Page 77 of Forbidden Deception

Didn’t she just hit the nail on the head?

She’s so fucking right it hurts.

Tears coat my eyes.

I look up at her, and she stops smiling.

“Iamin a mess. Iamthe reason. Iamthe one who will suffer the most in the end, and Iamthe stupid one who begged to do.”

“Venezia, what are you saying?” She reaches across and grabs my hands, a dip in her brows marring her face.

“I am about to lose everything, and I have to watch someone I love walk away from me soon.” Tears slowly spill out of me.

Medora gets out of her chair and hugs me, and I tell her everything.

I spill until there is nothing left to tell her about.

I spill until there is nothing left in my heart.

And my eyes and heart bleed with me.

This is only the beginning.

30

“What are you looking at?”

I spring out of my chair, my heart sinking to the floor. Rafael snatches the letter out of my hand, and I scramble to take it back, but my strength is no match for his.

Rafael scans the paper, his face grows thunderous, then his eyes snap to me.

“Are you being warned by your friend? Because you killed your professor?”

“No, I thought I could handle it. It’s fine. She will stop—”

“She won’t and you know it. How long has she been sending you these letters?”

I look away from him. He doesn’t know how hard keeping everything in has been for me. Every day he looks at me like he doesn’t want to look away, like he doesn’t want me out of his sight, let alone out of his reach.

Rafael is proving to me that he is everything I want in a man.

I am slowly giving him pieces of my heart. Little by little, pieces of me falling at his feet, while I stand back, watching as my heart is slowly getting destroyed.

It’s been a beautiful couple of months by Rafael’s side, and the dinner at his father’s home is the perfect place for me to use thesoftware Helia told me about. It’s the perfect opportunity we’ve been waiting for, but now that I have seen how Rafael is, who Rafael is, my heart doesn’t want to listen to my mind.

I am stuck between two sides that I cannot keep separated for much longer.

So much is at stake, and if I don’t use the software, Remo will question it, and if Rafael finds out, he will hate me.

That thought brings tears to my eyes.

Rafael mistakes them, thinking they are about the issues with Medora, but they are for him.

Foolish man.

“What’s his name?”

Oh, Rafael, what have I done?

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