Page 74 of Indulgence
Everything was just too much for me for the moment.
* * *
“I’m goingto head to her hotel and gather her things.” I thought I heard Adam as I came back to consciousness. “I’ll bring them to our hotel. We don’t need her going back to that place.”
“Thanks,” Matteo replied. His chest rumbling under the hand I had resting on his chest. He was still lying on the bed holding me like he had been when I’d closed my eyes. “Can you pop into the gallery and see how everything went with her boss? I know she’ll want to know when she wakes back up.”
“Will do,” Adam said. “How’s she doing? Did she say anything when she woke up?”
Matt didn’t say anything, and a thick silence coated the room. “Understood, I’ll be back.”
Warm lips pressed to my head as the door to the room clicked closed. “I know you’re awake.”
My eyelids felt heavy as they opened, and I took in the room. We sat in silence for a few moments as my fingers toyed with one of the buttons from Matt’s shirt.
“How are you here?” I asked him, remembering that he was here in Portland when he was supposed to be in Seattle.
He inhaled deeply. I felt his heart hammering inside his chest. “I wanted to surprise you by coming tonight.”
Images of him barreling through the crowd into the hotel room flashed in my mind. “But how did you know where I was and what was happening?”
He ran his hand over my tangled hair. “I knew something was wrong because you sounded upset in your message. When you didn’t answer any of my hundred calls back, Adam and I made our way to your hotel to see if you were all right.” He dragged in a ragged breath. “We’d just gotten into town when you called. The security officer answered your phone just as we got outside the hotel. I’m sorry, Natalie.”
I tilted my head up, ignoring the stings that came from moving my head too quickly. “What for? This isn’t your fault. You weren’t even here.”
A haze slipped over his eyes as his jaw clenched. “If I’d just answered your call when you called, this may not have happened.”
I attempted to turn onto my side to face him. He held no responsibility for this, and he needed to know that. “You couldn’t have stopped this from happening,” I told him. “If it wasn’t now, it would have been another time. He followed me here and back at home. He knew we weren’t together. He knew the kids’ names. I was targeted, and there wasn’t anything either of us could have done because we had no idea he was stalking me.”
He tipped my head back gently and stared into my eyes. “I’m so incredibly proud of the warrior you are. I know that you must have been terrified while that animal had his hands on you.”
Not too sure about being proud that I beat a man with an iron, but I was damn grateful I did. I had so much more to live for. So many things left to do. For the first time in weeks, wrapped in Matteo’s arms, everything felt safe again—as if it were all going to be all right.
Tears glistened on my lower lids as I thought about what Gerard had planned to do to me. “For a moment or two, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to see you again.”
Matteo’s fingers dug into my upper arm as he cradled me against him. He pulled back and looked down at me again. Concern and anguish colored his face. “I’ve never felt fear like I did for those ten minutes, love.”
Exhaustion was beating me down and a dull ache radiated throughout every cell of my being. It seemed as if I’d lived an entire life in the time since I’d left the gallery earlier that day, but I had something important that needed to be done. It couldn’t wait a second longer.
I looked up at Matt. “There’s something that I need to tell you.”
His brow scrunched and worry screamed in his eyes. “What? What is it, love?”
“I was so, so wrong.” The words were thick as I spoke them, laced with regret and shame as he listened with rapt attention. “The way I acted after our night with Brooke wasn’t fair to you. I acted like an angry child and left you when you needed me most.”
“You did,” he nodded woefully. “It was awful for me. You were the only one who could truly help me battle everything I was feeling, and you weren’t there.”
Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. He didn’t try to say anything further. He didn’t try to make me feel better about his brutal truth. Instead, he gave me the moment I needed to form my words and continue on as I swallowed the lump lodged in my throat. “You needed me. You told me you needed me. You begged for me to help you through it, and I ignored you like an ungrateful bitch. I’m so damn sorry. I’m sorry because all you’ve ever done is try to make me happy. You’ve always been whatever I needed whenever I needed it, and I repaid your love and dedication by treating you horribly the moment things didn’t go my way. I was selfish and don’t deserve you, but I hope that you can and will forgive me.”
The wetness on his cheeks hurt me more than anything Gerard could’ve ever done. “I know you’re sorry. I know you weren’t doing it to hurt me, but you did. Badly. I’m not saying we can’t move on, but I need you to know that you eviscerated me. That cannot ever happen again, love. We always need to be on the same side.”
I nodded, laid my head back on his chest, and closed my eyes, feeling far more secure than the events of the day should’ve allowed me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Matteo
My heart had crumbled whenI stepped into that hotel room and got a good look at my wife. Before I could even fully assess what the hell had happened to her, she had passed out. Blood and bruising covered her face. There was an alarming amount of swelling from under her right eye to her jawline. I had no doubts she had some serious damage to her nose or cheekbone.
