With a deep exhale, I acknowledged that I had to tell him about my sickness.
I had to.
There weren’t any secrets between us anymore. If we were going to rule this underworld together, I had to let him know the truth. When he got back, I was going to tell him what was going on with me—the real reason I’d slept for two days. I worked the inside of my cheek, counting the knots and striations in the different logs in the ceiling, before rolling to my side and looking to where Anteros had gone.
Something caught my eye—a corner of paper stuck in one the floorboards, so small you could barely see it. Intrigued, I elbow-crawled over to it. I thought it might be a loose page belonging to one of his old books, but when I pulled it out, I recognized it instantly.
It wasn’t.
It couldn’t be.
After everything, it couldn’t be. My body revolted at the revelation. Nausea rolled my stomach, trembles wracked my body. He’d said he lost it, said he didn’t remember what it said, but here it was, in my hands.
The letter.
How could he? I bit the skin of my lip to stop the onslaught of emotion. I thought we were past this. I thought lies were over. A few days before I would have crushed it. I wouldn’t have said a word.
But not today.
Anteros came down the hallway, a glass of water in his hand and a plate of something that smelled delicious in the other. I eyed it, hating him even more, hating that he brought me wine and pasta and looked like sex, but had kept the letter without telling me.
“What is this?” I asked, afraid because I already knew the answer. A small smile curved his lips, but it fell when he saw what was in my hand. My gut twisted further. I’d had a small bit of hope—hope that he didn’t know what it was, that it had, I didn’t know, somehow gotten here on its own. Like it had sprouted legs and fucking walked.
But seeing his face, I knew. Slowly, I got up, holding on to the couch for support. Anteros set down the items on the mantel and came to me. His face was a mask, betraying nothing.
Rip it off. Stop fucking pretending.
I scoffed. Hypocrite.
“Read it. Right now,” I demanded. With careful steps, he closed the distance between us, face betraying nothing. But in his silence and in his mask, I had my answer. “You already have, haven’t you?” Pained wrinkles spread from the corners of his eyes and I had to turn away.
“Where did you find it?” he asked, tone unreadable.
“Where did I find it?” I spun back around. “Are you fucking kidding me? It was in the floor!” I pointed to the spot and he followed my finger. Something passed across his features, almost like irritation, but it wasn’t directed at me and it quickly vanished again to be replaced by that infuriating mask.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I thought…” I thought we were telling each other everything. I thought we were each other’s everything. I thought we were past this. I thought the lies were over. I thought we were going to fucking rule together.
God, I was such a fucking idiot.
He was a Beast.
Beasts didn’t change.
My, what pretty teeth you have—all the better to lie with.
“What was so bad that you had to lie?” I asked, hating the tremble in my voice. He tried to draw me into an embrace but I pushed him away. “What else are you keeping from me? Because I told you every ugly truth—stuff I’ve never told anyone. You know every goddamn thing.” Except that you’re getting sick again, a little voice whispered in my head. You didn’t tell him that.
“The letter is about you,” Anteros said. I didn’t understand his demeanor at all. He was scary calm, watching me like I was a vase about to tumble from a pedestal, and that just pissed me off more. If the letter was about me, I wanted to know. I would have been happy if he’d told me about it.
“How could it be about me?” I looked at the weathered paper like I could suddenly read Italian.
“It’s about your parents.” Still he spoke with that inscrutable pacific tone. My frown grew so deep I could practically feel the lines pressing into my skull. Finally I had something concrete about where I came from and who I was—why had he kept it from me?
“Maybe you should sit down.” Anteros gestured to the couch behind me.
“Maybe you should just spit it the fuck out,” I spat, frustration and betrayal boiling over.
“You’re getting very bold with how you speak to me,” Anteros growled. His voice was low and his eyes dark—signs he was losing patience. I didn’t give a shit about his patience anymore.
“You know what, fuck you. I’ll use the internet. I don’t need you.” The words were runny and almost illegible and I probably couldn’t decipher them, but fuck him. I’d seen a computer in the bedroom—I’d use that. As I walked by him, he reached out and grabbed my elbow. I tried to shake him off, but he pulled me into an embrace.
My fists connected with his chest, my knees with his thigh. Nothing swayed him. He held me, his face unmoving from that goddamn stoic, almost grieved countenance. Finally I stopped fighting, face sinking into his chest.
I was in a vise grip, surrounded by his arms. I had no choice but to breathe in his unique spicy, masculine musk, no choice but to hear his rapid heartbeat, feel his steady breath go up and down. My body told me to relax because this was my other half. My mind screamed traitor.
“Why are you doing this?” I yelled, voice muffled by his chest.
“Lucio Pavoni is your father,” he said. I stopped struggling and he let me go as I absorbed the information. So the head of the Family was my father? I was a bastard or something? But he had been the Boss, so couldn’t he have had me around anyway? I didn’t understand. How could Lucia be my grandmother? The grooves in my forehead were eroding through the skin.
“And Lucia Pavoni is your mother.”
I dropped the letter and it floated to the ground, slowly dancing on air currents.
Mother.
Lucia Pavoni and Lucio Pavoni, as in brother and sister? I felt sick. The room spun. I stumbled back, almost tripping into the mantle. Anteros caught me.
Just as he did, my hand collided with the wine glass. I felt more than saw it. The cool splash of wine against my chest right before the glass fell and shattered. The liquid seeping through the fabric, drenching my skin. My dress stained and corrupted—fairytale ruined, once again.
And I was the one who’d caused the glass to fall.
“That’s not true,” I said, voice barely whisper. I couldn’t look at him, tried to focus on anything else, but it all reminded me of him. The beautiful white fur rug we’d made love on. The hallway he’d carried me down when we’d first arrived.
I closed my eyes.
“I didn’t understand at first either. Lucio and Lucia hid it masterfully. They concocted the Pavoni Princess myth so if a child was found, instead of looking into their affair, others would look for parents that didn’t exist.”
I opened my eyes, and it was a total mistake. Anteros was still impeccably dressed and the firelight behind him was a traitor. Shadows caressed the valleys of his muscles, light licked the peaks. Everything was hard, from his thigh to his bicep, like a statue come to life. His face—that infuriatingly beautiful face—looked at me with pity. I hated how I’d thought I could trust him to see me differently than the others, but there it was on his face: a shining reminder that I was alone. My heart was shattering inside my ribcage and it took everything I had not to clutch my chest like some dame in an old movie.
I would be strong, or at least I would make him believe he hadn’t broken me.
“You…” I took a breath. “How long have you known?”
“Since right before the river.”
Anger. Fury. Bright red in my eyes. Enough to blind me from the crippling pain that lashed through me. He’d known my most deepest pain, the thing that had haunted me through my life, the thing I’d desperately wanted to know, and hadn’t told me.
The man I thought wanted to
protect my soul.
The man I thought knew my soul.
He’d kept the shard that pierced me to himself.
I held on to my anger so I didn’t crumble to pieces.
“I hate you,” I whispered. Anteros and I weren’t soul mates. We weren’t meant to be together. We had become a fistula. We were simply an abnormal connection between two people.
Fifteen
Frankie’s words pierced his skin like needles, dragging poison to his blood, pumping death into his heart. I hate you, she’d said, but it was different than the many times before. This time it wasn’t to hide her love, it was to shield her heart. The one he’d broken. He dragged her to him as if he could stop the thing between them from falling to the ground and shattering.
The day Anteros had found Frankie perusing his stack of books, he was ready to destroy the letter the minute he was alone. When he got downstairs, though, it was missing. For the nearly two days Frankie had been asleep, he’d searched constantly for it. He’d retraced his steps over and over again, but it was like it had vanished.
It had been in between the goddamn floorboards the entire time.
What fucking irony.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, attempting to yank herself out of his grip. “I don’t. You’re just saying this to cover up what’s really in the letter. You’re fucking lying. You made up this disgusting lie.”
She wouldn’t look at him, but Anteros pinned his gaze on her.
Fuck, just look at me.
The silence was too much. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her everything would be okay—shit people did when they loved the person—but she was closing off to him. With a frustrated growl, Anteros pushed her off and walked to the stack of books the letter fell from, feet making harsh echoes in the silent room.
Once he found it, he walked back and handed her Sofia’s journal entry. “Unfortunately everything you need to know is in a journal I can no longer locate, but this will give you an idea. I imagine if you could ask Lucia herself, her face would tell you all you need to know. This was one secret she could never hide.”
Warily, Frankie took the journal entry from his grasp. Her eyes were slits as she took it, glancing away from him in short spurts. Then they froze.
“You knew about Sofia’s journal?” Surprise laced her tongue.
“I had it in my possession for many years,” he responded, then stopped, recognition hitting him with what she’d said. “You knew about her journal?”
“It was the only thing that got me through living with you,” she spat, venom in her voice. So that was what had happened to it. He thought about what she’d said. The journal had been the only thing that got him through his early years with Lucio.
Frankie briefly looked at the entry before saying, “You know what? I don’t need to read this. Go fuck yourself and your gross theories—oh, and PS, if you’re going to try to rattle me, get ideas somewhere other than Game of Thrones.”
Her reference went over his head so Anteros said, “I don’t understand.”
“You had leather-bound editions.”
“I told you some of my books were gifted,” Anteros explained.
She dragged a hand down her face. “Never mind.”
Anteros exhaled. “Just read it.” Nostrils flared and grip harsh on the book, Frankie didn’t remove her glare from him, fingers trembling like she wanted to throw the paper at him. Finally, after a minute or so of strained silence, she looked at the page.
Frankie read it furiously until horror slowly transformed her face.
“This still doesn’t mean anything.” She grasped it with white fingers. “This could be any child. It doesn’t mean it’s me.”
“I was there for your birth,” he said lowly. “I know for certain you are the child Sofia speaks of in the letter.”
“Are you even trying?” she asked. “I was born in Jersey.” She was at least looking at him again, her face growing the bright rose of anger he remembered. Good. He wanted her angry, wanted her mad—it was better than nothing.
“Now you’re deluding yourself, mio cuore,” Anteros responded gently.
“Don’t ever call me that again.” For a split second, their stare was charged. Anger transformed into lust, her lids drooped, and she licked her lips. Anteros thought the situation was salvageable, but then sadness and emptiness, replaced her furious features.
He wanted to scream until his lungs bled.
Wanted to break things until his bones broke like the way she looked at him.
But mostly, he wanted to go back to earlier, when she was opening to him, shedding her mask, and letting him see all of her.
Frankie let the page fall and ran from the room, pale soles disappearing around the entryway. Anteros had her before she’d barely turned the corner.
“Let me go,” she hissed as he pinned her to the wall.
“I won’t.” Ever again.
“Then kill me,” she said evenly, “because I won’t stay here willingly.” Her stare was black. Relentless. Dead. Anteros ground the hands at either side of her face into the cobblestone, getting so close that his nose flattened hers.
Smelling her.
Feeling her sweet breath on his face.
But she wouldn’t give in, and he wasn’t going to take her captive again. If she wanted to leave, he couldn’t stop her.
“Fuck!” He punched the wall above her head, small stones falling like heavy rain.
Frankie slowly shimmied under his arm until she was free, Anteros eyeing her the entire time. Blood pounded in his skull, too loud, too fast. She tiptoed backward to the front door, watching him as if he were a bull about to charge. Then before he could blink, she ran, opened it, and slammed it shut.
Fuck.
Frankie had gone into the wilderness in nothing but a dress. The forest went on for miles in either direction—she would die out there. He ground his knuckles into the wall until the skin broke then pushed off and went after her.
Her back faced him and from the angle, the stain wasn’t so visible. The dress had been so fucking sexy—teasing, like her. When they’d danced he’d gotten peeks of her. There was probably some kind of matching underwear, but he wouldn’t want any on her.
It wasn’t about dressing Frankie up, it wasn’t about looking the part. It was about solidifying the moment when they agreed to be together.
And then it went to fucking shit.
Frankie jumped when he opened the door, turning around, eyebrows caving. “Please, don’t—”
“If you’re leaving,” Anteros cut her off, voice raw. “You need to take a car.” She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms and looked back into the forest as if hoping a path would appear; there were none. only trees. He swallowed the groan. He wanted her with him, where he could protect her.
How the fuck had this happened? Only hours before he’d been inside her, and now he was offering her a goddamn car.
“Um…” She rubbed her arms harder, not turning around. “Thank you.” He grunted and left to go find the car keys. He noted her feet were bare, fucking bare. Where did she think she was going to go with bare feet?
“Where are your shoes?” he growled when he came back out.
“I don’t have any.” She looked at her bare feet. “I came here after you stripped me naked in the parking lot, remember?”
He immediately took his off and handed them to her. She held the shoes away from her body, as if they were an animal that would bite. That infuriated him. Whatever lies he’d told had only been to protect her. No one had taught him how to love—he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing. He did his goddamn best. But everything from the moment they’d met was always to protect her.
“You have huge feet,” she explained. “It would be impossible to walk in these. Don’t you have some old conquest’s stilettos or something?”
“You’re the only person I’ve ever brought here.” And the only person I ever will.
“Oh.” Silence fell ag
ain. He tossed the keys at her to allay the biting awkwardness. She struggled to catch them while holding the shoes and ended up pressing them to her chest.
“Come,” he barked. At first he thought she would argue, but her shadow followed him through the house and to the garage. Each step was a razor blade to his heart. One hallway before the garage, he stopped and turned to her. His blood screamed to stop, but the words came out anyway. Robotic. Cold.
“At its core it’s a McLaren P1, but it’s bespoke so you’re going to need to know how to handle the extra torque.” At her glassy-eyed expression, he asked, “Can you drive it?” She looked at the palm with the key inside, closed it, and then nodded at him.
“I guess I’ll be going.” She walked down the rest of the corridor. He followed her like a phantom, staying close enough to feel the air currents shift with her movements, close enough to smell her, to realize what he was losing. Her hand curled on the knob for the garage, and his blood stopped. This was it. He was losing her. She was leaving.
Without thought, he reached for her, grabbed her waist, pulled her against him, and pressed his nose to her neck. Uniquely Frankie, somehow both burning his nostrils and calming his mind. His hands roamed her waist, her stomach, her breasts. When her head fell back to his shoulder, he groaned, kissing the crook of her neck, her earlobe, her chin—anything he could find. She rubbed against him mindlessly.
“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, I can’t lose you.” That broke the trance and she froze.
“Get off me,” she yelled, pushing him away. Anteros backed off and shoved a hand through his hair. His dick was punching through his pants, but all he cared about was Frankie watching him with loathing.
“Don’t you understand? You can’t fix this with sex.” She reeled around and slammed him into the wall. He could have easily withstood the blow, but he took it. “You can’t fix us with kisses and touching. We’re beyond repair. The very root of us is rotted. This”—she gestured between them—“this never should have happened. I traded myself to you and you—you—” She broke off, turning away, getting choked up.
Beauty, a Hate Story the End Page 24