he talking about? I hadn’t asked him to bring Nora here.
Matteo slipped out of the room, closing the door. The door was like a gunshot to my already racing heart.
“You should drink that,” she said, eyeing the water in my hand. I uncapped it and guzzled the contents down, letting the ice-cold liquid temper some of the fire inside me.
“Did you fuck her?” Nora approached me. She didn’t sound angry, she sounded disappointed… resigned, and it cut deep.
It cut really fucking deep.
She didn’t come close, just stood there in front of me. Out of reach. Always fucking out of reach. Contempt rolling off her in thick angry waves.
I swallowed hard. “You think I…”
“Well, did you?”
“No, Gattina, I didn’t fuck her.” I released a thin breath. Fucking her hadn’t even crossed my mind, even when I’d thought she was Nora.
Because deep down, I knew. I knew her face was all wrong and her voice was all shrill. Even if my glassy eyes had betrayed me, my heart knew.
It would always fucking know.
“You’re hurt,” she said, glancing at my hand.
“It’s nothing. Had a little run in with a mirror.”
“What are you doing, Enzo? You said you were leaving, you said—”
“Yeah, well, I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.” My eyes narrowed.
Nora being here was sobering. I felt the liquor coursing through my veins evaporate until I could see every blemish on her skin, the way her lips trembled as she stared me down.
It was her.
It was always fucking her.
I dragged a hand over my face.
“I wanted to kill her.”
“E-excuse me?” I spat out.
“For touching you. For kissing you,” Nora seethed. “I wanted to drag her off you and rip out her heart. But you’re not mine anymore,” she inhaled a sharp breath, “maybe you never were.” Nora took two steps toward me, my heart beating so fucking hard I thought it was going to explode.
“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hear the words. It doesn’t mean that just because you think you’re unworthy of love that you should never experience it.” She came to a stop in front of me, and gently cupped my face forcing me to look up at her. But she didn’t need to force me to do anything, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Nora was so fucking beautiful it hurt.
“I love you, Enzo Marchetti. I think I’ve loved you for a while. You think you’re a dark soul with a faulty heart. But you’re so much more than that. We all need darkness to shine. And you make me light up like no one else ever has. I’m not asking you for anything you don’t want to give, but I am asking you to try to at least see what I see. What Nicco and Matteo, and Alessia, and Arianne see.
“You are a good person, Enzo. You care about your family, you would die for them. And I know that your father messed you up. I know he starved you of love until you began to believe you weren’t worthy of it. And I know what you had to do to him. But none of it, not a single thing, changes the fact that you are worthy. And I love you, Enzo. I love you.”
Speechless.
I was fucking speechless.
It was like she’d taken every insecurity I’d had as a child and plucked it from my soul.
She knew.
She knew about my father, about what I’d done.
I don’t know why I was surprised. Nicco couldn’t hold his own shit where Arianne was concerned. It went against everything we were to tell outsiders about Family business. But Arianne wasn’t an outsider. She was half of his fucking heart, his woman… his Queen.
She was as much a part of this now as he was.
Could it really be that simple?
Could love really conquer all?
“I-I don’t know what to say.” Dejection flared in her eyes. But everything was coming at me a mile a minute, slamming into me with such force I couldn’t sort through the jumbled thoughts to give her a response she deserved.
“That’s okay. You have a lot to think about. But you need to know that you don’t have to do this anymore. You don’t have to escape to bars to try to drown out your feelings. You don’t have to fight or fuck your way to peace. I can be that for you. I can be the person you turn to when it gets too much. I can be your shoulder, your willing body… even your punching bag—”