Page 44 of Playing the Sicilian's Game of Revenge

“I cannot wish her life away, the love I had for her. She meant too much to me even in that short period of time. I struggled with the grief of it, the guilt of it, the waste of it for a very long time. The pain doesn’t go away, but the struggle gets...lighter when you face it. But I cannot ignore it, wish it away, avoid the good that kind of love does in a life. I understand denial, Teo. I have been there. I speak easily of my parents’ deaths because I didn’t...they weren’t good people. I don’t speak of Rocca very often, because it hurts so very much.”

So this was all about...him. He should feel anger. Fury, really. But he did not recognize the emotion battering him. It wasn’t as hot and sharp as anger. It was something far more complicated.

He wanted nothing to do with it. But sympathy warred with a desire to be harsh. When he spoke, he did so carefully.

“I do not know what you wish to do here, and I do not wish to argue in a cemetery, but I am not in need of a secondhand psychologist.”

She nodded and got to her feet. “All right then.”

And that was it. She did not push the matter. When they returned to her house, he said he had to leave. She gave him a hug and a kiss, said a dreaded I love you, and then let him go.

But Teo understood what she’d done, because he could not get the image of the gravestone out of his head. The pain of such a sad story, of Saverina going through all that loss, out of his heart. Of her somehow still believing love could be anything but a weapon made to hurt.

She had cursed him. Again.

And it had to be the last time.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SAVERINA DID NOT know what Teo’s next move would be, but the silence as Saturday moved into Sunday was clear enough. He wasn’t going to deal with her I love you, or the point she’d been trying to make at the cemetery telling him about Rocca.

But maybe this would be a series of steps. She had pushed him...he’d isolated, and then they’d had their night together and the moment at the cemetery.

He hadn’t been unmoved. Maybe he hadn’t known what to do with it all, but he’d felt something. That was all she was allowing herself to hope for. That was all she was trying to allow herself to hope for.

She video chatted with Lorenzo and family in the morning. It was awkward, she could admit. She figured they’d heard through the grapevine about the engagement, but she could not bring herself to tell them a lie. So she avoided the topic, and neither Lorenzo nor Brianna pushed.

At lunch, she received a text from Teo, which was strange. He was not much of a texter. He preferred a call or to speak through his assistant.

But the text was simple.

Dinner. My apartment. Six.

It was not a request, she noted, and a text message didn’t feel particularly promising in terms of getting through to him. It whispered too much of cowardice, but the man was a bit of a coward when it came to her. She decided to take that as a compliment.

She was a danger to him. Which meant he had some feelings. It had to.

She spent the afternoon deciding what to wear. It was a bit like playing chess, she supposed. Taking him to the cemetery had been honest, genuine, but it had also been a move. An attempt to get him to capitulate to his feelings by showing him hers.

Now he would offer a countermove. Maybe he’d attempt to put some distance between them. That seemed to be his MO. So she opted for casual. Much like this morning, she would sweep in and please herself. Tell him the feelings she wanted to tell him, and not worry about him.

She pulled on some jeans and her favorite sweater because it was soft and she thought the bright, vivid blue looked good on her. Especially when she let her hair down and only did minimal makeup.

Then she drove over to his apartment at the appointed time. She gave a fleeting thought to all those rules she’d laid down to protect herself not all that long ago. It had been a natural reaction to betrayal, but now that she’d stepped back, processed those lies, she could protect herself in the right way.

Because there was protecting yourself so carefully, risking so very little, that there was no way of gaining anything, really. That’s what she’d been doing, most of her life. A bit like Teo hiding away from his grief, she’d been hiding from the potential for failure.

She had to be willing for this to backfire, for it not to work out, to ever hope that it might work. She had to be willing to feel pain and embarrassment or she’d never enjoy anything. Life would be a bland, boring existence and she’d get walked all over.

This entire experience had opened her eyes to that.

She needed to protect herself from letting that fear win, not from the ways the world and people might disappoint her, or vice versa.

She greeted everyone in Teo’s building as she made her way up to his floor. He let her in almost right away, but quickly sidestepped so she could not offer a gesture of affection.

Saverina might have laughed, but she was having trouble holding on to that, light, tickled response to all his evasions after yesterday morning. She wanted to find this humorous again, but...she was just getting tired.

“Thank you for coming,” he greeted her smoothly. All business Teo.

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