novelxo When She Loves: Chapter 46
My heart picks up speed. Rafaele pushes his way through the crowd and stops when he’s right in front of me. The sight of him makes my breath catch.
He’s dressed down in a pair of black jeans and a light-blue button-up shirt that brings out the color of his eyes. Without a jacket, there’s no hiding the hard outline of his shoulders or the breadth of his muscled chest. I stare at his thick neck and the tanned skin peeking out from under his shirt, and swallow.
Fuck, he looks good.
The tired air he had around him when he first arrived is gone. The only sign of the toll our time apart has taken on him is the light bags under his eyes, but they do nothing to detract from his handsomeness. A familiar heat appears between my legs, and I want to scream. It’s not fair that he still has that effect on me.
He drags his gaze over me, letting it linger on my chest and my bare legs. When he refocuses on my face, there’s a simmering hunger in his eyes. A hunger I know all too well.
“What are you doing here?” I breathe.
His jaw clenches. “Damiano told me you went to a concert. I was worried.”
Inside me, butterflies flutter. “Worried? Our guards are here.”
“I don’t know them, so I don’t trust them,” he says roughly, shooting the guards a skeptical look.
Vale groans from somewhere behind me. “Here we go. You know, we somehow survived the past two weeks without your interference.”
Rafaele ignores her comment and turns his attention back to me. “There are a lot of people here.”
Amusement tugs on my lips. “I know, Rafe. It’s a concert.”
He clears his throat. “Yes. A difficult place to secure. You can never have too many guards in a place like this.”
It’s like he’s trying to give me a reason not to ask him to leave.
I bite on my bottom lip. I should tell him to go home and that he has no right to be here, but I…don’t want to. It’s endearing how out of place he looks right now, even though he clearly tried to fit in by wearing casual clothes.
“Have you ever been to a rock concert?”
He rakes his fingers through his hair. “No.”
“Well, lucky you. The headliner is about to come on.”
He checks the time, bringing my attention to his wrist. He’s wearing the watch I got for him, and for some reason, that makes my chest clench. “Yes, any minute now.”
Just then, the guitarist walks on stage, and the opening notes of a song stream through the air. The crowd goes nuts when the band opens with one of their most popular songs, surging around me. I cheer with the rest of the audience, but I don’t miss the way Rafaele moves to stand behind me, his body acting as a shield to prevent anyone from bumping into me.
The music pounds in my ears, the beat pulsing through me like a living thing. I try to keep my attention on the stage but my awareness is fixated on Rafaele. He’s close enough for me to feel the heat of his body. Every time he brushes against me, I want to press back into him. It’s like we’re two magnets, unable to resist each other’s pull. An ache builds low in my belly.
He brings his lips close to my ear. “You look stunning.” His hands slide over my hips and then settle on them with a possessive grip. I have to bite back a moan. He’s testing my boundaries and I should push him away, but I don’t. God, it feels good to have him touch me. His warmth seeps through my dress and into my skin.
I close my eyes and let myself get lost in the moment, the music, the sensation of his body against mine.
I don’t want to lose this. But what future can we have together with Nero’s death hanging over us?
A crack appears deep inside my chest, and the emotions I’ve tried to keep under control surge through me. The backs of my eyes prickle. I need to figure this out. I can’t keep living in this state of limbo, one foot in and one foot out.
I turn around in his arms. There’s longing etched across his face. “Let’s go outside,” I say.
Rafaele nods and takes my hand into his. He easily carves a path through the crowd and brings us outside to the smoking area. It’s empty since the headliner is still playing.
I breathe in the cool evening air and look up at the night sky. It’s a full moon.
Rafaele stops behind me. “Cleo?”
The way he says my name brushes over my skin like a caress. “What do you think?” I ask.
“About what?”
“The show.”
There’s a beat. “It’s fun. Just like most things are when I have you close to me.”
My vision blurs. Is he even aware of the bittersweet pain that he inflicts with those words?
“Most? Not all?”
“It’s not fun when you’re right here but you won’t talk to me.”
I turn to face him. “Then you know how I felt in the months we were married.”
A shadow passes over his expression. A moment passes before he responds, like he’s letting my words sink in. “It wouldn’t be like that anymore.”
“No?”
“No.” He takes a step forward, then another, until I’m backed against the fence and his body is pressed up against mine. I tip my head back. He lowers his face toward me, his nostrils flaring on a breath as if he’s trying to capture my scent. My nerves buzz, and it’s a struggle to breathe.
I miss him. I want him. But I’m still not convinced jumping back into our marriage is the right thing. I steel my spine and push at his chest until he reluctantly takes a step back.
“Look, I’m glad you’ve realized the damage your father caused and that you seem ready to start working through it. But maybe you’d be better off trying again with someone else. Someone you don’t have all this baggage with.”
His gaze narrows. “I don’t want anyone else. I want you.”
I clench my fists. “How can we repair our relationship when I’m the reason your best friend is dead?”
Reluctance flickers in his eyes. “Cleo—”
“No, really.” My guilt comes back in full force, pressing down on my lungs. “Nero’s death will always be a dark mark on our relationship. Always. It’s not something we will ever be able to forget.”
And it’s not just my guilt. It’s the knowledge that Rafaele was able to go through with it. He killed his best friend. Or at the very least, he gave the order for someone else to do that. How in touch with his emotions can he really be if he went through with it?
They grew up together. They were close.
He’s barely mentioned Nero since coming here. Why won’t he talk about him? Does he even care? Was it easy for him to go through with it? No, it couldn’t have been easy. Before I left New York, I saw how torn up he was. Maybe he hasn’t brought it up because it’s simply too painful to remember.
I shake my head. “You’re rushing into this because you’re grieving your friend. People act irrationally when they’re grieving.”
Rafaele blows out a breath and drags his hand through his hair. “I’m not grieving. Not in the way you think.”
I frown. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Rafaele stares at me, a strange look in his eyes. He swipes his palm over his lips. “Nero isn’t dead.”
What?
Blood comes rushing through my ears, drowning out the muffled music around us. “What…did you say?”
“Nero isn’t dead. You’re not supposed to know this. You can’t say a word about this to anyone. Not even your sisters.”
The world around me blanks. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Rafe, what the hell?”
“He’s not dead.”
I stare at him in shock. “Where is he?”
“Gone. He’ll be in hiding for the rest of his life. But he’s alive.”
“How did this happen?”
“I suppose because of you. You asked De Rossi to call me, didn’t you?”
“Damiano knows about this?”
Rafaele nods. “Damiano, Ras, and Giorgio know. They’re the only ones. And now you.”
An astonished huff spills past my lips. I feel like I was just abducted by aliens and plopped into an alternate reality. I press my palms against my face and take a few deep breaths, trying to settle the emotions warring inside me. Relief at Nero being alive. Exhilaration at being freed from guilt. Anger at having been deceived.
When I drop my palms, Rafaele is studying me warily.
“Explain.”
“I couldn’t kill him. I don’t know what I would have done if De Rossi hadn’t called. I couldn’t think. My head felt like it was on the verge of exploding. I’d lost you, and I was about to lose him, and it was all my fucking fault. I was crumbling under the weight of everything. Nero told me to do it, to just shoot him, and even though I knew it was the only sure way to deescalate the situation, I couldn’t pull the trigger.” He shakes his head. “When De Rossi called and we started talking, I got an idea. I could make it look like Nero died in a fire. We got two bodies—two of your father’s guys that we killed at the warehouse—and we put them inside the safe house.”
“Two?”
“One was supposed to be Nero. The other, Sandro.”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“Sandro left with Nero. I needed someone with Nero to make sure he doesn’t come back.”
This is nuts. “Okay, then what?”
“We burned the safe house down, and Giorgio hacked into the police records to swap the DNA data they had on Nero to match that of the Garzolo guy we said was him.”
Oh my God. My heart races. Nero is alive. “It worked?”
He nods. “Gino bought it. We have a truce, although things between us are still tense. They have to be. Gino wouldn’t believe that I’d just forget he made me kill my closest friend. Cleo, Nero doesn’t blame you for any of this. He said that to me just before we said goodbye. I think he’d want you to know.”
It’s like a dark veil has been lifted from my eyes. My throat is dry, but relief blooms inside of me. “You couldn’t kill him.”
A sad smile appears on Rafaele’s face. “I couldn’t kill him. I always said I’d do whatever it takes to defend my rule, but I was lying to myself. I’m not my father. He didn’t love anyone, and he thought that gave him power, but if that’s what power means, I don’t want it.”
“What do you want?” I whisper.
Rafaele crosses the short distance between us and wraps his arms around me. His gaze—so bright, so vulnerable—pierces through me. “I want to make you deliriously happy. I want to give you everything. When I first agreed to marry you, I thought I’d tame you. I was so confident, so sure you’d pose no challenge to me, but I was so damn wrong. I didn’t tame you. You are the one who conquered me—thoroughly and completely. I am not the man you married, not anymore. But if you give me a chance, I will be the husband you deserve.”
A sob escapes me. I press my cheek against his shirt, and he tucks the top of my head under his chin. His palms travel up and down my arms, comforting me. He smells so damn good.
Like home.
I wrap my arms around Rafaele’s waist and allow my body to melt against his. A satisfied grunt rumbles deep inside his chest, and he holds me tighter. The last of my hesitation fades away. We stand like that until the concert ends. Until the doors open and people come flooding outside. Until the moon kisses the horizon and a sprinkle of rain touches my skin. My vision is blurry, but my chest is light.
Rafaele pulls back just enough to search my face. He drags the pad of his thumb over my cheek, his eyes full of warmth. “I love you, tesoro. Please come home with me.”
I rake my fingers through his hair as my stomach does a flip. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing him say those words. He stares at me like I’m the most important thing in the world, and I realize in that moment that I believe it.
For the first time since he arrived in Italy, I smile at him. “Okay. I will.”
Relief floods his expression, and he doesn’t waste a second before he leans down and claims my lips in a kiss.