Page 33 of Dark Romeo

We sat on my couch. I launched into a recap of what had happened with Roman, leaving out the sexy specifics despite Nora’s attempts to tease them out of me. “Every second with him felt so incredible, so natural, like breathing. It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, unlike anything I even thought possible.”

Nora clasped her hands together and let out a sigh, her eyes going all misty. My belly clenched tighter as I spoke about him.

I missed him.

I missed his touch, his voice, I missed laughing with him.

When I told Nora about his offer to take me to Paris, she let out a shriek. “What? Why are you still here?” Her eyes bulged. She looked like she might hit me. “You said no?”

“I couldn’t have just taken off like that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, you could have. That’s an excuse because you,” she glared at me, “are scared.”

I tried shrugging off her words, but they had settled like tiny knives in my belly. “What was the point anyway if I did say yes? My life is here in Verona and his is in London. It’d never work out.”

“When you get my age, you realize that life is short. Sometimes you don’t need to know the ‘point’ of it before you jump in. If it feels right, then do it. Carpe the fuck out of that diem.”

I bit my lip. I wasn’t scared. I was just being responsible. Right?

So why did it feel like I had done the wrong thing by not taking a chance with Roman?

My stomach sank as I realized I could never make it right. He was gone. I was never going to see him again.

ROMAN

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In the limousine, my father sat facing forward in the middle of the black leather seat, waiting for me. I slid into the seat opposite him, my stomach knotting into a ball. I hadn’t seen my father since I left Verona at eighteen. His dominating presence hadn’t changed.

He was in his early fifties now but he looked as though he still worked out regularly. His shoulders were linebacker broad, his barrel waist showing little signs of flab in an expensive Armani black pinstripe suit, black shirt and a red silk tie with a matching pocket hankie. He cut an imposing figure, one arm outstretched across the luxuriously soft leather seat, his ankle holster showing a little under the hem of his slacks as he sat with one leg resting on his other knee. I knew he’d probably have a pistol tucked under his suit jacket too.

His dark hair was slicked back. His goatee was showing the first signs of silver hairs. His black hooded eyes that looked so much like mine bore into me, the lines between his brows set in a permanent frown. I should be used to his look of barely disguised disgust, of bitter disappointment. It never failed to feel like a knife twisting into my gut. I hated him, but for some fucked up reason, I still needed him to approve of me.

Hi, son. Nice to see you see you again after eight long years. Gee, you’ve grown into a man now. He didn’t bother with such niceties. He rolled his gaze over me, assessing me. Probably wondering why he’d been cursed with such a disappointment.

“No,” my father said, as Abel tried to get in the back with us. “Get in front.” He turned towards me, his eyes flashing like a storm. “I want to speak to my son, alone.” His voice hadn’t changed; heavy and gravelly, it was the voice of my childhood nightmares.

Abel shut the door. My father and I were left alone. The bulletproof and soundproof partition was up between us and the front cab. I bit down the growing apprehension in my gut.

The limo began to move. I shifted in my seat and tried to unclench my jaw. “Where are we going?” I asked my father, the first thing I’d said to his face in eight years.

“For a drive.”

I swallowed as I stared out the tinted windows, Verona flashing past us as we turned off from the highway. “I need to be at the airport by eight to catch a flight.”

My father smiled but it was not friendly. “You thought you could come to Verona, slip in and out of your brother’s funeral without saying hello to your old man? What did I do to deserve such disrespect?” I could hear the cold anger in his voice. He was pissed. More pissed at me than I think he’d ever been.

I cringed. “I ran out of time. I had too many friends to see and…” I glanced over to him. He was still glaring at me. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “You seemed happy when I left Verona.”

“Family comes first,” he said. “Family is the most important thing. I’d think that even you’d have learned that by now.”

I tried to ignore his dig. I tried not to feel his disapproval rolling over me in heavy waves. I was never his favorite son; he had always made that clear. That honor had gone to Jacob, a demon he created in his image, then to Marco, the middle child who got himself exiled from Verona years ago, thanks to his tendency to lash out with violence first, talk never.

I’d been my mother’s favorite. I’d been born premature and she’d almost lost me. I had been the smallest of her three sons. Because of that, she had treated me with kid gloves, to the disgust of my father. She’d made me soft in his eyes.

We drove for a few minutes in silence. My phone pinged.

Mercutio: WTF? Where r u going? Want me to follow u?

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