Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
I’ll go down the dark hole of possible despair and pain on another day. Now… I just want to lie in Nick’s arms and stare out at the setting Tuscan sun.
“I love you,” I confess, allowing the pure joy of the words to wash over me.
His body stiffens as my heart skips a beat. “Don’t.”
Don’t what? Don’t love him? Don’t tell him how I feel? What does he mean by don’t?
I feel tears burn my eyes as I struggle to come up with the right words to say, or the right actions to do.
“Don’t love me,” he says, but kisses the top of my head, and squeezes me closer with a reassurance that I don’t have to pull away. At least not yet. “I’m not the kind of man to love. So don’t love me.”
Part of me wants to flee. I want to run away like I did before. But Nick holds me tight, and I’ve learned that love or not, Nick is not going to ever let that happen again. He’ll hunt me down. He’ll punish me. He’ll do it all over with a renewed vengeance.
He’s claimed me as his.
I know I am his.
That knowledge helps soothe the pain of him not saying he loves me in return.
I press my body next to him, grateful for his heat to offset the coldness of his words. I wish I could take my declaration of love back. That I never said the words. But at the same time, they are my truth, and I know that Nick would never judge me for that.
He tilts my chin, so I’m forced to look up at him as he places his lips to mine. The kiss helps erase the burn of his refusal to let me love him.
He added a new rule to our game.
I’m not allowed to love him.
Chapter Seventeen
Lyriope
“Come on, I have something I want to show you,” Nick says as he grabs me by the hand.
We are taking a walk, side by side along the river below the village, enjoying the warm air. In many ways the last two weeks have been wonderful. Nick and I have spent every waking moment together, and I don’t want our time in Italy to ever end.
In my case, the forced proximity being a blessing rather than a curse.
We talk, we laugh, and we briefly kiss if I initiate it. But we haven’t had sex since after the tattoos, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s because I confessed my love only to have it rejected. It feels as if he’s been distancing himself with work—the planning of the next Wonderland. But he hasn’t been shutting me out either. It’s like we’re walking on the edge of a cliff, and I’m just waiting for us to fall.
I’m trying my best to not overthink. To not feel inadequate. To not start believing he’s had a taste of me and now is bored. I’m trying hard not to spiral and just “stop” as he had ordered the last time I did.
I’m trying to follow the rules of his game, because I desperately want to keep playing it.
Each minute of each day, I’m falling deeper and harder for this man, and trying my best to simply live in the moment and not overthink.
I wouldn’t dare confess that to Nick again. We haven’t discussed love, but we haven’t brought up the fact that this is temporary either.
It’s messy, complicated, and most likely unsustainable.
I think we both know that, but we don’t want to face it. Or at least that’s how I’m seeing it. A Tuscan getaway to live a fantasy life, and then back to reality. What harm can hiding my head in the sand a little longer do?
But eventually the dark shadows will come knocking.
I know this.
The white rabbit who carries the clock warning that time is up will appear.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Over there.” Nick points to a villa on the top of a vineyard-covered hill. “That’s our new place. It’s finally completed.”
“Our new villa?”
He nods with a smile of pride on his face. “I told you I’d find us better accommodations. I like the security and the reclusiveness of this town. It’s centrally located, and it also acts as our own personal fortress. So staying here is wise, but I did want something a little less… rustic for us.”
I lean in and kiss him with excitement. “You never cease to amaze me. Can you show me the inside now?”
We walk hand in hand to the villa like a couple in love. I know that he did this for me. Yes, the man likes his fancy shit, but I feel it in my core that this was more for me than him. I’m not used to receiving gifts, but I have never found Nick as attractive and sexy as I do as we approach the door.