Page 66 of Twisted Obsession

‘Who’s with you?’

‘My stepfather’s security detail are a way behind.’

‘Your stepfather?’ I questioned and frowned as I tried to recall something. In the back of my head, I remembered her mama remarrying into a Greek shipping family.

Aritis.His family name came back to me. I’d seen the luxury boat coming in to moor on the same pier as my own, only the previous day.

Fuck!She must have been on it as I watched it come into the harbour.

‘Peter Ariti,’ she confirmed, unaware of my struggle.

‘And who else?’

‘I’m with no one else.’

Salvatore, it looks like you’ve lost your touch.The thought made the corners of my mouth twitch with the beginnings of a smirk.

‘Can they see you?’

She paused to check.

‘Yes.’

‘Do they know me?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘Carry on walking. I’ll find you. Expect me.’

‘I’m wearing…’ she began to explain as I disconnected the call. Struggling with the surge of emotion just hearing her voice had conjured up, I turned myself around. Then I rested my arse on the window ledge behind me, to take a few minutes to compose myself.

‘No, need to tell me, love,’ I spoke out loud to my empty office. ‘I’d be able to find you in amongst a thousand otherwomen. I see you when I’m awake, when I’m asleep and even in my daydreams, but after today, I’m going to make myself a promise to never see you again.’

She’s here.

Maybe now,I could get the answers I needed and close the door on her forever.

Chapter Eight

Giovanna

Istared disbelievingly at the small phone in my hand. It was antiquated compared to today’s models, but I’d kept it beside me daily for the past few years.

‘I’ve no idea why?’ I knew I’d spoken out loud when an older woman, with a backpack and hiking boots on who was on the same walking tour as me, turned her head to look at me a little strangely. Homing in on what our guide was talking about, I quickly understood that she thought I was being rude. I smiled at her and wiggled my phone as a brief explanation that I wasn’t making a comment on the guide, but talking on my phone. When she frowned in response, I childishly grimaced at the side of her face as she once again removed her glare away to face front.

‘Seriously?’ I spoke again shaking my head a little. Although I knew I wasn’t really speaking about the judgemental woman in front of me, but questioning why after all these years he’d finally spoken to me, and then cut me off so abruptly.

Maybe everything Salvatore had explained to me after our marriage had been true after all?

Pain gripped me as I remembered the same conversation I had played over every single day of my life since. My stomach suddenly began to hurt, as it always did when I relived theanguish I’d been left with, causing me to move my free arm and to place my hand against it, as I attempted to soothe it. Our tour guide raised the closed umbrella she was holding in her hand, signalling to those of us nearer to the back that she was once again moving. Following her lead, I placed one foot down after the other, feeling more and more apprehensive with each step. I was so lost in my own head that after a few minutes of me following and walking, but paying absolutely no attention whatsoever, we came to a stop again and I nearly bumped into the backpack woman in front of me.

This was a mistake.

I shouldn’t have come.

Worry after worry swept through my mind. But it was all futile. Ihadcome, and he knew I was here, so there was no backing out. Looking at it from the outside in, I understood how it could be construed that I had manipulated nearly everyone in my path, in order to be walking the same streets as him.

Because there was no doubt that I had. Even choosing the walking tour that I had worked out would end close to the building he worked in.

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