Page 60 of Taboo Flames

“Let me down!” she snaps.

“I should have shackled you to my bed the first chance I got,” I growl.

“Put me down. You can’t dictate what I do with my life.”

I drop her into the passenger seat and say, “Yes, I can. Especially when it has to do with you putting your nose in someone else’s business.”

“I had to know,” she explains.

I glare at her. “This is none of your concern, so stay out of it.”

“You’re my concern,” she insists stubbornly. “I have to understand your past if?—”

“My past stays firmly in the past,” I interrupt her. “It has no bearing on anything.”

“How can you say that?” she gasps. “Of course it does. Tell me what happened last night isn’t connected to your past, Gio. You looked haunted, you?—”

“That’s enough, Aurora,” I grit out. “I knew this thing with you would turn out to be more trouble than it’s worth.”

She gasped, hurt flickering in her eyes. “You d—don’t mean that.”

“This was a mistake. It’s obvious you’re too immature to know what a physical relationship entails.” I run a hand through my hair in leashed frustration. “It’s not all your fault though. I let us cross the boundaries that should have been firmly in place. I should never have let you sleep over.”

“You’re a dick, Gio,” she says angrily.

“And you have a goddamn hero complex that only seems to land you in trouble,” I tell her. “But I’m not a damsel in distress, Aurora. I don’t need you to save me.”

“Everyone should have someone who’s willing to save them,” she says quietly.

I chuckle bitterly. Aurora has her head so high up in the clouds that she believes everyone can be saved. Unfortunately for her, I’m irredeemable. If she wants to fix me, she is almost two decades too late.

“You’re just a too rich, too pretty, very bored, spoilt girl who’s looking for another pet project to entertain herself,” I tell her coldly. “I can’t be your pet project, princess. I don’t need fixing.”

Tears spring up to her eyes, and I hate that I’ve put that stricken look on her face. “How…how dare you?” she sputters.

“How dare I?” I roar. “You’re the one who’s trying to unearth things I’d rather leave buried just because you have nothingbetter to do with your time. Face it, Aurora. You’re not doing this for me. You’re digging just to satisfy your own curiosity.”

“And I think you’re a fucking coward,” she yells in reply. “You’re afraid to let me in, so at every point in time, when it begins to feel like we’re going somewhere, you find some bullshit way to push me away. Even now, you refuse to let me in because you’re just so terrified of anyone seeing the real you.”

“This. Is. The. Real. Me,” I grind through clenched jaws. “And we’re done with this conversation. I’m taking you home, and then I’m walking away like I should have done from the very beginning."

“Keep running, you coward!” she screams at me.

Ignoring her, I raise my hand to call one of my men who drove out with me as a backup. This part of the city is unfamiliar territory, and any troublemaker can pop out at any time.

As usual, Aurora never considers her safety in her harebrained schemes.

“Take Miss Vitale’s car home,” I instruct as I hand him the keys.

“I’ll go with him,” she says. “I don’t want to spend a second more around you.”

I look at my man with hostility, and his eyes widen before he scurries off. Good.

“No, you’re coming with me,” I tell her with finality.

The drive is riddled with oppressive silence, and even in my state of fury, I want to hear her voice. I want to shake her, scream at her, and yell that she should never have gone plucking at old wounds, but I also want her to blast her trashy music on the radio.

The sound of my phone ringing finally breaks the silence, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I grab the phone to pick up the call.

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