Hunter - Blaire Drake Page 0,52
fingers off of it, took it, and set it on the coffee table. “Adriana.” He rested his hands against my cheeks.
He wanted me to listen. He always did that. Always had. Except now I was getting too used to the roughness of his palms against my skin, too used to how his fingers would brush my hairline and the way his thumb would ghost over my mouth every now and then.
Too used to how he made my skin tingle each and every time he touched me.
“I don't like Gaige Pontarelli. I'm not going to lie to you about that. But if being at the Pontarelli house means you'll be safer until we can figure out how to get rid of your dad, then that's where you need to be.” His eyes searched mine. “Even if it means I have to stay away from you.”
My heart, the fickle bitch, clenched at the thought. I didn't want him to stay away. I'd missed him so badly it was as though I'd left a piece of my soul behind when we left. I'd just gotten him back, even if he was different than I remembered, but he was still my Hunter deep down.
“Maybe that's the reason I'm not at the Pontarelli house,” I said quietly. “Because then you don't have to stay away.”
“Adriana,” he whispered, drawing me closer to him. “You have to put your safety first. I'm replaceable. You're not.”
I threw his arms off of my face and stepped back, bumping into the windowsill. “Maybe you are in your mind, but in my mind, you're not. Don't you get that, Hunter? You're irreplaceable to me. You always have been and you always will be. No one could ever take your place in my life, and I don't give a flying, monkey-screwing fuck what you say. I would rather put my life at risk to spend an hour with you than be safe and never see your smug goddamn face again!”
His inhale was sharp. “You're emotional. You're not listening to reason.”
“Just like yesterday then, huh? When I was too emotional to stop you from screwing my fucking brains out?”
“Stop!” he yelled harshly, diving his hand into his hair. He met my eyes with his, and I shivered as the intensity of his gaze swept over me with the force of a category five hurricane. “I would rather live the rest of my life knowing you're alive and never seeing you again. You never stopped being everything to me, Addy. Fucking never. You just stopped being there, but you never stopped being here.” He punches his chest. “You were always there, and you always will be. Stop being so fucking stubborn and keep yourself hidden from that piece of shit, for the love of fucking God!”
My heart thundered in my own chest, and annoyance bundled deep in my stomach. Call me stupid, and maybe I was, but there was no way I was going to live without him any longer. Above everything, he was my best friend, and I loved him unconditionally. Even when he was being a giant, sexy prick.
“No.” I stood tall and stared him right in the eye. Determination flooded my veins as reality sunk deep into my body.
It hit me then.
My mother was the queen.
That was my destiny.
I was forever intended to be the head of this family. She knew somehow—I knew it in that moment. Like a whisper she'd given me beyond all doubt.
“No.” Two letters, so small. “I won't hide from him anymore. I have nothing to hide from. Everything he has belongs to me. It's my fucking empire. My fucking business. My. Fucking. Family. It never will be his. Enzio Costella will never be a fucking Romano. They're my blood, and blood doesn't lie. The Romanos are mine.”
Hunter walked toward me, but before he could touch me, I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him against me.
“And you will respect that choice, Carlo. I don't want to say it again, and I'll be fucked if I'm going to. You will respect my choice and you will do what I want you to. You say you don't play, well I'm done with the game, too. My life is not motherfucking Monopoly. Is that clear enough for you?”
I didn't know where the words came from. They exploded out of me with the force of a bomb. They were uncontrollable and harsh, but I knew deep inside me that they were true.
My life wasn't a game.
My family wasn't