Chapter 0017
Layla
“He doesn’t love you.” Aldo’s words echoed in a flat, toneless bark through the empty hall. Stopping me in my tracks. Shocking me so much I couldn’t even think of a response before he added, “You shouldn’t waste eight years on a man like him, even if he is Eli’s father.”
I almost laughed. Almost. Instead, my response was sharp, cutting. “Of course Marco doesn’t love me. Why do you think we never married? But I don’t think that’s your business-”
“Do you love me?” His words hung between us, like a gunshot, leaving powder in their wake. My heart raced inside my ribcage, in the pulse of my throat. Hard and hot and fierce.
My fingers clenched into fists at my sides. How dare he ask a question like that! After eight years, after he’d walked out on me…
“Nine years ago.” I tilted my head up to meet his dark gaze. To be sure he knew I was earnest. “When I first met you, I looked into your eyes and knew you were my true love. I never once doubted that you loved me. I believed in you, and I believed in us. More than I’ve ever believed in anything. But what did I get in the end?”
Aldo had no response–verbally or physically. His expression remained that same dark, emotionless void. The mask. The don, and not the man.
“I’m not the same naïve girl anymore, Aldo. Love you? How dare you suggest I’ve given you that much thought. My life no longer involves you.” I nudged past him into the room. “I hope you won’t disturb me again.”
But when I tried to close the door, to shut him out of my life–literally and metaphorically–the door wedged on his boot. His long, strong fingers pried the door back open.
His handsome face hovered in the dim light of the hallway, still unreadable. A void. A mask. A mystery.
“I did love you, of course,” Aldo said, his words a whisper. His use of the past tense was decidedly not lost on me. “I never lied to you. I thought you would be my home. But in the end, I realized we weren’t right for each other. Our divorce was me taking responsibility for your future.”
His words echoed through my head. Breath ballooned my chest in heavy heaves of air. My body felt too hot, and yet numb at the same time.
“Looking back,” Aldo continued, still without expression or emotion, “it was the right decision.”
The words cut into me with almost physical force. I stumbled back a step, still breathing too hard. Heart racing in my ears. Eight years ago, I hadn’t understood. How could he have thought we were incompatible?
But now, finally, I got it.
“We obviously aren’t right for each other,” I said, my voice a bitter twist between shallow breaths. “You’re a killer, and I’m a doctor. We will never be right for each other.”
His hand slipped from the door, and for just a moment, I thought maybe I glimpsed something beneath that mask. Like those words had, for the briefest moment, cracked through his armor.
But before I could read anything in his expression, it was back. Cold. Hard.
I didn’t hesitate. I slammed the door shut in that hard, cold mask.
“Next time you come to me,” I said, sounding so calm despite the turmoil raking through me, “it better be to tell me I can leave.”
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Chapter 0017
Aldo
I tore down the hall in a storm of anger.
I couldn’t think straight, not after that conversation, and not being able to think straight was dangerous for someone like me. A leader, a decision–maker, someone for whom the fate of not just a family, but an entire city relied on.
Government? No, the true ruling force behind this city was me.
And I was irrational.
Just like Layla–but no. She wasn’t being irrational. She was angry, too. At me, at how I’d upended her life not once, but twice now, and I deserved that anger.
But it still burned, like a bullet grazing skin. Still left me breathless, like a hand around my throat. Still pierced my heart, like a knife through my ribs.
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