Page 71 of Love Him Like Water

Just… completely disregarding the suggestion from Elian.

Angry tears pricking my eyes, I jumped up, taking everything I’d cooked, and tossing it in the garbage, then turned, and ran up the stairs, taking myself across the catwalk and to one of the guest rooms just as the crowd moved into the apartment.

I wasn’t going to share a bed with him.

I wasn’t going to let him come in during the wee hours of the morning and reach for me.

Because I knew my traitorous body would give in.

I would let him touch me.

I would allow those gooey sex hormones to twist and warp my vision of my marriage yet again.

Maybe it was time to finally accept that this was never going to be the relationship my heart was aching for. That Renzo was never going to be the partner I wanted him to be.

And once I accepted that, I had to figure out how to hell to navigate a future where I wouldn’t have my own happily ever after like I read in all my books. Like I’d been dreaming about for years.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Renzo

“Should I be making some Bay Breezes for that lovely wife of yours?” Dav asked as I went to the bar to grab a drink.

“Ask her when you see her,” I said, surprised she hadn’t made an appearance yet. Everyone had been around for almost two hours already.

Maybe she was trying to work her nerve up or some shit.

“Whose face did you smash in?” I asked, walking up to another of my men, Cage.

Cage… had been a thorn in my fucking ass since I’d taken over for this family. The spoiled, bratty, entitled-ass son of a former capo. The second his old man went to prison, Cage had spiraled out of control. Drinking, drugging, making his older sister, Avery’s, life a living fucking hell.

Then he went and became my problem when he went around flaunting the Lombardi crime family connection while starting shit with the Irish mafia that was already giving me a goddamn headache.

Cage was single-handedly to blame for shit with the Costas almost going into a full-on war.

After I cleaned up his mess, I’d set my sights into cleaning him up.

So I dried him out.

Made him hit the gym.

I put him to work.

A chance to get his fucking shit together and grow the fuck up.

Since then, he’d been proving he was worth all the work by keeping the Irish mob in their place.

“Aidan,” he said, flexing his busted knuckles.

“Sure that fuck had it coming,” I said, thinking of the skinny redhead with an attitude problem.

“He did,” he agreed. “I hear my sister was here today.”

“What?” I asked, stiffening.

“Yeah, Avery wanted to drop by to check on Lore. Seems like she hasn’t really been keeping in touch with her family, so Avery offered to see how she was doing.”

Awful fucking timing on that.

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