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He’d checked into the hotel the night of his fight with Marianna. Being in the house with her and that asshole Julian had frayed his nerves. Any time it was silent he wondered if they were together behind a closed door, doing God only knew what.
She loved him.
Ugh. If the jealousy wasn’t enough to set his stomach off, then his disgust at how much it hurt certainly was. He lurched out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, but the nausea subsided. When Nico caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror, he felt a wave of repulsion. For a moment he hadn’t recognized himself. Dark hollows under his eyes leached the life out of his face, and the beginnings of a black beard gave his face a brutality that he hadn’t seen in a long time.
Everything swirled in his head. Marianna. Alethea. Kosta.
He still remembered the day Alethea had confessed she’d terminated her pregnancy. It was like being shot. Because in his stupid, naive, uneducated brain, the life inside her would surpass all the other bullshit. It would surpass the fact that Kosta had kicked him out, taking Nico’s hope of one day belonging to a real family and shredding it to pieces. It surpassed Nico’s fear that he would amount to nothing, because being a father was the most precious role he could possibly play in life. It even surpassed the history that had told Nico to avoid connection—because there was no way he could ever not have a connection with someone of his blood.
But to her, it had meant being tied down, losing opportunities, giving up her dreams. Failing her family. Failing herself.
Nico wrenched the tap on and splashed his face with cold water. He would have to return home and face the consequences of his actions. Would Marianna still be there? She’d called the first two days, but he hadn’t answered. After that, silence. What if she’d decided to go back to Australia?
A loud thump on the hotel door startled him. That definitely wasn’t a room service kind of knock. Fuck. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his naked waist as he walked. Through the peephole he could see the distorted impression of a very pissed-off face.
“What do you want?” he said as he yanked the door open to find Dion standing there, dressed in a suit and looking like he was about to murder someone.
“Oh nothing. Just checking in to see why my business partner has fallen off the face of the earth.” He stormed into the room without waiting for an invitation. Dion went straight to the window and pulled the blinds open. “It smells like a fucking nightclub in here. What have you been drinking?”
Everything.
Nico sighed. “So I took a few days off, big fucking deal. You’re always telling me to take a vacation.”
“There’s a big difference between having some downtime and having a bender in a darkened hotel room.”
“You know where you can shove your judgment?” Nico said, reaching down into the minibar and grabbing a bottle of water.
“Don’t start. I had to bully Helena into telling me where you’d gone. I’ve probably worried the shit out of Marianna because I called the house before I came over. She assumed you were with me.”
So she was still in the country.
Nico snorted. “I doubt it.”
“Look, whatever is going on with her, you need to sort it out. Apart from the fact that you blew off a board meeting and I had to cover for you, you’ve left your wife alone without giving her any idea where you’ve gone. It’s completely irresponsible.”
The words washed a veil of red over his vision. “You were the one who said I shouldn’t have married her!”
“I said you didn’t have to marry her. But you did. And you stayed married to her…so that means you at least owe her your whereabouts.”
“I don’t owe her anything.”
But saying it out loud didn’t make it true. Nico knew he’d made a mess of things, but he wasn’t equipped to deal with this situation. Growing up, any time he’d raised a problem with the sisters he was told to be grateful he had somewhere to live, a roof over his head. That he wasn’t out on the streets.
Be grateful we found you in that box. If the night had been colder/longer/darker, you could have died. Alone.
So he’d learned to bottle his feelings up, burying them over and over and over until he no longer knew where he’d hidden them or how to locate them. All he’d wanted was for someone to love him. And as much as he resisted getting too close to Marianna, that decades-old hope had sprung up in his chest. What if she could learn to love him?
Which was exactly why the blow about her loving Julian had hurt so damn much.
“You want to know what happened?” He blurted the entire story out to Dion, who raised a brow. “So now I’m here and we’re waiting for a DNA test, which she should have taken a few hours ago.”
“And what? You’re going to live here until the results come in?”
He honestly hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Why not?”
“Because that’s not how adults deal with their problems.” Dion raked a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated breath. “Look, I get it. The Alethea and Kosta thing messed you up pretty good. And I know that the last year since he died you’ve been on edge, whether or not you want to admit it. But continuing to shut people out isn’t going to fix this situation.”
