Page 98 of Broken Mafia Prince
“You’re such a princess,” Matteo laughs.
“You’re a brute. Why don’t you go make love to your computers and leave the humans to their human drinks and not cat piss.” She turns to me. “Tell him he’s crazy, Raf.”
“You’re both crazy.” I reach for my drink.
I’m just about to tune their bickering out again when a ringtone slices through the room. For some reason, something tingles down my spine, and I get tense. I follow the sound of the ringtone to Isabella’s coat tossed over the table.
“Who the hell still calls in the twenty-first century? What happened to texting?” She eyes me judgmentally, and I force a smile on my face.
She’s always complaining about how I never respond to my texts, and I’m always telling her she should just call like a grown-up. I can’t be bothered to check for texts at all hours of the day. It’s a running joke between us, and usually, I’d be teasing her, but this time around, my face feels frozen.
Finally, she pulls out the phone, and then she stills, dropping the phone on the table like it’s a time bomb. I glance at the caller ID and stop breathing, feeling my heart skip a beat in my chest.
I can’t believe my eyes as I stare at Giulia’s name on the screen, unable to breathe. The ringing drowns out the other voices in the room, and it feels like it’s only me and that phone in the room now. I feel myself reach for it, but I tighten my hands around my glass, wondering if it will crack under the pressure.
“Somebody turn that thing off.” Matteo snatches the phone from the table and rejects the call. “There, done.”
“Why d-did you do that?” Isabella croaks.
“She left you both.” He glares. “She has no right to just reach out of the blue after disappearing with no consideration for your feelings. Let her go.”
Let her go? Impossible.
But how am I supposed to hold on to something that doesn’t want to be held on to? Nothing has changed since she left… at least for me. I have a terrible feeling that she’s back now because something’s changed for her. Has she found a way to navigate the Syndicate’s scheme? Or maybe she feels nothing for me anymore, so returning now feels safe.
Let her go? There may be no choice but to.
32
GIULIA
The elevator opens with a swish, and I hesitantly step into the apartment, trying to work out the kinks in my neck and hoping that Alessandro has gone to bed. It’s not that I don’t like my fiancé. On a scale of one to ten, where zero is Luca Cozzoli, Alessandro hovers between five and six.
“Giulia,bellissima.”
I hide my wince by bending to remove my shoes and deposit them into the rack just at the foyer. He’s behind me in an instant, aiding me to pull off my coat.
“How was the visit?” he asks. “Stressful?”
He doesn’t have to be a mind reader to realize that these visits with my father take their toll on me. I know that Father doesn’t mean to be so difficult, but the problem is that he’s very particular about things. He wants everything done in a particular way or in an order that is sometimes impossible.
Ever since I made the singular decision to move us out of Chicago, my relationship with my father has felt like an uphill battle. I’ve heard the word “duty” so many times these past two years that sometimes I hear it in my sleep. It resounds in my head like a mantra.
That same duty that made me run from Raffaele’s arms now keeps me in another’s. Fate is one fickle bitch, and apparently, she has it out for me.
“You know how it is,” I tell him with an exhausted sigh.
I don’t know why I still subject myself to the frequent meetings with my father. One of these days, I ought to reject his offer to meet and tell him that I have other things to do with the fiancé he managed to make me agree to after more lectures about duty.
“Do you want me to prepare you a bubble bath?” he asks against my ear as he hugs me from behind and presses kisses against my nape.
I force myself not to tense up in his arms, enduring the affectionate display for a fair amount of time before pulling away with a stiff smile.
“Not now,” I tell him. “I’m exhausted.”
His face draws down into one of concern. “How about that bath? Let me pour you some of your favorite red, and you can soak in the bathtub and tell me all about your day.”
While it sounds like a delightful idea, I’m going to have to pass. I know exactly what will happen as soon as I sit wet and naked beside Alessandro, and I don’t want any of that tonight, which means I won’t tempt him by offering him a buffet and then telling him that he can’t have it.
