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Matteo left an hour ago, and now I lay in bed in the dark. I enjoyed my conversation with him, and he did a great job removing the tension and making it casual. When he walked out, he didn’t try to kiss me goodnight. He didn’t even kiss me on the cheek, but he shook my hand instead.
He would never call me again.
I couldn’t blame him. That was a terrible first date. A handsome man like that could find a woman to replace me in a heartbeat, someone a lot more interested in him than I was. I was strange, unpredictable, and an emotional nightmare.
I’d judge him if he ever wanted to see me again.
A part of me was sad about it because he could have been a good fit for me if Bones hadn’t ruined me. If we’d met under different circumstances, we could have hit it off. Normally, I was confident, charming, and easy to talk to. But he met me at the worst time possible, when my murdering ex-boyfriend was sitting across the room watching every move I made.
Maybe I should apologize to Matteo for wasting his time.
Or maybe I should just leave it alone and let it be forgotten.
I held my phone in bed, my thumb itching to make a phone call I shouldn’t make. I wanted to hear his deep baritone, to listen to him call me baby. I missed our silences as much as our conversations. I missed the way he felt in bed beside me, his heavy body sinking into the mattress and making me roll toward him.
I missed him so much it hurt.
But I had to keep going. I had to move on with my life. I had to find a better future and leave him in the past.
But that was so damn hard.
I lost my final bit of resolve and called him.
He answered so quickly, like he’d been expecting the call all night. “Baby.”
I closed my eyes at the sound of my nickname, treasuring the way it sounded over the line.
“You kept your promise?”
“Yeah…”
He sighed with relief. “I’ve never felt like this before…never felt so shitty.”
The guilt flooded my heart. “My mom set me up on a date with him. He’s a family friend.”
“So he’s exactly what you want…someone your family will approve of.” Bitterness was in his tone, mixed with a splash of rage.
“I just wanted you to know that. I didn’t go out and pick him up at a bar or something. My mom was trying to be nice by introducing me to someone new. I just…I don’t want you to think this isn’t killing me, that I’m moving on like you never meant anything to me. Trust me, this is hard…so fucking hard. I hate it.” I stopped talking when the emotion caught in my throat, the painful outbreak of impending tears.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, his silence comforting me in ways his words never could.
“I hate myself for letting this happen. I hate myself for letting us get that far. And I also hate you for being what you are. Why couldn’t you just be someone else?”
“You don’t want me to be someone else, baby. You like me exactly as I am, dark, cold, furious…you don’t want to be with a clean and respectable man like you think. You want me because I’m powerful, because I’m not afraid of anything, even taking someone’s life. You want me because I’m the only man on this planet who could keep you safe from everything. You want me because I’m strong, confident, and act like an asshole nearly all the time. Baby, you don’t want a gentleman. You’re one hell of a woman, and you deserve one hell of a man. That’s me. There’s no one out there better for you than me.”
He was right. I didn’t want anyone else.
“Baby, be with me.”
There was nothing I wanted more. I wanted him to walk through the front door and fall into my bed. I wanted him between my legs, his hands in my hair, his lips brushing against mine. I didn’t want this distance between us, my hand getting me off because he wasn’t there to please me anymore. “No…”
“You’d rather be with a man you don’t love just because your family likes him? The only thing you’ll have is their approval, but you won’t have the heat like we have between us. You won’t have passion. You won’t have this painful, throbbing, lustful love that we have. I’ve been with a lot of women, and I’ve never even come close to this. You think you’re ever going to find a man who gives you what I give you?”
“No…”
“Then stop torturing both of us, baby. Stop this madness.”
I sighed into the phone. “It’ll just be harder later…”
“Don’t worry about later. Worry about now.”
