Page 20 of Claimed By My Stalker

“Carlo?” I hear the familiar voice.

The annoyed man behind the wheels is putting a call through to someone, informing them of the situation but all I care about is Carrie. She won’t even look me in the eye. She’s hurt, angry too.

“Carrie, I need to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you, just let me go.”

“It’s not…”

She stares at me angrily. “It’s not what I think…?”

It is exactly what she thinks, I stalked her all those years back in the U.S., found a way to crawl into her life, and make her fall in love with me. "I've been a creep, a liar… I won't lie about that, Just give me a chance to explain why."

Another vehicle joins us, it's occupied by two men, security agents for the secret travel company. I could fight them away but it's the wrong time to be a brute.

It's up to Carrie to choose who she wants to go with, me or them. She looks at me with sad eyes, there's still some longing in them, and my heart aches at how much I hurt her with my deception. She turns her face away from me again. "Goodbye Carlo," she says.

I watch the car drive off into the distance. It stops, then drives off again. In the foggy distance, I see her take steady steps toward me. I blink a few times to confirm Carrie is returning to me, my heart racing.

I take hurried steps to meet her halfway.

"I'm ready to listen," she says when I'm within earshot.

Carrie and I sit in my car, she listens as she watches the cars drive through the fog at very few intervals.

“The Conte and the Amelio family ran a wine business almost a century ago. But their relationship ran deep, Gustavo Conte and Teddy Amelio were more than just business partners, they stuck together more than most brothers,” I explain. I glance at Carrie for a second, I can’t tell what she’s thinking or feeling.

I assume she wants me to go on. “Gustavo and Teddy didn’t want their alliance to end with their deaths, so they betrothed their children Francesca and Andrea.”

Carrie glances at me this time, her eyes widening.

“Andrea didn’t want Francesca for a wife, he was in love with an American girl instead.”

“I know that story….” she says.

“I bet you don’t know the rest of it,” I continue. “Instead of their children, Gustavo and Teddy betrothed their unborn grandchildren. It was up to Andrea to honor the arrangement since he couldn’t stick with his.”

“My father barely keeps his promises,” she adds.

“I figured that out. It took me several years to find you. Like fate would have it, I found you when you were eighteen.”

“That was when the gifts started, it was when I knew I was being watched.”

“I’ve been keeping tabs on you ever since,” I admit.

“How would you explain me winding up in your house after my arrival in Italy?”

"As I said, I always kept tabs. And at that time you fell in danger. I knew I had to rescue you."

I don’t know if any of this is working, trying to make her understand.

“I’m worried things are never going to be the same between us. I shouldn’t have found that shrine, I was much happier thinking…”

“Things don’t have to change between us.”

“It’s not that simple” she argues.

“I’ll make it simple, please come back to me,” I plead.

---