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She just lay there, letting the water be her tender lover who soothed her hurts, cleansed her, and relaxed her completely in its arms.
The thinking could wait until tomorrow. She ignored the string keeping her together, ignored the ache as it pulled taut on every thought, ignored it all. She just lay there.
After long, long minutes, when the water went cold and her skin began to prune, when she was almost lulled to sleep by the simplicity of a good bath after a hard day, she somehow dragged herself out of the tub, pulling the plug, her eyes stinging, the exhaustion and lack of sleep of the past few days catching up to her. All she wanted was to put herself in that comfortable bed, draw the thin blankets over her head, and sleep undisturbed for the next ten years. Minimum.
Sighing, she switched off the lights in the bathroom and walked out to the still-dark bedroom, without a stitch of clothing on, not caring because she was exhausted and not worried because she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to enter her bedroom tonight, not after all the avoiding he’d done since the cemetery.
Without another thought, she climbed into the bed, snuggling into the abundance of pillows, a groan escaping her at the plush comfort.
A buzzing noise from her phone made her peek one eye open. It had come to life.
Grabbing it from the bedside table and removing the charger, she unlocked the screen, to see alerts for 4 Missed Calls and 3 Text Messages from Tristan Caine.
Blinking, sleep fading from her eyes, she swallowed, clicking on the texts, seeing her last message to him.
Morana Vitalio: They should be. After all, I just blew up a car and killed two men in cold blood.
(Sent 4.33 PM)
Tristan Caine: Where are you?
(Received 4.34 PM)
Tristan Caine: This is not amusing, Ms. Vitalio. Where are you?
(Received 5.00 PM)
Tristan Caine: I swear to god… WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?
(Received 5.28 PM)
Then nothing.
Nerves balled up in her throat, stomach heavy with the very roil of emotions that she’d been trying to avoid, Morana closed her eyes and put her phone back on the stand, turning on her side.
It was almost 10.30 now. Which meant she’d seen him in the cemetery at roughly 9. What had he been doing since that last text?
No. Deliberately shaking herself out of it, she inhaled deeply - the light citrusy scent of fabric conditioner on the sheets filling her nostrils - and told herself to just sleep for the night. There was a lot of time in the morning, to think, to process, to plan. For now, despite the day, she was alive and tired and her brain could wait for a few hours.
Nodding to herself, she almost closed her eyes again when the voices from outside broke into her consciousness. Frustrated, she covered her ears with the pillow.
And then put it down.
The men were talking.
Tugging her lower lip with her teeth, she wondered what they were talking about when the silence in the penthouse aided her, their voices, though not loud, still drifting to her well enough that she could hear it.
“Father called when you were out,” Dante spoke.
So, no questions about the emotional health of either, then. Men.
The sound of crystals clinking together against plastic told her either of them was cleaning up the mess on the floor.
“Things are escalating back home, Tristan,” Dante stated, in the calm, collected tone she’d come to associate with him. “It’s getting worse. We need to return.”
Tristan Caine didn’t speak for a long moment.
Then, his voice rolled over her naked skin.
