Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Even without the noise, Enzo can read the disbelief written on my face. “I’m serious. No one but you appeals to me.”
He takes my mouth into another rough kiss as if he can force me to accept what he’s saying by kissing it straight into my brain. His hands make their way under my shirt, not going up above my belly button but seeking to put his skin against my own. We’d have to stop this soon. Matteo is in the other room and the last thing I need is for him to catch us mid-makeout.
There’s a loud crash in the other room, followed by Matteo letting out a high-pitched scream I’ve never heard from him. I break apart from Enzo, my body freezing at the sound. Enzo doesn’t freeze, he darts out of the room and into Matteo’s room.
Chapter Twenty-Nine- Emma
“Kids get hurt. It happens. You did nothing wrong,” Enzo tells me, rubbing his hands up and down my arms. I don’t speak. Guilt bubbles up in my chest because this doesn’t happen, not to Matteo. He isn’t the child who plays recklessly. I’ve never had to correct him or stop him from doing something that might hurt him. He’s careful. Quiet.
And now he’s in the hospital getting his ankle x-rayed because I had been making out with his father instead of watching him like I should have been.
A choked sob breaks itself free, and Enzo pulls me to him with a sigh. He places his lips on my forehead, more of a gentle caress than a kiss.
After the initial scream, Matteo hadn’t cried much. He didn’t want to put any weight on his leg, which is what prompted me to bring him to the hospital. The hospital I used to work at. It’s weird being here. This is the place where I got the phone call my father had been hurt, which now I know was a ruse to get me to come home to Enzo. The hospital feels familiar. I spent every day here for weeks. It also feels like it came from a different lifetime, a memory from a past that no longer exists.
Some nurses had recognized me, and I could lie smoothly enough. My father’s doing fine now, but I need to move home for a while. Really, it isn’t a lie. It’s just not the whole truth.
“I just don’t know what he was even doing. That’s so unlike him,” I say when I finally get myself together enough to speak. It only lasts for as long as I take to get the words out. I haven’t cried in front of Matteo, but the second they took him away to get the images done, it’s like I can’t stop the tears.
“He’s a little boy. Some things needed to be explored. Mountains of boxes needed to be climbed. We left him alone for a few minutes. That’s not negligence.”
I allow myself a few more sniffling cries before I force myself to get it back together. Matteo is going to be done with imaging at any moment. The last thing he needs to see is me crying when he comes back to the room. It would be worse than the fall for him.
“That’s my girl,” Enzo praises me. I sink into him, drawing strength from his presence. This feels more intimate than the sex we’ve had. With sex, we’re partners in a mutual but temporary goal. There’s no goal here besides comfort. There’s no pleasure to be derived from each other touch. He gives his touch freely to me without the expectation it’s going to lead to an orgasm.
The sliding glass door behind the drawn curtains opens, and I quickly wipe my eyes before they bring Matteo back in. There’s no way I can hide I’ve been crying, but they gave Matteo a bit of pain medicine and it makes him a little loopy, so I might be able to pull it off.
Derek steps into the room instead of Matteo. I deflate a little, though I’m glad it isn’t Matteo. I need a few more minutes before I see him.
“Hi Derek,” I say, looking at my classmate. It’s weird. Before I left, I had been contemplating what it would be like to be in a relationship with someone like him. Someone so levelheaded. Normal. I couldn’t have possibly predicted the curveballs life would throw at me that would end with me being engaged to a man his opposite.
I blame my shock over Matteo’s accident why I don’t pick up on the tension in the room immediately.
“Derek Vitalis. And here everyone thinks you’re dead,” Enzo says, breaking me out of my thoughts.
Derek sneers at Enzo while I frown, my eyes jumping between the two men. No one bothers to cue me in on what’s happening, or how the two of them know each other.