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Deceive me once, shame on you. Deceive me twice, shame on me.
There was a hint of hope that had grown rebelliously inside me that fed my emotional attachment to this man. Beyond my better judgment, I had openly grown to like him more than I should have allowed.
He lied to me, blatantly. Talking about respect and family and his theoretical high moral values. Just a role he played for fools like me to believe.
My body burnt in fury, and my hands trembled from the resentment at the memory of how I was foolishly drawn into his game, pulled deeper as each day of our honeymoon went by.
Stupid, stupid girl.
I took a warm shower, trying to ease my muscles and wash the stain of his deception off my skin before lying in bed, searching the ceiling for answers. I couldn’t dare to sleep; I couldn’t dare to render my subconscious to my soft heart in dreams of happy ever afters, or even painful nightmares of betrayal and slow soul deaths.
Because I felt mine die. I felt mine die a little further right there in that office, together with the little faith I still had in love.
As the night slowly went by, that shame overcame my anger, numbing me and clarifying my thoughts, finally bringing me back to my senses. The soft and loving part of my heart was now completely corrupted, completely lost to distrust, completely darkened, and poisoned by the undeserving objects of my affection.
Eric. Matt. They were all the same.
I just wanted to get out. I wanted to go back to my previous life, back home to what I knew and didn’t have to doubt.
I forced myself under a wave of deep nothingness, a flood of indifference, to push out all the good and bad feelings that made me both love and hate my husband. He didn’t deserve any of it.
I was both hellfire and holy water, depending on the grail you pulled out of me. But at this point, I felt Matt didn’t deserve to drink from either. Not anymore.
Hate was a counter for love, and all he deserved was my indifference.
The dark depths of nothing were far worse than the pits of hell, worse than anger and worse than sadness. My silence would deafen my feelings as my indifference drowned my sorrows.
Chapter 15
Matt
I woke up in my bed, fully clothed, with a hammering headache that hardly allowed me to open my eyes. I had no memory of how I left Dea Tacita, never mind getting home. The last thing I recalled was being in my office at the club, talking to Gio. As hard as I tried, everything between then and now was a haze.
I could hear Francesca’s voice on the other side of my bedroom door. She was talking to someone. A man. I couldn’t hear his voice clearly enough to understand who he was, though.
Despite the piercing pain in my temples, a smile spread across my lips at the sound of her. She was home. Her voice was laced with anger. She was still pissed, but at least she had come back.
I would have gotten her myself if she hadn’t, but that would have only made things worse. At least now we could have a civil conversation about how I manipulated her into marrying me. Sounds fucked up, but I would do it all over again if that was the only way to get her to say ‘I do.’
“Ugh…” I grunted as I got up, everything around me still spinning.
How much did I have to drink? I never go over the limit.
As I got closer to the door, I could hear their voices much clearer. It was easy to understand it was Liam she was talking to. But why the hell was he here? I put my hand on the knob to open my bedroom door and stopped at just a crack as their conversation flowed through.
“Francesca, Matt doesn’t get drunk. That would be willingly relinquishing the control he so much obsesses over. That would never happen. Something’s off,” Liam said.
“I know what I saw! I’m not imagining things. If he wasn’t drunk, then it’s even worse,” Francesca pressed, sounding hurt and angry.
“None of this makes sense. Why the hell would he go to the lengths he did to marry you, only to go and sleep with someone else immediately after you return from your honeymoon?”
What? What does he mean?
I would never do that. Not before I married Francesca, and most certainly not now. I had vowed to her that I would never cheat on her, that I would never betray her, and I very much intended to keep that vow.
“I don’t know, Liam. You’ll have to ask your brother about that. Either way, I. Don’t. Care.”
“It’s clear that you do care. And again, it doesn’t make sense for so many reasons. One: He didn’t need to get married, but he did, as you now know; Two: He specifically chose you, not some random girl, you!; Three: He doesn’t do this kind of thing. This is not who he is. This is not the brother I’ve known all my life. When I got to him, he couldn’t even stand, Francesca. It’s past noon, and he’s still completely passed out in his bedroom. Someone did this to him. Something happened.”
