Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 110824 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110824 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
More lies.
Apparently, I’m not only wrong—about a lot of things—I’m really fucking stupid. I forgot that whoever is in charge doesn’t like me and loves to deliver sucker punch after sucker punch. I don’t know how I’m going to keep it together when Victor wakes up. I really and truly don’t. I just know I need to. I have to walk away with at least a little dignity. Then, somehow, I will erase his presence in my life. It won’t be easy, but I’m going to do it. I won’t be a fool—no matter how much I love him.
victorio
. . .
When my alarm goes off, I reach over to pull Gia to me. I don’t like that she’s not in my arms. We always sleep snuggled together. She’s probably still upset because I left last night. It was stupid of me. I can admit that. I was just mad. I was pissed at myself because I didn’t know she had an allergy. I was even madder that she ate something just to please me, knowing it would hurt her. The two of us need to talk, that much is certain. Still, I shouldn’t have stormed out. All I could think is that I need to handle her with care. I was so upset that all of this happened, especially since I still had to leave the next morning. I needed more time with her. I resented the fuck out of Antonio and everyone for putting me in this position. I don’t talk about my childhood—to anyone—but it wasn’t good. The physical abuse my father doled out daily was secondary to the fact that I had no freedom. I didn’t get to decide what I wanted, where I wanted to be or who I wanted to be around. I did what my father told me to do when he told me to. Let’s just say that the things he ordered were dark and twisted. Needing to be with Angelina and not being able to say I need to be home, threw me for a loop.
Maxwell Korslova saved me years ago when he picked me up out of the hell I had been living in and saw potential. He put me through school, he helped me become the man I always wanted to be and then, he gave me a job. A job—thanks to the training he made sure I received—that I excelled at. A job that led to me being his daughter’s bodyguard and brought me into a family life that I never knew existed. I owed the DeLuca family and Maxwell Korslova everything.
Those wounds opened up yesterday in my talk with Antonio. Losing Maxwell cut me deeper than anyone would ever know. They didn’t know our special connection. They didn’t know my past except for the one that Maxwell helped me invent. I knew the truth though. Maxwell was the closest thing I’d ever had to a father, and he and Emilia were the only true family I’d ever known. I wanted to explain to Antonio what he witnessed between me and Emilia and why I was close to her—grieving with her. I couldn’t. It wasn’t because I didn’t trust Antonio, I do. I like the bastard, probably even more than I liked his father. No, I didn’t talk to him about it because—even a year later—the wound is still too fresh. That means, I was a mess when I came home last night. I wanted to lose myself in the feel of Angelina’s body and the comfort of her scent wrapping around me.
Getting to her work and finding her not there, threw me. Then, to find out she was sick, things got worse. It was insane to make the leap of her being sick, to losing her. Yet, in the year that Angelina had been in my life she’d never been so sick that she didn’t go to work. I panicked. I couldn’t lose her. Losing Maxwell had gutted me, but if I lost my Kitten, I wouldn’t survive. It would kill me.
When she confessed to me about her allergy and why she didn’t want to tell me, I lost it. I’m supposed to protect her. It’s my job. I should know all her allergies and things that might cause her harm. I was beating myself up in my head. Fuck, for all I knew, she could be allergic to bees, and one could sting her, taking her away from me. I’d been worried about my enemies and the men who might hurt her. These were all things I could control. Yet, it suddenly occurred to me there were things beyond my control and I panicked. It didn’t help to hear that she knew what I was doing could bring her harm and she did it anyway.
Jesus. Why? Why would she do that?