Page 54 of A Beautiful Crime

“I’m responsible for many crimes, Carina, but this isn’t one of them.”

Her brows furrow as her face contorts with confusion. She studies me then, as if I’m on the most difficult conundrums. “Why is it that every time we are finished talking I am left with more questions than answers?”

“Because you find me intriguing,” I supply an answer for her, the one she hasn’t admitted to herself. She goes to open her mouth but I silence her. “And before you can deny it I think you have already lied to me enough today.”

She pins me with a deathly glare and I’ve never been more turned on in my entire existence.

“Then I shall leave you with an unspoken truth.”

My lips broaden to a downright sinful smile. “Why Carina, those are becoming my favorite with you.”

CHAPTER 10

Carina

Silence can prove to be so loud that it’s deafening. Over the past few months I’ve become quite content with silence. I even happen to prefer it. The white noise has become a dear friend of mine. And in the silence, where I can hear my heart beat, it reminds me that despite my icy exterior, I am still alive.

As I hear my heart beat in the vicinity of my room, devoid of all noise, I don’t hear the slowed dull thud of my heart that I have come accustomed to. Nor does the silence provide me a sense of comfort that settles deep in my bones.

My heart beat has become a crescendo.

It is as loud as a steel drum and as fast as a thoroughbred horse. Each beat an act of treachery.

And the thoughts of the formidable yet enthralling man who has ensnared my mind and awakened my soul screams in the silence demanding to be heard.

And as much as I want to rue the day he was born, take the sharpest knife and plunge it deep in his sinful black heart, and send him back to Hell where he belongs, I can’t help the way my body responds to him.

I also can’t help how deeply intrigued I am by him.

He is right, my intrigue is something I cannot deny, even as much as I want to.

My mind can’t seem to comprehend how a man like him can exist. A man who has an abundance of power, who rules with an iron fist, is feared amongst all, to have an intense desire for someone else, and for a woman nonetheless, to have the same power as him.

And it’s not just any woman.

It’s me.

Why me?

And why does a part of me, the darkest part that I have always denied and been ashamed of, want to take his hand and drift further into the abyss?

Something is wrong with me.

There has to be.

Why does the man who caused my death make me feel more alive than I ever have been in my entire life?

These maddening, impossible questions that he evokes prove to be the most insufferable torture.

That’s what Constantine Donati is to me, the sweetest torture.

A sudden knock at my door pulls me from my thoughts and I try to blink away the life he has resurrected in my eyes, along with the fire he has ignited in my blood.

Clearing my throat and dropping my tone of voice to its dead and flat tone I say, “Come in.”

The gentle opening of the door already tells me who it is, revealing the man to me before the door fully opens.

Giuseppe enters my bedroom with a soft yet pained smile on his caring face. His hair tonight is slightly disheveled. His fingers must have been running through them with apprehension due to the circumstances of tonight.

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