Call Me Crazy (Bellamy Creek #3) - Melanie Harlow Page 0,97
board and hand you a knife!”
“I never asked you to do that!” he said angrily.
“No, of course not. In fact, you told me flat out not to fall for you. You’re into bodies, not hearts. I haven’t forgotten.”
“And this is why!” he yelled, gesturing back and forth between us. “This is what happens when people let their feelings fuck them up!”
“What feelings?” I cried. “You don’t have any feelings for me. You came here looking for sex!”
“I came here looking for you,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “But believe me, I regret it.”
“I can’t do this, Enzo.” I spoke softly, tears running down my face.
“Fuck, forget I said that.” He rubbed his face with both hands. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Let’s just end this here and now, okay?” I pleaded. “Before we both say things just to hurt each other, things that we don’t really mean? We’ve known from the start that we were never meant to be. It was just a piece of paper, remember? Just a business deal.”
He hung his head. “Yeah.”
“I’m—I’m sorry I lied to you about the pills.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“And I’m sorry I left so suddenly. I didn’t do it to hurt you—I did it to save myself.”
“From what?” he asked, looking up again. “I don’t get why all of a sudden you’re afraid of me.”
I took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and spoke the truth. I had the feeling it was the only weapon I had left in my arsenal, the one thing that would send him running. “From falling deeper in love with you than I already am. From getting so attached to you that I’d never be able to walk away. From the crushing heartbreak of having to endure you leaving me.”
He looked stunned and stricken, almost like I’d punched him.
“Because you would have left, Enzo. Sooner or later, you would have left.” I made a fist and pressed it to my stomach. “I can’t give you what you want.”
His eyes closed briefly, his shoulders drooping.
Moving past him, I went to the door and pulled it open. “And before I lose all self-respect and do something stupid like sleep with you anyway because I even miss the damn smolder, I need you to go.”
He didn’t move for a moment, just stood there in the kitchen with his back to me, still and silent. For a moment, I wondered if there was still hope for us.
Say it, I begged silently. Tell me you love me too. Tell me I’m enough.
But he turned around and headed straight out the door without stopping—without a word, without a nod, without so much as a backward glance.
I closed the door and rested my forehead against it, crying softly and wondering why love had to hurt so much.
Nineteen
Enzo
I didn’t sleep at all on Saturday night.
I lay on my back, hands behind my head, staring into the darkness and wondering if I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life by walking out on Bianca, or if she was right and we were never meant to be.
I’d never felt more messed up. She said she loved me.
But then she threw me out, like in her very next breath!
Talk about whiplash. I’d been so stunned, I hadn’t been able to think straight.
Had she meant what she said? Did she really love me? Did I love her too? Did that explain the incessant ache in my chest since she’d gone? Or the way I sometimes couldn’t catch my breath around her? The way I hated the thought of those blue eyes looking at someone else the way they’d looked at me? The way my heart felt as if it was tucked inside her fist, like she owned it? I’d never felt anything like it before she came barreling into my life and plunked herself down at my table and offered to marry me.
I scowled at the ceiling. This was all her fault! The whole thing had been her idea! She said we could just pretend to be in love, and then not only had she gone and fallen in love with me—when she’d sworn she wouldn’t—but she’d made me fall in love with her too!
Witchcraft.
I’d said it right from the start.
But now that I was under her spell, what the hell was I going to do about it?
On Sunday morning, I got out of bed early and went to Mass. My family was in a pew up front, but I sat alone in the back. I