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She blurts out a loud laugh. “What? Wrong. Dammit, you’re completely wrong.” There are no more tears. No more trembling. I forgot how hard she makes my cock when her temper flares. Part of me wants to see how far this will go. I could sink into her so deep she’d forget everything that’s making her miserable.
Yet, she softens instead of blowing up the way I wish she would. Her head tips to the side, her mouth curves into a sad frown, and her hands touch the sides of my face. Normally, her touch is magic, but right now, it does nothing to soothe me. “Let’s not do this,” she whispers. “I don’t want to fight.”
It’s too late. I am already consumed by a sense of helpless frustration that has intensified into something closer to rage. This is the last person I need to rage against, but she happens to be the only person in the room with me, the only one with this power over me. Even Dante isn’t able to cut through me the way she does with a single look, a single word. Only she can expose me like she does. I’m a fucking fraud. I don’t know the first thing about making another human being happy. It could be I’m not the man she needs.
Fuck that.
I’m not letting it end like this. “You’re not the only person who’s ever gone through a major change, you know. And this was your decision, remember?”
She snorts softly. “What a decision. Fall in line or kiss my ass goodbye.”
That stings more than I’m going to admit. “And there I was thinking you chose out of love.”
She immediately gives me a hard shove that surprises me, and I stumble backward. “We’re not doing this, Luca!”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“Yes, I sure as hell do,” she fires back. “I’m leaving before we say something we both regret.”
When she tries to slide past me along the desk’s edge, I pin her in place again. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Careful,” she murmurs, looking me up and down. “You’re sounding a lot more like a prison guard than a boyfriend.”
I hate that she’s right. I hate myself for saying that out loud. She has the power to bring out all the good in me, something I wasn’t aware existed before I met her. She can also turn me into a raging fucking lunatic.
“I don’t like the idea of you going off by yourself. Is that better?” I ask through clenched teeth, even forcing an empty smile.
“I understand, but I think it would be best if I went home, put on my PJs, and waited for you. We both need a minute to breathe. I’ll go with Vinny if you want. As soon as I’m home, he can come back. God knows there are plenty of people around to keep an eye on me there.” I hear the resentment behind that, and it chills my blood. She’s unhappy. She’s been trying hard to hide it, but every day that passes, she is a little more miserable.
Because of me.
Because I can’t possibly give her what she needs.
“Yeah, you should go,” I decide, and she gapes in surprise at my sudden change of heart, watching me cross the room and open the door to wave Vinny inside. “I want you to take her home,” I tell him. “Straight home, straight back here. Understood?”
Vinny’s eyes dart her way, quickly landing on me again. “Uh… sure. You okay?”
“I don’t pay you for personal questions. Just keep her safe.” Emilia is putting on her coat, and I help her without thinking, holding it while she slides her arms through the sleeves. It smells like her, and I catch a whiff of her perfume that threatens to melt the ice that has built itself around my heart.
Asshole, hold her. Apologize. You’re fucking it all up.
Something won’t let me do it—pride, most likely. I can identify, even if I can’t do a thing about it any more than I can help loving her to the depths of my soul. I can’t lose her, but I don’t know how to give her what she needs. All I can do for now is follow them from the office down the narrow hall leading to the dance floor.
So this is what it means to love someone, to feel as helpless as I do now as I follow behind her while she follows Vinny. There’s no way in hell I won’t watch until she is safe in the car and Vinny pulls away. It’s bad enough I have to send her off on her own.
I barely hear the high-pitched scream over the music from somewhere on the dance floor. Suddenly, everything moves in slow motion. I turn my head, seeking the source of the scream, and find a girl gaping in horror, her lips pulled back from her teeth as she raises her arm and points to a man standing only a few feet away from her.
A man who has raised a gun pointed in my direction.
In an instant, gunfire erupts, and I do the only thing instinct compels me to do. I throw myself over Emilia and take us both down while more screams pierce the air.
9
EMILIA
It all happened so fast. One second, I was following Vinny to the door with Luca behind me, and the next, I was hitting the floor, Luca’s considerable weight pinning me. I went down hard enough to knock the air out of my lungs, and now I’m fighting the sick sensation of trying to take a breath but being unable to.
There are screams, so many screams, numerous feet running past. I’m afraid to move, or I might be trampled. Not that Luca would let me up, his arms crossed over the top of my head.
