Page 163 of Phantom Mine

“Not that it wouldn’t matter toyou,” I reply, ignoring Enzo who disappears into one of the bedrooms. “That it wouldn’t matter because of our… situation. This was supposed to be just fun, remember?”

Matteo rounds the dining table, coming towards me with deliberate steps. My breath recoils into my lungs when I see the low burning fury simmering in his eyes.

I should have waited a few more days before doing this. It’s too soon. I’m not ready. A sudden urge to flee makes me turn my back to him.

A feral growl freezes me in place.

“If you walk away from me now, I’ll do what I should have done two years ago and lock you away somewhere no one will ever find you.” My stomach pitches, not at the threat, but at the thick emotion warping every word. I stand rooted there, shaking. “Look at me and tell me it’s not true,” he commands. I glance over my shoulder at him and instantly falter. He’s right behind me and his face is pale, the color having washed from his features. He’s the same shade as the trembling white-knuckled fists he holds clenched tightly at his sides. “Tell me this is some kind of sick joke.”

Every one of his exhales is a little too sharp, a little too quick, whereas I simply can’t breathe.

“I can’t do that,” I croak. Pressure pushes violently against the backs of my eyes.

A dangerous rumble of warning expels brutally from his chest. The threat of violence looms palpably over us, thickening and electrifying the air.

“Who is he?”

I shake my head, emotion taking my vocal cords. His name doesn’t matter,hedoesn’t matter. He’s just some guy, but if I try to open my mouth and say that, I’ll cry.

Matteo sucks in a tight, viscerally angry breath. Jealousy squeezes the question from his throat. “Are you actually going to marry him?”

Agony shuts mine down, starving the air from my lungs.

My insides feel like they’re being turned out. I drag my gaze away, incapable of staring into his livid eyes anymore.

“Find your tongue and use it, Valentina. I’m about five minutes away from going on a killing spree and you’re the only one who can stop it.”

“I don’t know,” I whisper, barely loud enough for him to hear me.

That’s the truth. A life without Matteo in it isn’t a life worth living, so why fight against something that’ll never mean anything to me anyway?

My brain decides to flash a montage of the next twenty years of my life with someone who isn’t Matteo through my mind. Birthdays, movie nights, special occasions, vacations… all without him.

I look down, my hair fanning to either side of my face. I’m crying before I even realize it. Barbed wire wraps around my heart, puncturing it fatally. My shoulders cave under the weight of my heartache and shake as the tears pour out of me. I clamp ahand over my mouth and try to swallow the sounds as they come out.

This is so much harder than I ever imagined, and I went into it knowing it would break my heart.

This feels like it’s crushing my soul.

“Valentina,” Matteo warns, voice tight.

My tears seem to only infuriate him further. I look up into his face, and a sob slips past my hand, breaking free of its makeshift prison.

He looks devastated. There’s a storm gathered in his eyes but his anger does nothing to conceal the blatant misery rolling off him in thick waves. The only thing more evident than the anguish in his gaze is the hurt. It burns brightly in his dilated pupils, so visceral that it coats my heart in black tar. Part of me is happy to see that this hurts him as much as it hurts me, but the other part grieves for what could have been between us.

“How do you think this’ll work between us when you’re married?” he demands, upset. “Will you have dinner with him and then slip away to find me when you’re done? Will you let me fuck you in my bed and then sneak back into his to sleep by his side?” His eyes flay me alive with accusations as wounded, jealous words rip quietly from his chest. “Will you be on his arm at parties, find me in the bathroom for a quickie, then meet him back on the dancefloor with my cum running down the inside of your thigh?”

The questions hang in the air between us, heavy and condemning.

“I don’t know,” I sob.

His eyes flash, telling me in so many words that he doesn’t accept my answer.

I extend the key in my palm back to him and add in another whisper, “I didn’t think we’d be together anymore.”

Matteo lunges, his anger propelling him swiftly forward. He pushes my hand aside and snuffs out the distance remaining between us until we’re pressed chest to heaving chest.

“You didn’t think we’d be together anymore,” he echoes hollowly. A low, humorless laugh leaves him.

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