AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Bothered doesn’t even cover it. She’s completely pissed off.”
“That’s a good sign, Son. It means she cares. It wouldn’t affect her if she didn’t. The angrier the better.” He said, smiling. “I knew you had feelings for this girl. Maybe more than just feelings.”
“She’s my wife. I should care, right?”
“Right. But it’s much more than that, and we both know it. You love her.”
“I don’t.” I protested, washing my treacherous tongue with the rest of the drink in my hand. “I can’t.”
“But you do.” That shit-eating grin on his face was driving me insane, or maybe it was just the truth behind his words.
“I’ve barely known her for a month. It’s impossible.”
He chuckled as if I was an idiota. “Love doesn’t have a clock, Matteo. I fell for your grandmother on the very first day I set my eyes on her. There was no mistake in the way my heart skipped a beat each time she seemed to look directly at me from over five hundred feet away. I didn’t know her, and I loved her already.”
Jesus fuck we were almost the same person.
“Right now, it doesn’t really matter because it seems like Francesca doesn’t even like me, nevermind anything more than that. So how do I fix it when I don’t have any proof that I didn’t do what she saw?” I had never dealt with these kinds of feelings before. I had never felt this way about any other woman I’ve been with. Francesca just struck a whole different cord inside me.
“Give her space. This trip might be a good thing after all. Let her breathe. Give her time to miss you.”
“Right. Okay. And how do I know when to come close again?” I asked, with my heart already clenching at the thought of putting even more distance between us.
“Don’t worry. You’ll know.”
And so, that’s exactly what I did. It took every ounce of self-control not to call her. It was even worse once I came back and saw her again. Tangled up in Victor’s arms.
I was supposed to have been there on the first day of their training to introduce them, but I got pulled away to California and didn’t get the chance to.
The way he spoke about her, the way his eyes didn’t peel away from her swaying ass as she walked away just made me crave to spill his blood all over the mat. Right then and there. And Victor was a friend. He saved my fucking life.
It wasn’t his fault, though. How stupid could I have been not to tell him she was my wife. He thought she was another one of my employees that I sent to train with him, like so many others.
But she wasn’t. She was mine.
My wife.
I’ve never felt this possessive over anything in my entire life. Not even my place as the head of the Battaglia Family. How did she crawl this deep under my skin and this easily into my heart?
I. DON’T. WANT TO!
Now, here I was, lying on the floor, completely struck by her words that repetitively played in my head as I dwelled on what I should do. Should I still keep the space my grandfather had advised, or was it time?
I sprung to my feet, quickly striding after her. I had to take that small opening she just gave me and talk to her. I needed to know what she wanted.
I grabbed the service elevator and ran up the remaining stairs into the back entrance of our penthouse just as she was arriving in the elevator. I motioned for Max to leave us and waited until he was out of sight.
“Francesca!” I called out, making her turn to look at me surprised. Her cheeks were still flustered, maybe from both the activity and my hands on her body.
“What, Matt?” She spat.
I walked over to her, closing the gap between us, grasping her shoulders as if that would make her listen, believe, and understand what I was about to say.
“I can’t do this anymore. I need you to listen to me, and then you can say or do whatever you want,” I started. “I don’t have any way to prove to you that I was drugged. That what you saw wasn't consensual. But…” Her face was drifting to the side, and I shook her a little before resuming. “Look at me, Francesca. Look into my eyes so that you know I’m being honest. I would never do that to you. I swear to God, I have no idea what happened. You are the only one that I want. No one else. I have no idea what the fuck you’ve done to me, but I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Her dark eyes were glued to mine as if she was searching the depths of my being for any sign of dishonesty. She could look, search and dig all she wanted. She wouldn’t find it.
“That is my truth. Tell me what to do. Tell me what I can do to fix this, and I will do it in a heartbeat,” I plead, my eyes never leaving hers. “Tell me what you want.”
