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Cato places his forehead on mine. “Put yourself back together. You’re no kitten, you’re a fucking lioness.”
“I am not. I am a coward . . . I need you to listen to me.”
“Cara, what would words bring us?”
With that he leaves me, finality etched in the unspoken words between us, but my yearning soul needs to confess, as if that’s my only goal left in life.
This clusterfuck of crazy people is my family because anyone who fights like this is family.
It’s in the face of trauma you realize what matters, reminding you of what you have, what’s important.
“How is she?” I approach Alessandra, and she blinks as if to chase the tiredness away.
“Stable.”
“She’ll make it. She’s a survivor.”
“If she is anything like Hayden, she is.”
I don’t get what there is between Alessandra and Hayden.
I find Cameron with his nose in his phone, and I place my hand on his arm. I’m worried about him. He gives me the impression he holds everything inside, locked tight. That’s not good.
“She will be okay.”
“Are you telling me more to make me feel better or yourself?”
Cato and Kieran don’t hide who they are, but Cameron is a master of disguises. Behind his easygoing charm hides a predator of the highest class.
“Both. I didn’t mean for any of this. I would never . . .” Here they come again, those tears drying me from within.
He tucks me to his side. “I know. And my sister is stubborn and thinks everything will turn out just fine. You’ll see, she will wake up and act like this never happened.”
“Yes, sounds like her.”
“You’re brave, and I’m happy my sister has such a fiery friend.”
“Thank you.”
“Still.” Here it comes, I clasp my hands together, and he continues, “Everything we do is a choice, more or less. It’s excusable when it’s the latter, inexcusable when it’s the former. You deliberately chose this, knowing you’d betray him.”
“I know.”
“Love makes men weak.”
“No, it makes them more sensitive.”
He looks at his phone when it rings. “I have to take this. I have to plan a meeting.”
My eyebrows draw together, wondering what meeting could be so important at a time like this.
I find Kieran squeezing Cato’s shoulder, in a deep discussion and a sense of foreboding spreads through me. Kieran kisses Aurora’s hand, and I dab at my tears. This event succeeded what my father’s insistences never did—to accept who I am, to accept what I want, to accept who I want. I am Chiara Moretti, and I will never flee, never hide, never be anything else than the queen of the life that destiny dealt me.
“I will protect her with my life. Go lie down for one fucking hour, man. You’ll scare her if she wakes up to find you like this.”
He still doesn’t budge. “Cameron and Hayden are here too. Every one of us would die for her.” My heart squeezes at how great of a friend Cato is.
Kieran must be exhausted, but he doesn’t move from her side. He leans down to kiss her and doesn’t even acknowledge us.
