But I did.
God help me, I did.
I’d spent my whole life being overlooked. Being the girl who wasn’t quite enough. My father had left when I was eight, and I’d spent the next decade trying to earn love from men who didn’t know how to give it. My last boyfriend had made me feel like a convenience, something to be used and discarded when it was no longer useful.
But Lorenzo?
Lorenzo looked at me like I was the only woman in the world.
Lorenzo touched me like he was afraid I’d disappear.
Lorenzo had punched a man for putting his hand on my arm.
That should have terrified me. It should have made me run.
Instead, it made me feel seen because, in some twisted way; he cared enough to track my phone, to show up at that restaurant and make a scene. And he wanted me enough to fuck me in a public bathroom until I couldn’t remember my own name.
I turned away from the mirror, disgusted with myself, and crawled back into bed. The sheets were cool against my heated skin. I pulled them up to my chin, curling into a ball, and tried to make sense of the chaos in my head.
A notification on my phone pulled my thoughts after a few minutes of chaotically writing in my journal, trying to process the thoughts before I had another panic attack.
Carla
Zara, I made you some tea. It’s outside the door. Please drink it. You look like you need it.
I smiled despite myself. Carla was the only person in this penthouse who seemed to genuinely see me—not as a possession, not as a contract, but as a person.
I got up, opened the door a crack, and found a steaming cup of chamomile tea on a small tray, along with a handwritten note.
“He’s not as scary as he pretends to be. Give him time.”
I snorted quietly, shaking my head.
Time wasn’t going to fix whatever was wrong with Lorenzo Falcone. Time wasn’t going to un-break the parts of him that made him track my phone and punch strangers and fuck me like he was trying to brand his name onto my soul.
But maybe time wasn’t the point.
Maybe the point was that I was just as broken as he was.
Maybe the point was that we deserved each other in some wicked, toxic way.
I took the tea back to bed, wrapping my hands around the warm mug, and let the steam curl up around my face.
I could still smell him on my skin.
Could still feel him inside me.
For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel empty.
I didn’t feel unloved.
I felt wanted.
And that terrified me more than anything else.
Chapter Twenty
Lorenzo
