AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ricardo—”
It’s a huge risk to hang up on my uncle, but I press the button to hang up the call before he gets even more aggravated. There’s a chance he’ll show up on the doorstep. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.
On second thought, I switch the phone to silent mode and debate chucking it across the lawn before I set it facedown on the small table near the lounge chair. Nothing good is going to come from getting into an argument now. The time will come. And hopefully, when it does, I’ll be ready for it.
Right now…
All I can think about is Isabella. I remember how she felt beneath me on the rug, how she looked in the shower with water sluicing down her skin. Or the way she’d glared at me from the bed, delicate and shivering and so damn close to breaking, I knew I had to do anything in my power to keep it from happening.
There’s no way I’m going to get any sleep tonight. Already, the exhaustion has been transformed into something jittery and active, coursing through my veins like gasoline in an engine.
Just like there’s no way I’ll get her out of the contract soon. Certainly not tonight.
Tonight had been a test run to see how she would react, on one hand, and to see just how serious Drago was on the other. Everything took a turn directly into shit, and now we’re left with all of us dangling over the abyss. Jeopardizing more than our individual lives if the corpulent asshole gets his hands on inside information about the Balestras.
The same information he wants Isabella to report directly to him.
Giving in to temptation the way I’ve been doing these days, I grab another cigarette from the emergency pack I keep at the house and light it up. Sending smoke signals into the night, knowing there is no one coming to clean the slate. Not for any of us.
The closer I get to her, the more danger she’s in as well because I won’t hesitate to protect her. Which impairs my judgment to an immense degree and is part of the reason I’ve tried to keep my distance in the first place.
A match of convenience is one thing. A fake match is another, but a love match? The kind of love match that demolishes sanity and reason? It’s dangerous for all parties involved, especially if one of them doesn’t deserve such love.
If Isabella caught a whiff of the real me, she’d run. She’d be right to run.
Unfortunately, it’s up to me to get her out of this contract, no matter what pretenses I have to juggle. I’ll burn the world down to free her. And damn myself gladly in the process.
18
ISABELLA
I’d left my cell in my purse, which had gotten shucked somewhere on the floorboard of the car on our way back from Drago’s mansion and forgotten.
When I woke in the morning, bleary-eyed and cotton-mouthed, the damn thing sat right next to my empty mug on the nightstand. Even worse. The moment the screen wakes up along with the rest of me, there are a million missed messages from my family wanting to know what the hell is going on.
I’ve been found out, it seems.
I scrub my tongue along the fuzzy line of my upper front teeth, scrolling through the texts from Mia, Carter, Daddy, and even Lucia. All of them want to know why I’m not out with Sarah and when I’m planning on coming home.
Is the jig up?
My stomach growls, a combination of hunger and anxiety, which only seems to grow the longer I scroll. There are three missed calls from Daddy and one from my mother. The voicemail is more than likely from her as well.
I groan, throwing the phone toward the end of the bed, flopping onto my back, and ignoring them all. My head is killing me, and the area between my legs throbs from sex.
No way I’m in the right mind to deal with all of them. Especially not when I practically hear Nicola’s words in my head: Isabella, you have some explaining to do!
Right out of one of those cheesy sitcoms.
I draw in a breath and stretch my arms overhead until the tips of my fingers brush the wooden headboard.
Everything that happened the night before is trapped in some kind of dreamscape inside my head, as though the few hours of sleep I’d captured have turned the events into fantasy instead of reality. If only it would stay there. If only I’d close my eyes, breathe in deeply, and be back in a different life when I open them.
It's not a new wish, either.
I’d spent a lot of mornings in a similar mindset through childhood and college.
Once, I used to wish Theodora would be there when I opened my eyes. I wished she would get me out of bed with a song on her lips and start to brush my hair into neat braids.
