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“And just when we were starting to let her back in, she disappeared again. Dad later found out she had been living with another man all the time she was away. They even had a little girl… and she’d abandoned her, too.
Oh fuck. “I’m so sorry.” There’s a familiar tightening in my belly. A feeling I only ever get with Sophie. It’s an insane desire to have her bury her face in my chest and soak my shirt with those tears I know she’s fighting to hold back. A desire to replace her pain with pleasure.
She sniffs, “We still love and miss her. But it’s never going to be enough, is it?”
“Hell no.”
“So, Nico, if Leo was still alive and somehow you forgave him, could you still trust him?”
“No.” It would have meant always wondering, always looking over my shoulder, waiting for the inevitable blow, and not knowing when or where it would strike.
Now it’s my turn to read what’s plainly between the lines. “Sophie?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you cut ties from your home?”
I hear her tremulous sigh. “If I’d stayed, I’d have ended up wearing Rafe’s property patch. He was a good person. Everyone respected him. It was a nice feeling to have such a guy in love with me, but I was afraid of turning out like my mother. Of leaving him at some point.”
I see. “And why do you try to hide who you are?”
I can almost picture her shrugging, “I don’t know. My first few relationships, the guys kept breaking up with me. They thought I was weird, and that was before they got to know about the whole MC part of my life. I developed this fear, I guess, that someone I really loved would leave me because of my background. Besides, it’s easier to blend in this way with my line of work.”
A flash of anger grips me. “Okay. Listen to me, Sophie. First off, you’re not your mother. You’re too stubborn to be pressured into settling for a man you don’t love. And second, if you do happen to fall in love and the fucker ever tries to leave you for being yourself, you let me know and—”
“What? You’ll put a bullet in them?”
“You better believe it.”
Her laughter, light and infectious, catches me off guard. It's surprising how much I want to hear it again, to be the reason why she makes those sounds.
“Why do I find that disturbingly sweet, Nico? I think you’re a bad influence on me.”
“Oh, no. This one is all you, trust me.”
“Yeah, you wish! But, thanks. Really.”
I take a breath and realize it comes easier. The vise that had been crushing my chest has loosened a little. She did that. The mouthy woman who I hadn’t known existed until three weeks ago has made it easier for me to fucking breathe.
I shake my head.
“No, thank you, Sophie,” I say, then I disconnect the call because this is bad. Because as much as I want to fuck her—possibly more than I’ve ever wanted a woman before—I’m starting to want the rest of her just as much.
And that is just fucking insane because I’m supposed to be preparing to hitch myself to another woman. I wonder how Orlando De Luca would feel about an alternative.
Another Vitelli.
Chapter Fourteen
Sophie
With deft flicks of my wrists, I guide the paintbrush in short strokes, blending shades of blue and yellow across the canvas. I took up painting simply as a means to relieve stress, hoping to channel my tension into colors and shapes.
I dragged out my easel again tonight, telling myself that between painting myself to exhaustion and finishing the bottle of red I just opened, I’ll get some decent sleep tonight.
Or die trying.
For the fourth night in a row, I can’t sleep. Not a single wink. Because I can’t stop thinking about him.
