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The light from the screen glows against his face. His hand is bandaged in a sling.
What is he doing here? He must have come to fire me. I thought he had business in California and Asia. I thought I had more time.
Panic coils up my spine, but I can’t just leave. Can I? I need to be brave, face him, and hopefully get him to give me more time. I take a deep breath and walk toward what I hope is still my office.
My heart races with every step. As I get closer, he looks up. His eyes fix on me, and my chest clenches.
Those deep brown eyes. Here to swallow me.
My office has never felt so far from the elevators. It takes an indecent amount of time to finally reach the door. I enter, close it behind me, and remain standing there.
“Mila.” He sighs. Like he’s waited his whole life to see me again.
“What happened to your hand?” Why I focus on that, I’ll never know.
“I punched a wall.” His eyes burn my skin. “After you left.”
Jesus.
I swallow hard, trying to hold back my tears. “I know I have no right to demand anything, but would you consider keeping me here as the CEO? I have the track record to prove it’s not a burden on your bottom line—”
“Shut up,” he growls, and I gasp. “Please.” He adds, his voice hoarse. “I’m not here to fire you.”
“Oh.” I don’t think my heart rate is at a healthy level anymore. “Why are you here?” I deliver every word with care like they could detonate between us, though I’m not sure I want to hear the answer.
“You were wrong.” He stands up and starts pacing. He adjusts his cuffs and runs his hand through his hair, leaving it disheveled. Unlike him.
“About?” The air is filled with an anticipation heavy enough to suffocate us both. Why is this so hard?
“In your letter you said I’ve done nothing wrong. Fuck. I’ve done everything wrong. I made assumptions about your motivations. I held your desperate situation against you. Against us. I don’t know how to deal in the absence of hard data, so I assumed. I didn’t offer what you deserved. Not even what I really wanted to give you. I offered what I thought you wanted. I was wrong.”
He stops and drops his head, inhaling sharply, and then meets my eyes.
The lump in my throat grows bigger, the tears running down. “What do I deserve?”
“Everything. You deserve everything, Mila.” He doesn’t hesitate for a moment. “Definitely not the asshole I’ve been. But I want to give you all you deserve for the rest of my life. Princess, I’m a selfish asshole, and I can’t let you go. I can’t.”
My poor broken heart. “Why?” I whisper.
He comes closer. “I can’t because it’s not the rest of my life, it’s just the beginning of ours.”
I swallow a sob. “What are you saying?”
He looks at me with the softest gaze I’ve ever seen on him, his features dark with pain, but his eyes shining with adoration. “I want to cut my losses and focus on a new venture. I want to forget the arrangement and dive into the unknown with you, not because it’s convenient for me and my social status, but because I love you, Mila.”
Now I don’t swallow the sob anymore. It tears through me with all the pent-up emotions of the past six months. “You do?”
He steps close and cups my face. “Don’t leave me, Princess. We don’t have to go through with the wedding if you don’t want to, but please take a chance on me. Take a chance on me, even though you know I’ll fuck up again. I’ll get side-tracked again. I’ll say or do the wrong things, but rest assured, Princess, I’ll always do them with the best intention, because you matter to me. More than anything in this world.”
I heave with sobs as we stand there, my tear-stricken face in his hands. I want to kiss him, but I have to protect myself. He hurt me, and just because he regrets it, I don’t know if I can trust that he won’t continue in his ways. Shying away from my affection and hiding at work.
I step back, and the broken look on his face almost shatters my resolve. “Nora told me about Kimberly.”
“Fuck her. Kimberly is inconsequential.” He reaches for me, but then thinks better of it and drops his hand.
“And yet you compared me to her.” I don’t know if there is a chance for a real reconciliation, but if there ever might be, we need to address this topic.
He opens his mouth, all his features ready to argue, but his vehemence dies as soon as he realizes I’m right. He hangs his head, defeated. Broken. I never imagined I’d see a day when Gio Cassinetti would bow down.
