Chapter 19

 

Arie’s POV

“I wasn’t asking.”

Nico’s words settled between us as his body kept mine trapped against the locked door. He wasn’t touching me, but I could feel his warmth through the small distance separating us. The familiar scent of his cologne surrounded me, pulling memories from places I had spent months trying to seal shut.

I hated that my body still recognised him.

I hated that beneath the anger and fear, some broken part of me had missed him.

“You cannot force me to leave my life,” I said.

His eyes remained fixed on mine. “You call this a life?”

“Yes. I have a home, a job, and people who care about me.”

“Hale?”

“Shelly. My colleagues. People who don’t believe caring about me gives them the right to control me.”

His jaw tightened. “You barely know them.”

“They know the woman I am now. You only know the girl who obeyed you.”

“You never obeyed me.”

“I trusted you. That was worse.”

Something shifted behind his expression, but he concealed it before I could understand it.

“Move away from the door,” he ordered.

“No.”

“Arie.”

“Does Bianca know you’re here?”

The question stopped him.

I looked down at the wedding ring on his hand. “Does your wife know you crossed an ocean to drag her cousin back to Italy?”

“My marriage to Bianca is an arrangement.”

“You still married her.”

“I gave her my name. Nothing else.”

I laughed bitterly. “The magazines showed something different.”

“The magazines showed what I allowed them to photograph.”

“You expect me to believe you spent an entire honeymoon pretending?”

“Yes.”

“You shared hotel rooms.”

“Suites with separate bedrooms.”

“You kissed her.”

“For cameras.”

Pain moved through me despite my effort to remain unaffected. “And at the altar?”

His silence answered.

“I watched you hold her,” I continued. “I watched you promise yourself to her while I stood there pretending my heart wasn’t breaking. You don’t get to erase that by calling it an arrangement.”

“I have never touched Bianca the way I touched you.”

The quiet certainty in his voice stole my next breath.

“Not once,” he added.

I wanted to believe him, and that made me hate myself more.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to you.”

“No. You chose her.”

“I chose an alliance that kept every enemy surrounding me from discovering my weakness.”

“Your weakness?”

“You.”

The word landed inside my chest.

Nico lifted his hand, but I turned my face before he could touch me.

“Don’t.”

His fingers stopped beside my cheek. For one stretched second, neither of us moved. Then he lowered his hand.

“I didn’t need protection from your enemies,” I whispered. “I needed protection from you.”

Pain flashed across his face.

Good. I wanted him to feel something.

“You humiliated me,” I continued. “You made me watch you marry my cousin and then told me I still belonged to you. When I finally built something of my own, you followed me. You photographed me. You entered my home.”

“I let you leave.”

“You didn’t let me do anything. I escaped.”

“And kissed another man.”

There it was again—that darkness entering his eyes whenever he thought about Ethan.

“You don’t own my mouth.”

Nico’s gaze dropped to my lips. “No?”

“No.”

“Then why are you trembling?”

“Because I’m furious.”

“That isn’t the only reason.”

My pulse leapt. “You’re imagining things.”

“I know every way your body responds to me.”

“You knew me once.”

“I know you now.”

Before I could answer, his hand closed around my waist.

One hard pull brought me against him.

My palms struck his chest, and my breath left me. The heat of his body travelled through my clothes, awakening every memory I had tried to forget. His arm locked around my lower back, holding me close enough that I could feel the controlled rise and fall of his breathing.

“Let me go,” I whispered.

His eyes searched mine. “Do you truly want me to?”

I should have said yes.

Instead, I stared at the man I had loved before I understood how dangerous love could become. His face was harder than I remembered and exhaustion darkened his eyes, but he was still Nico—the man who had once held me through nightmares, remembered every insignificant thing I told him, and made me believe I was the only softness he possessed.

His gaze moved from my eyes to my lips.

The air between us became painfully thin.

“Tell me you felt nothing when you saw me,” he murmured.

“I hate you.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

His hand travelled slowly up my back. The touch was possessive, but it was also familiar enough to send warmth spreading across my skin. His fingers reached the nape of my neck and tangled gently in my hair.

My heart beat so hard I was certain he could feel it.

“Nico…”

It was the first time I had spoken the name only a few people were allowed to use.

Something inside him broke.

His mouth came down on mine.

The kiss held nothing of Ethan’s careful gentleness. Nico kissed me with months of anger, hunger, and restraint collapsing all at once. His hand tightened in my hair while his other arm pulled me more firmly against him.

For one heartbeat, I fought him. My palms pressed against his chest as every sensible part of me demanded that I remember the ring on his hand and the men waiting outside.

Then his lips moved against mine in the way my body had never forgotten.

My resistance shattered.

My fingers curled into his shirt, and I kissed him back.

A rough breath left him as he changed the angle of the kiss, deepening it. His hand moved from my hair to my cheek, holding my face as though he needed to convince himself I was real. Heat gathered low inside me, tightening into knots that made it difficult to think.

Nico walked me backwards until my shoulders touched the wall. His mouth left mine only long enough for us to drag air into our lungs before returning with the same desperate hunger.

I had spent months telling myself that what existed between us had died at his wedding.

My body exposed the lie.

His lips travelled along my jaw, and my head tipped back before I could stop it. Warmth spread down my neck as his mouth found the sensitive place beneath my ear.

A breathless sound escaped me.

Nico became still for half a second, as though hearing it had nearly destroyed the last of his control.

“I missed that sound,” he said against my skin.

The words brought reality crashing back.

Bianca.

The wedding.

The locked room.

I opened my eyes and saw his wedding ring beside my face.

“Nico, stop.”

He lifted his head immediately, but his body remained close. Both of us were breathing unevenly.

“This changes nothing,” I whispered.

“I know.”

“I’m still not going with you.”

His thumb brushed across my swollen lower lip. “I know that too.”

“Then let me go.”

Something unreadable entered his eyes.

A sudden sting pierced my upper arm.

I flinched and looked down, but Nico’s body blocked my view.

“What—”

The room shifted.

My hands lost their grip on his shirt as weakness spread through my limbs with terrifying speed. Nico caught me before my knees struck the floor.

Panic replaced every trace of warmth.

“What did you do?”

His arms tightened around me, holding me against his chest as my vision began to blur.

“What I had to.”

“You drugged me.” The words emerged broken and unsteady. “You used the kiss to—”

“The kiss was the only honest thing that happened tonight.”

I tried to strike him, but my arm refused to rise. Tears burned my eyes as the betrayal settled deeper than the sting.

“I hate you.”

Nico lifted me into his arms. “Hate me in Italy.”

“No.” My head fell weakly against his shoulder. “Please, Nico.”

Regret moved across his face, but it didn’t make him release me.

The apartment door opened. Men entered, their footsteps sounding distant as darkness began closing around me.

“Take everything she’ll need,” Nico ordered. “Her documents, her clothes, and her father’s photograph.”

My eyes struggled to remain open.

“The rest stays,” he continued. “She won’t be coming back.”

I wanted to scream. I wanted to fight and demand that he put me down. But my body no longer obeyed me.

The last thing I saw was Nico’s face above mine and the wedding ring on the hand holding me against his chest.

Then darkness took me.