Page 69 of Passion and Revenge

“Are you okay, Si?”

“Yeah.” I busy myself by plating up the still-warm pancakes he brought for me. “Why?”

“Your father’s right. There’s something different about you. I just can’t place my finger on it.”

I scoff. “Being kidnapped by a psychopathic mafia guy as part of his plot for some sick revenge is bound to have that effect on a woman.”

“Did he?—”

I cut him a glare to stop that line of questioning, and he holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m just worried about you, and if that bastard touched you, I want to know so I can make sure he spends the rest of his pathetic life behind bars.”

Yeah, he touched me, I want to scream. He touched me, and I liked it. I liked it better than when you touched me. I begged the psychopathic mafia guy who kidnapped me to get his revenge on my father to fuck me.

“Hmm,” I murmur, pretending to be engrossed in the food.

He reaches across the table and covers my hand with his, his dark eyes meeting mine. “I care about you, Si. You know that, right? I’ve always cared about you, and I’ll always care about you.”

My stomach turns, and I push the food away. “Did my father send you to try your luck again now that I’m vulnerable?”

He recoils, and I see hurt flash across his face.

“I’m sorry, Sal,” I mutter with a sigh, burying my head in my hands. “I’m just a little bit messed up, and I’m trying to hold myself together, but I feel like I’m cracking down the middle, and my normal life just feels so strange now. It’s been two months. Shouldn’t I be normal again?”

“It doesn’t work that way.”

I leap to my feet and begin to pace. “It should, though. I spent seven weeks with him, seven weeks which felt like an eternity, but really, it is actually nothing compared to all the years of normalcy. So why does it feel like I can’t fit back in my old skin suit?”

Sal blinks at me. “Skin suit? That’s morbid.”

I wave a hand at him. “You know what I mean.”

“Maybe what you need is someone who will remind you of what your life was like,” he says softly. “Someone who will hold you up and hold you together when it feels like you’re breaking.”

“Sal, please,” I sigh, my shoulders dropping in defeat.

He unfolds himself from the table and comes around to stand before me. “Let me help you. I’ve always loved you, and I know you loved me too at one point. We can make this work again. We can make it better. I believe we’re older and wiser now, and we’ve learned from the mistakes we made in the past.”

I look at Sal now and try to feel even the barest flicker of attraction, swearing to myself that if I can find any attraction deep inside me, then maybe I can give him a chance.

He can be exactly what I need to get over Alessandro. Yes, I know it’s wrong, and I feel a little bit sick for even thinking about using Sal in such a way. He’s a good man, and he doesn’t deserve this.

I imagine Sal’s hands sliding up my thighs, and my stomach turns.

“Sal, I—I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?” His eyebrows draw together. “Do you mean you don’t feel anything for me at all? You can love me again, Si, I know it.”

I bite down on my lower lip, searching for the right words to explain it to him. “Yes, maybe I loved you,” I finally tell him. “But I wasn’t in love with you.”

Losing him didn’t make me feel like I had been tossed off a helicopter and left to float in the middle of the ocean. He doesn’t make my heart race and my skin tingle, and he doesn’t set me on fire and then douse it with his kisses on my skin.

He draws back. “What does that even mean?”

I chuckle bitterly. “I didn’t know until recently either. Until I felt my soul reach out from the inside.”

His lashes lower, hiding his expression. “There’s someone else? You love this person? You’re in love with him? Does he?—”

“Sal, please,” I choke out, realizing this is not just a case of sexual attachment.

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