Page 67 of Twisted Obsession

Slowly, I shook my head at myself.

I needed answers. I needed closure and, if I was strong enough to admit it, I still wanted him. I wasn’t sure where admitting that to myself would get me, but I comprehended that I had to try to obtain all those things. And if we had a conversation and the answers weren’t what I wanted to hear, then I would have to find a way to move forward without Dante. Because I wasn’t strong enough to live inside the bubble of hope that I had wrapped around myself for the past seven years, anymore. If what Salvatore had spoken was true, then I needed to hear it from Dante’s mouth just the once. Understanding that he was happy with how things had worked out, and that what had gone down between us had been a mistake and had merelybeen the only way he had to seek his revenge on Salvatore, it would be all the answer I needed. I’d call him all the names under the sun, but would walk away to start my life anew with my head held high. Pushing the pain and memories far away from my thoughts, and the pleasure from my heart just as soon as I could, I swore to myself as I walked over the cobbled streets of Malta with my hands tightly balled into fists, that if that happened then Iwouldset a date for my impending marriage and swear before God to be a good wife to a man I knew I would probably never love.

I will be content with that.I resolutely nodded once at that thought. as I tried to add the conviction I wasn’t feeling.

As we carried on walking, turning corner after street corner to the next destination on our list, and I packed away the arguments in my head and came to terms with what I knew I had to do to save my own sanity, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I inhaled deeply and then stopped breathing, as I honed all my senses onto what I knew without question I could feel.

‘Dante,’ I whispered, hoping to God that he couldn’t lip read.

Raising my arm, I rubbed at the back of my neck beneath my hair to soothe it. My body was now precariously balanced on the precipice of somewhere terrifying, and I convinced myself to draw in a lungful of the warm, still air that surrounded us in an attempt to calm my heartrate down.

Is he here?

Has he got eyes on me already?

As we came to another stop outside of yet another beautiful building, with architecture that I knew any other day would have my mouth gaping open in awe, I began to turn around very slowly on the spot. Only, I wasn’t trying to look at the buildings around me. I was studying the busy pedestrian area in which our walking group found ourselves. Truthfully, and moreimportantly, I was looking at each man who came into focus from behind the dark sunglasses I had put on to shield my eyes the second I’d stepped onto the deck of Peter Ariti’s boat.

I had no idea why I was so certain—call it intuition, but I was convinced that my eyes hadn’t swept over him. I knew I had to be wrong, because I was equally convinced I could feel him watching me, raking his eyes over me, although he wasn’t visible. Again, I started turning in the same slow circle, and again I came up with nothing.

Show yourself, Dante!

He’s here. I know it.

I reached up high and placed a hand onto the back of my neck as I checked within myself exactly what I was feeling.

‘Did you have a question?’

I felt all eyes turn to me, as my body righted itself to face forward, and my eyes opened wider in response. I had no idea if I’d spoken out loud again and felt a red-hot blush hit my cheeks when nearly every single head turned in my direction.

‘Sorry, no.’ I shook my head at her, pulling my hand away from my neck as I did so. I grimaced once again with the embarrassment of it all.

‘I do.’ A voice sounded behind me, and his English intonation captured me, instantly catapulting me back into my past. Shouldering the large bag I’d been carrying around, I grabbed onto my bare forearm with one hand and squeezed it tightly, as I understood that she hadn’t been speaking to me after all, but instead to the man I hadn’t shared the same air with for years. The same one I’d just been searching for and hadn’t found, who had done exactly what he’d said he would do and had found me instead. Trying to keep my body from betraying me, I dug my newly manicured fingernails into the skin I was holding on to.

He spoke his question, and I closed my eyes against the onslaught of pain just hearing his voice created inside me. Then,in response, I dug my nails into my skin just a bit deeper as I attempted to drown out the pain of being this close to him, but equally so far away, with a different sort of pain.

Minutes passed as our tour guide answered him. She must have recognised he wasn’t a paying member of our group, but he’d asked another question and she answered him again, this time though she added a bigger smile and I was convinced she’d even fluttered her lashes. I pushed my nails ever deeper into my arm in response.

‘Anymore questions?’ The tour guide asked, with an added lightness to her voice.

As a rippled murmur went around the group, and people shook their heads at her, once again we were walking and I fell into step, not daring to turn around to face what I knew without question was Dante now walking behind me. The group around us began their own chatter to each other, and I’d just talked myself down from the level of high alert his presence seemed to have put me on, when I heard the slap of skin on skin. Then feeling the sting on the back of my hand, I released my own flesh that I’d been hurting so overenthusiastically.

‘Ouch.’ I cursed as I withdrew my hand. ‘What the…’

‘Do not mark your flesh.’ His voice and breath collided with the shell of my ear at the same time. Surprisingly, a faint smell of tobacco also found me, and I absorbed the extra information about him. It was strange to discover that it seemed he smoked, but I’d always loved the smell of cigars on Nonno, and I was instantly comfortable with the aroma. Instinctively, I turned my head to the side to find him, but found him gone.

‘Dante,’ I called out and hated just how weak my voice sounded.

‘I’m here.’ They were two simple words, but my heart sang in response. ‘Keep walking with the group and do not turn around. Your detail is following less than one hundred yards behind us.’

‘Okay,’ I whispered, as I rubbed at the sore skin on my forearm and then at the slapped skin on the back of my hand, while cursing my anxiety for needing the outlet of pain to balance it.

‘Why are you here?’ he began, using a tone that sounded as though he couldn’t care one way or another.

‘I… well…’ Just as I started to respond our group turned a corner and a light breeze was all at once at our backs. Strains of his recognisable cologne, mixed with an aroma that was pure Dante, enveloped me. Memories that I nearly always managed to keep at arm’s length, captured me, and I stopped dead in my tracks. Luckily, two steps later, so did the walking group.

‘Well?’ he impatiently questioned.

‘I wanted to talk to you.’ Instinctively, I began to turn.

---