Page 49 of The Ache That Stayed

His fist in the wall.

The look in his eyes afterwards.

I still couldn’t decide what unsettled me more.

The anger… or the way he’d looked right after, like he hated himself for losing control.

I was still wound tight with all the pent-up rage toward him.

My body felt too awake. Too loud.

It didn’t help that I was sharing the same space with the man who brought this side of me out.

I’m a patient woman. Calm. Calculated.

In control. Most of the time.

And every damn time I’m near him, I falter.

He brings out the fire I buried years ago. The kind that wants to burn him back. The kind that makes me forget composure and want to see red. Especially when it comes to him.

Calm down, Roxy. Clean thoughts.

After an hour of fighting it, I gave up.

I checked the time on my phone. 1:03 a.m.

Maybe I could call Marcello. But again he’d know something was wrong the moment I spoke. He always did.

Lately it had become harder to hide things from him. Marcello noticed everything. A pause. A breath that lasted too long. A word I didn’t say. He detected the slightest hesitation in my voice. Sometimes I felt he was more attuned to my emotions than I was.

I sighed and dropped the phone back onto the bedside table.

No.

He had enough to deal with, without worrying about me losing sleep over Santino’s temper.

My stomach growled. Stress always made me crave sugar.

I slid out of bed and pulled the oversized t-shirt lower over my shorts before padding down the hallway. The cottage was dark, the kind of dark where every creak of the floorboards sounded louder than it should.

I opened the kitchen cabinet and found a Snickers bar behind the jar of olives.

Perfect.

The fireplace in the living room still burned low embers that cast an orange hue, just enough to paint the room in slow-moving shadows. I settled into the armchair, tucking one leg beneath me and unwrapped the chocolate. I took a bite and savoured the nuttiness; a quiet ‘mmm’ escaped me as the sugar hit my bloodstream like a small mercy. For a moment the noise dulled.

Then—a voice came from the doorway.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

I jerked so hard the bar almost slipped from my hand.

“Jesus—fuck.”

My hand flew to my chest, heart thudding so fast as I turned toward the kitchen.

Santino stood at the counter, half in shadow.