Page 70 of Bitter Lies

Shit, am I really going to do this? Let her in?

“I’m not the kind of man who barters in truth. I’ve offered you more than anyone else outside of my mother.” I pause, shaken to the core. The choice has already been made.

It’s always been her.

“Because I didn’t think I had a choice. You have always been so sure of what you want, Iz.” I lean back and brace on my forearms to look at her, taking in every sweat-soaked inch of her skin, and the darkness of her eyes as green overtakes the brown at their centers. “You wanted me, and it scared me. Because I’ve never deserved you, and I never will. Coupled with your closeness to Mia and the tangles of the family…safer to stay away from you.”

There.

There it is, out in the open.

Ready for her to tear apart or, even worse, to tell me I’m out of my mind.

Isabella surprises me again by doing none of those things. She only squeezes me tighter and holds me against her like it will somehow chase away those bits of darkness. Holding me against my own sick and twisted shit.

“I’ve been an asshole to you. To everyone around me.”

“Does it ever exhaust you?” she asks. “To play the part the way you do? It seems so isolating, Ricardo.”

Isolating is a good word for it. My stomach takes a deep dive down into my knees, my toes, beyond. There, in the back seat of the car, there’s no room for us to be anything less than vulnerable with each other.

The choice has always been made, I think again. And I’m absolutely right because I do not deserve her, and I hope she knows it. “It’s both of those things and more,” I admit.

Slowly I pull out of her, leaving my dick limp and out in the open as I shift our positions. I sit, adjusting myself on the seat, and reach out to drag her close. Rather than staying at my side, Isabella crawls into my lap with her arms loose on my shoulders. Her face inches from mine.

I stare at her, my brows knitted in a deep V. “You’re right to call me selfish.”

“I don’t remember calling you that,” she insists. “Today, anyway.”

With the cork pilled, silence hurts more than speaking the truth. What I’ve held inside starts to bubble up and leaves a vile taste in the back of my mouth.

“I’ve done everything in my life for my family because my mother and uncle ingrained it into me from the beginning. You work hard, and you give back to your family. You trust no one outside of those blood bonds. And even with all the riches, it was never mine. It was the family’s. And maybe, like you, it was a little hard for me to fight against how it chafed. Just in different ways.”

“Of course it does. As though you’re somehow beholden to them,”

I drew in a sharp breath. “The wealth is amazing, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. So, I learned to adjust to the bit and to pull my weight the way they expected. To play the part they expected in order to not only keep the wealth we have but to make it grow. The clubs are my way of thumbing my nose at them when I’ve been too chickenshit to break away.”

“You’re trying to get me to insult me more, aren’t you?” she asks playfully. “Maybe you like it when women are mean to you.”

“No meaner than I am to myself, I assure you.” I allow a hint of dryness to seep into my own tone and squeeze her tighter.

“I count myself lucky that you’re telling me this much…” She trails off on a sigh.

“And?”

“You’re not really big on conversation.”

I swallow over a rueful chuckle and say, “I am the definition of emotionally unavailable.”

Her scoffed agreement is like music to me. “Then I guess it all depends on what you want to do about your newfound self-awareness.”

“Christ.” I refuse to let any space grow between us. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” She blinks at me.

“Like the sun rises and sets on my ass. Like you…love me.” Because no one has ever looked at me the way she does, and it’s not right. It’s misplaced. It’s ridiculously misplaced.

“I look at you the way you look at me when you think no one is around to see you,” she insists. Her lips tweak up in a slight grin. “Or do you think you’re sly? I’ve caught you staring at me when your guard is lowered just enough to let me see what’s really going on. And believe me, I’ve clung to those moments.”

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