Page 43 of King of Omen

But it was like I’d lost something precious that had nothing to do with the man before me.

‘You OK to get to your door?’ Tony asked.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I murmured. ‘I appreciate you walking me home.’

I pulled away from him with a slight wave and eased past him through the gate to my front door.

Fumbling for my keys, I found them with a measure of relief, turned the lock, and slipped inside.

I closed the door behind me, shutting myself from the world outside.

The darkness of my apartment wrapped me in its familiar embrace. I leaned against the wall, lost in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, memories of another man entirely entwined with the lingering sensation of Tony’s kiss on my lips.

Wishing it’d been someone else altogether who’d touched me with such passion.

I huffed, the sound echoing and cutting through the soft hum of the refrigerator.

Moving to the living room, I sank onto the couch, exhausted.

I reached for my phone, desperate for a distraction. As I scrolled through my messages, a notification caught my eye - my calendar reminder for my new gig the next day.

I sighed. At least work was something I could rely on not to be fraught with emotion.

LORENZO

All the way back to the city, I suppressed the tempest roiling in me, threatening to blow.

Mauri was wise enough not to say a word.

When he pulled into the hotel parking lot, I jumped out, silent, brooding, face stony.

I strode beside him, jaw clenched in silence, to the elevators and our floor.

At my door, I turned and gave him a chin raise. ‘Grazie.’

The gratitude was laden, for he’d respected my privacy and not questioned my ludicrousness.

I yanked open the door to my room with the devil on my back.

Inside, I sagged against a wall, trying to catch my breath in short, ragged gasps as waves of feeling ripped through me.

The world spun around me as I closed my eyes, attempting to shut out the images that haunted me.

No matter what I tried, the image of Mia’s kiss with another man repeated in a series of relentless flashes.

Each pulse seared my mind, taunting me with what I had lost even before I’d had it.

With a growl, I paced the room, the walls closing in, the weight of despair pressing down on my chest.

I gritted my teeth, refusing to give in to weakness.

But deep down, I was broken.

Somehow, she’d represented some false expectation: that moving to this new city and the possibility of her in my world would redeem me from my past life.

The bare truth I was unwilling to face was that Mia was a mirage of atonement. The reality of her entwined in the arms of another man was a freakin’ wake-up call to the foolishness of my unfounded crush, to my over-reliance on her as a talisman for hope.

It sent a spike through me, smashing the fanciful notions I’d built up in my head like glass beneath a hammer blow.

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