Page 90 of Powerful Deception

She shakes her head. “Everyone calls me Ari. Evelyn, your bodyguards, everyone that walks into this house on a daily basis calls me Ari. You don’t, why?”

“Because it’s your name.” I reiterate once again.

Why is this conversation even happening?

“So is Ari.”

“Why is it so important what I call you? Maybe I like your full name better than a three letter word that doesn’t suit you. Calling you Ari makes it seem to me that you’re a little girl and not the grown woman you are. Are you seriously putting distance between us because I won’t use a childish nickname for you?”

“What? No.” Arianna answers, shaking her head in the process.

“Then why?” My voice raises a bit but when I remember that the kids are in the room sleeping, I tone it down. “Why the fuck are we having this discussion?”

“Because I’m trying to avoid trying to have any other type of discussion with you.” She says a little too loudly that she looks down at the kids to make sure she didn’t wake them.

“You mean the discussion where I call you out for ultimately ending our agreement without speaking to me?”

I’m being childish with this, I know I am. I’m not a man that would argue with a woman over this type of thing, but I’ve come to realize something.

I’ve come to realize that since I lost my wife, I want to go after things that I want, and one thing I want is Arianna.

Yes, I want this woman. In whatever capacity I can get I want this woman. So I will continue with these arguments that are little childish of a man that is thirty-seven years old.

“Yes. That discussion.” She says taking her lower lip between her teeth.

“We’re having it, so have it. Tell me why you decided there needed to be distance between you and me. Was I making things uncomfortable?”

She shakes her head no.

“Was it our age difference? Is being 13 years apart too much, or too icky for you?”

Another shake.

“Then what the fuck is it?” I say quietly through my teeth.

“I felt guilty, okay!” she says a little too quickly that even her eyes go wide when it registers what she said.

“Guilty over what?” I say, my voice coming out hard as if I was speaking to one of my men. As if it were Clarkson in front of me again and not Arianna.

My mind automatically going to the worst-case scenario as to what could come out of her mouth.

Stole money.

Found something and gave it to the cops.

So many things.

Arianna is silent for a few seconds before she lets out a sigh and answers my question.

“So many things. One of them being that day you let me use your office, I accidentally opened the drawer that had your wife’s pictures. I wasn’t snooping, I swear, I was looking for paperclips for some things I printed out. I just opened the drawer and I saw the pictures. The second I saw3 her face it was like this big wave of guilt swallowed me whole. Guilt because I was sleeping with her husband not even a year after she died. Guilt because while we weren’t sleeping in the bed you shared with her, we were still doing it under her roof, in her house. It was guilt because I was supposed to be watching over her children, not making sure her husband’s needs were being met. I felt like she was judging me over my actions when it came to you. Then of course there was guilt over–”she stops abruptly like she was about to say something that she wasn’t meant to.

“Guilt over what?” I press not letting this conversation end.

Arianna looks at me, a bit of sadness in her eyes but the more I look into them the more I see that there is also fear swimming in them.

“Guilt over what, Arianna?” I press some more. After another long minute, she lets out a sigh.

She keeps my stare as she speaks. “Guilt over knowing who you really are and not even caring. You had blood on her face and that should have been the moment that I should have quit and not looked back. I know who you are Dante, I know you’re a part of the mafia. I know people fear you, and yet here I am, sitting next to you not feeling an ounce of fear towards you. I feel guilty, because I should. I should be fearful of you, but I know that I would rather get to know you in a way not many people have than run away from you. ”

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