“Actually, yes,” I retort and swing my seat to face him. “Why on earth would you want to sit with me when you blindsided me and then left me?” I ask and move myself a little forward, deliberately trying to make him uncomfortable with my sensuality. “Because, right about now, I can think of better fucking things to be doing with my time than sitting here with you.”
“Yet, here you are, in a bar you know I love,” Zane observes, his tone becoming cocky. “Here was me thinking you were back for round two.” He reaches out as his finishes his sentence, readying to touch me. As he pushes a few strands of my hair back, he offers a small smile and speaks again. “Because round one was pretty fucking amazing, Amelia.”
“It might have been, but it nearly killed me,” I admit, trying to reap a reaction from him the best I can. I doubt he knows how badly ruined he left me. I can’t believe he even feels remorse after leaving me behind a heartbroken mess. However, when he sits back as if I’ve struck him, a face full of miserable shock, I’m astounded. His reaction causes me to laugh incredulously at him. “You cannot even think, for a second, I wasn’t a mess after what you did.” I shake my head forbidding my mind to enter a horrid state of remembrance. “I guess you can. You never even looked back to see what your actions did to me.”
Zane’s entire manner falters and all confidence loosens from his character. He lets out a sigh – a deep, soul releasing exhale – and I wonder what sorry excuse he’s about to relay to me as an act of finding forgiveness.
“Look,” he begins, and I can see his hesitation is killing me more than anything right now. “I should’ve said something before.” He looks up at me, his gaze heavily set upon me. “I never left you because I met someone else. Hell, I never left you because I didn’t love you.” He takes a heavy sigh, releasing more pent-up emotion. “I left you because I loved you far too much, but your hold on your family was so strong that I knew I’d lose you anyway. So, I cut a loss and left before that judgment call had to be made. It was a stupid fucking thing, and by the time I came to my senses, it was too late.” All of Zane’s emotions sit in his eyes. I could always read him, as if he was a favorite book, and apparently, time hasn’t changed that. “I always loved you, Amelia. And it doesn’t matter what girl comes into my life, it’s always going to be you.”
I'm baffled by this moment. I'm a callous shell of a woman yet he's looking at me as if I'm the most prized possession he’s ever been granted access to. He had a hand in making and shaping me into this, but he doesn’t know what his actions put in motion. The intensity of such realism hits me hard. He broke me, left me and never came back, but I can still love him as much as I had that very first time we kissed.
He changed my logic, morphed me into despising men and their wants and needs. It’s what makes the kill easier. I think of how Zane left me without any explanation or cause for fight. He stole my opportunity to fight for him and all on a whim one night. When men want me, I see Zane. It’s a fault in my mental wiring that no one knows about. However, sitting here with him, I forget about the fallen men before him and find myself consumed with the sight of him. We were separated for so long. And now here we are, reunited, and as drawn to one another as if no time had passed at all.
Men, I can usually deal with. Zane is different. He's the one name signed across my heart, the one it skips a beat for, the one it lives in hope of. Yet I am one of the first to diminish hope as anything more than a sign of weakness. In the Dio Lavoro, hope is not something granted. It’s something you work for. My love for Zane is not something that will grant me much gratitude, let alone a hopeful outcome. It is out of the question.
Our love is toxic. It doesn’t just involve Zane and me. It involves my entire family, jeopardizes my standing, and kills my chances of surviving long enough to see the end of the week. For that reason, it must remain on lockdown, laced with poison and presented as a threat that he could be my own death sentence wrapped in a tidy fucking bow. I have to fear it.
I can feel he senses my interlude in the moment. I broke away from reality, dove into the painful recesses of my mind, and reveled in a prior love before my father’s face cast back at me the devil’s intent. I could have remained thinking about Zane and all we had, but there’s a curse on my shoulders that will never let me relish the moment.
“I know it’s not going to be easy,” Zane begins and pulls me from my silent reverie. “But I want to give it a try. I want to show you that I’m all in.”
I shake my head. “It’s not that simple. You cannot expect that our first meeting since you broke up with me is going to solve it all. It doesn’t work like that. Life isn’t that simple.”
“Let’s make it that simple,” he tries to coerce me into submission, but I only find myself bristling. He backs away then, putting his hands up. “Okay, okay,” he admits in defeat. “It’s not that simple, but can we at least get back onto some sort of level ground?” he asks, putting his hands down only to reach one out to me. “Friends?”