AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” he said, wondering why the word tasted bitter in his mouth.
“You’re seeing him?” The voice from behind them belonged to Caleb, who stood looking from mother to brother, and then to Charlotte, who was a few feet away and as pale as a sheet of paper. Accusation clouded her eyes when they met Alessio’s.
He swore inwardly, feeling the betrayal, feeling how badly he’d stuffed up by being led into this conversation when she’d specifically asked him not to.
“Charlie?” Caleb’s voice was incredulous, unmistakably hurt. Alessio saw with clarity, for the first time, that Caleb and Charlotte had a relationship that well and truly predated whatever claim he felt he had on her. They had a friendship, and it meant a lot to Charlotte. So much so, she’d wanted to avoid hurting Caleb at all costs.
It was Caleb she went to now, Caleb she sought to comfort. Never mind that Alessio still had his mother’s veiled criticisms swirling through his mind. But Alessio didn’t need comforting. He was too strong for that, too independent. He held himself still and tall, refusing to show any emotion on his face, refusing to admit, even to himself, that he felt a damned thing.
“Is it true?” Caleb asked, his voice cold.
Charlotte stared at him beseechingly. “It’s…nothing,” she said with a shake of her head, lifting her hand to the necklace she wore, touching it through the fabric of her sweater. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Alessio had the strangest sensation. He was no longer separated from his body, but his body was in a strange sort of pain, the kind of pain he hadn’t felt in a very long time. Not since he was a boy and the world had been pulled out from under him.
It doesn’t mean anything.
He was usually the one saying, or at least thinking, those words. But not with Charlotte. Despite the deal they’d made, she’d come to mean a lot more than ‘nothing’ to him. Still, he kept his features taut, his expression a mask of cold disinterest.
“Oh, Charlie,” Caleb put a hand on her arm, shaking his head. “How could you? Withhim? Do you have any idea what he’s like? I get that he just has to click his fingers and women fall at his feet. Butyou?”
Charlotte stared at Caleb, and Alessio stared at her, waiting for her to say something that justified the feelings he was only now starting to recognise, but instead, she flicked a guilty seeming glance from Winona to Caleb, completely ignoring Alessio.
“It wasn’t planned,” she said softly. “It just happened.” Now she looked at Alessio, her eyes haunted when they locked to his, her throat moving as if trying to combat tears. “It doesn’t mean anything to either of us,” she said again, as if no one had heard it the first time. Or was she daring him to contradict her? She left a long enough pause, silence crackled in the room. He could have interjected, but what would he have said? He never made promises he couldn’t keep, and he knew what this was. Or what it should have been. What itneededto be. Sex. To pass the time while he was in town. Whatever else he was feeling—feeling, for God’s sake, which he avoided so successfully—was just proof that he needed to get the hell out of here.
He wasn’t the kind of man who got into deep, emotional relationships. He would never be like his father, destroyed by a woman. He’d never let anyone have the chance to hurt him like that. The fact Charlotte was capable of stirring things up inside him, of making him think maybe he did have a heart after all, was all the reason he needed to run, to run fast and far.
Charlotte closed her eyes a moment, drew in a breath as if for strength, then turned back to Caleb. “He’s leaving tomorrow, and we’ll never see each other again.”
Her voice caught a little, but Alessio couldn’t know if that was because she didn’t like the idea of never seeing him again, or if she was devastated about Caleb finding out the truth. He told himself he didn’t care. Hecouldn’tcare.
“Do you have any idea what this guy is like?” Caleb jerked his thumb in Alessio’s direction. “He’s had moregirlfriends,” Caleb put air-quotes around the word, “than you have had hot meals.”
“I know that” she said with a quiet defiance. It was true, but Alessio found he was holding his breath, half waiting for her to defend him in some way. To tell Caleb that Alessio wasn’t really like he was portrayed. That he had a soft side, that he was a nice guy. Hell, he cared so much more than he wanted to. But Charlotte was silent, and the heart he’d denied possessing for many years twisted painfully.
“Listen,” Winona’s voice interrupted, clear and resonant. “This is not something we need to discuss now. Charlotte and Alessio are adults, capable of making their own decisions, Caleb. Even if we don’t agree with them, it’s not our place—,”
Alessio felt his mother’s betrayal like a knife in the gut, made all the worse because it was coming hot on the heels of Charlotte’s dismissal of everything they’d shared. She and Caleb were a team, the sensible, rational ones, who saw things the same way. He was the outsider. The one who’d come in and ruined everything. The same sense of hurt that had closed off his heart all those years ago slammed into him now. He turned to his mother with eyes like ice chips.
“And yet, you were happy to interrogate me about this situation, even after I told you it was a personal matter?”
“I was looking out for Charlotte,” she defended, her voice shaking. “However, I can see Charlotte has walked into this, whatever it is, with eyes wide open.”
“I did,” Charlotte said, her eyelids fluttering, so Alessio realised she was trying to blink back tears. His stomach rolled for another reason now. Everything was completely out of control—that was not a feeling Alessio was familiar with. In fact, being back here, in his mother’s home, was changing the fabric of his being, making Alessio lose sight of who he was in the world.
He wanted to leave. He wanted to escape, forever, and never see any of them again. Even Charlotte. Charlotte, perhaps, most of all, because she made him feel things he hated, feelings he didn’t want.
“And it is, as I said, a personal matter. Perhaps Charlotte and I should leave to discuss this. In private.”
“You don’t have to—,” Winona said, at the same time Charlotte said,
“I’d like to go home, but I don’t think we have anything further to discuss.” Her features were drawn, her lips compressed. “In private, or otherwise.” She tilted her chin, not quite meeting his eyes.
Frustration rolled through Alessio. “Then we can drive back to the pub without talking, if that’s your preference.”
“It is.” Her words were clipped, her voice cool, and then she turned, disappearing from the room, presumably to collect her handbag and Christmas gifts—small tokens from Winona and Caleb.
Alessio tried not to think about how the day had started, the beauty of the morning, the perfection of giving her such a beautiful piece of jewellery, of her wearing it, and only it, of making love to her, of how much he’d been looking forward to doing so again, before the day was out.
