. Even if Renzo wasn’t capable of love, it didn’t change that I loved him.
“Is this why you were so adamant?” he asked after a moment. “About marrying him,” he clarified. “Did you have feelings for him already?”
“Yes,” I admitted. What use was lying about it anymore? Things couldn’t get worse.
“How?”
“I’d snuck out of Manhattan when I was sixteen,” I admitted. “I wanted to go to the bookstore in Brooklyn—“
“The one I should have fucking taken you to when you asked me,” he grumbled, angry at his younger self.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And I went and it was everything I ever thought it would be. But after…”
“After?” he prompted.
“After… some guys were harassing me. This is why I didn’t tell you,” I said, feeling him tense.
“Fair enough,” he agreed. “What happened?”
“Renzo saved me,” I told him. “And it sounds really silly looking back, but I think I fell for him right then. And I kept going back to ‘shop for books,’ but I was really just trying to see him again.”
“Wait… did he know this?”
“No. I don’t think he even remembers the incident. Apparently, it’s, like, a rule in his family. If they see women or girls getting harassed on the street, they step in. I was probably one of hundreds,” I admitted.
But he’d been my one.
That silly, fanciful girl with hearts in her eyes.
No idea what it was actually like to love a man like him.
“Tell me he hasn’t been hurting you,” Nico demanded as I finally pulled my legs off of his lap, drawing them up to my chest instead, wrapping my arms around them, and squeezing. Like maybe that would make me feel less broken.
“No,” I said, voice low, eyes squeezed shut because I felt the telltale stinging in them again, and I’d embarrassed myself enough for one day.
“Lore, you can’t cry like that to me and not tell me what happened. My mind is going to think the worst.”
“He doesn’t… he doesn’t care about me,” I decided, his face and voice flashing back into my mind, yelling at me, sending me away.
Someone who cared didn’t talk to you like that.
Someone who cared didn’t use your body then ignore you.
But I couldn’t tell Nico that.
He would charge over to Brooklyn and murder Renzo on the spot if he knew.
“What makes you say that?” Nico asked, trying really hard to be a neutral party, even though I knew he wanted to pummel Renzo since the day I agreed to marry him.
“He just… he’s never around. He never… talks to me. He just… he doesn’t care.”
My memory flashed back then, thinking of him coming into the room with a heating pad, with chocolate, with pain patches. Of him holding me gently.
Of him coming into the guest room I’d shut myself up in, gathering me in his arms, and bringing me downstairs to serve me dinner.
There were times when it felt like he…
No.
No.
I wasn’t going to keep making excuses for him. I wasn’t going to pretend that the breadcrumbs he tossed to me were enough to sustain me.
The edge between grief and hope was razor thin.
I was tired of getting sliced open teetering on it.
“Okay,” Nico said, reaching out to pat my wrist. “You can stay here,” he said.
“No, I can’t,” I said, suddenly realizing that there was no escape. I was married. There was an alliance.
He may have been a man made of bombs.
And I may have been sick of being his rubble.
But there was no escaping this.
“Yes, you can. If there’s an issue, we will handle it. You don’t have to think about anything but yourself right now,” he said.
I wanted to believe him.
I wanted… a lot of things.
But I was just so damn tired.
“Can I take a nap in your guest room?” I asked.
“Of course you can,” he said, wanting to say more, to ask more, to press, but sensing I was too fragile for anything else right then. “Come on, let’s get you settled,” he invited, waiting for me to stand up and move with him through his apartment, then down the hall into the first room. “Do you want me to get you anything?” he asked, pulling the covers back as I toed out of my shoes.