“No, you’re not.” Her voice stayed calm, but I could hear something breaking beneath it, anyway. “You walk around acting like this version of you is enough to erase everything else. Like expensive dinners and soft moments somehow change the fact that your world is…” She gestured vaguely around us. “This.”
She was crying openly now, her shoulders shaking. I’d seen her angry, scared, and defiant. But I’d never seen her this broken, this small.
“Zara, please. Just let me explain.”
“What’s there to explain? That I’m not enough? That I’ll never be enough?” She laughed bitterly. “I was never going to fit into your world. People like me don’t get happy endings. We get abandoned. We get used to it. We are left with the pieces of someone else’s mess. ”
“You’re not a mess.”
“I am a mess, Lorenzo! Broken and damaged. I should come with a warning label. And you—you’re supposed to be the one who fixes things, but you’re just—” She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “You’re just another man who’s going to break me.”
Something in me snapped.
I closed the distance, grabbing her face in my hands. She flinched, but I held her, forcing her to look at me.
Something in me snapped.
“I am not them. I don’t give a fuck what you think.” The words came out sharp, fierce; my voice shaking. I saw the shock in Zara’s eyes, the way her breath caught, and for a moment, I almost wanted to take the words back. But I needed her to understand how far I would go to protect her.
“I mean it.” My voice was raw, desperate—a tremor slipping in that I couldn’t hide. My hand shook as I reached for her, every muscle tight with fear that I was losing her for good. “I would burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone hurt you. Including myself. Do you want to leave? Fine. But don’t you dare stand there and tell me I’m like the other men in your life. Because I’m not. I love you, Tesoro.”
The words hung between us. I hadn’t meant to say them. I hadn't planned it. But they were true, fucking terrifyingly true.
She stared at me, her breath hitching. “You can’t say that…you don’t mean it.”
“I mean every single word. I love you so much. I can’t think, can’t breathe when you walk away from me.” My hands trembled. Fear, desperation, and longing tangled inside me as I held her gaze. “And if you leave me, I swear to God I’d lose my fucking mind.”
Then she pulled away. “I need… I need time.”
“Zara—”
“Just—” She held up her hand, backing toward the cabin door. “Please.”
She turned and fled.
I stood there, alone on the deck, the sound of her sobs echoing in my ears.
The city lights glittered in the distance, mockingly beautiful.
And I had never felt more like I was drowning.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zara
My hands were shaking so badly that I could barely grip the zipper of my suitcase.
Outside, the city lights blurred through my tears. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. All I could see was her hand on his chest. Her smirk. His lips against her ear.
I threw the last of my things into the bag—the dress he’d bought me, the perfume he’d left on the nightstand, the stupid silk robe that smelled like him. I didn’t want any of it. I wanted to scrub every trace of Lorenzo Falcone off my skin and pretend I’d never been stupid enough to believe him.
In the midst of it all, the door to the penthouse burst open, but I didn’t need to turn around. I knew the weight of his presence, the way the air changed when he walked into a room.
“Going somewhere?”
I yanked the zipper closed, my voice brittle. “I’m leaving. Just leave me alone.”
“The hell you are,” he shot back.
