Page 33 of The Sexy Billionaire

Everything in me stills. He is dating my enemy. I thought we were friends.

“Her? You’re dating her?” I spit, pointing in the direction of his home.

He nods his head.

“Why her?”

“Because you live on the other side of the world, Paige,” he says, raising his voice at me.

“I know, and every summer I come back to you.”

“Maybe I want more than that,” he argues. His words are like a knife to the chest. “Bella’s family moved up to Rome. She joined my school, and we started dating a couple of months ago,” he explains.

“There were no pictures of her on your socials.”

He shrugs. “I don’t put everything on there.”

Bullshit, we are teens, everything goes on our socials. “You never wanted me to find out about her.”

Gio remains silent.

“After everything we’ve been through, you didn’t have the balls to tell me you were dating my mortal enemy. Fuck you, Gio Fiorenzo, for being too chickenshit to tell me the truth,” I yell at him.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” he says back.

“I came early to surprise you. To celebrate your graduation and your eighteenth birthday. I’m an idiot,” I say, raising my hands in the air.

“I’m heading back to Rome tomorrow with Bella. We’re going away with friends to celebrate.” He was hoping thatwhen I turned up, he’d be long gone and never had to deal with the confrontation.

“You’re not the guy I thought you were,” I say, my eyes narrowing on him.

“You weren’t supposed to find out like this.”

I wipe the tears away from my cheeks. “I wasn’t supposed to find out, period. I’m glad I did because now I know who you really are. I wish I’d never met you.” I cry as I turn and start to run back home, my heart breaking with each step I take.

He doesn’t follow me.

When I make it home, Lucia is there, and I confess that Gio and I have been seeing each other and that I thought I loved him but he’s dating a bitch called Bella who hates me, and I don’t want to be here anymore. And the next day, Lucia packs us up and we head to Paris, helping me forget all about Giorgio Fiorenzo.

Until now.

The next time I saw him, he was standing in Lucia’s garden, looking as handsome as he did all those years ago. I continue to stare down at my phone and contemplate if I want to reply or not.Would be rude not to reply.

Paige: You might regret that offer.

Giorgio: There’s a lot I regret, but that offer isn’t one of them.

I bite my lip as I read his text. What does that mean? What does he regret? What am I doing? I have to get ready as I have mediation with Michael later on today. I need to be focusing on that, not an old acquaintance.

11

PAIGE

“Idon’t like this,” my brother tells me as I get ready to leave for my mediation.

“I’ll be in a room full of lawyers, it’ll be safe,” I try to assure him.

I love my brother, but he has been in full protection mode since my run-in with Michael a week ago. I get it. He sees the worst of humanity on a daily basis and he’s only trying to keep me safe, but he’s smothering me.

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