Trying
Zorah felt as if he’d slapped her. “You think I’m not trying?”
“You’re not.” He gave a frustrated grunt and moved himself from his reclined position to sit up against the headboard, reaching to turn the bedside lamp on. “Zorah, I want you to be happy. I am realizing I can’t make you happy. You are still too angry over my past. You hate who I am. I try to show you other sides of me, but you’re reserved and reluctant. I’ve tried giving you space. I’ve tried encroaching in your space. We went from dancing in a club a week ago Sunday with a plan to try to move forward to the next night with you becoming so emotionally cut off I don’t know how to reach you.”
“I’m trying!”
“You’re not,” he snapped back. “The priest asked you to do an exercise, and you wrote down seven things in your little notebook over seven days. I invited you on multiple dates last week when we were at the farm, you declined them all to sit in the garden and read. I asked you to come with me to the market, you snapped at me about the risk of running into someone I fucked. I invited you to accompany me to the town where your grandparents were originally from, and your response was you weren’t ready. You finally agreed to a picnic with me in the olive grove and when I went looking for you, you told me the girls in the kitchen were teaching you to make pasta. I waited an hour for you and then when I went back after I thought you’d be done, you were having lunch with my parents and grandparents.”
“I –”
“Last Monday, you made up your mind I was the enemy. I cannot deny you had a right to your anger. I apologized. I have been apologizing over and over but I don’t know how to fix this when you won’t even communicate with me. You’ve shut me out.”
“You killed someone!”
“It wasn’t a fucking secret I’m an assassin, Zorah. I’ve been brutally honest with you from day one. I kill people for a living. If I can kill someone for cash what the hell would you think I would do to someone who insulted my family? Did you think I was going to sit down with them and ask them to explain their feelings and dine with us?” His eyes were cool as he regarded her. “I told you from the beginning the Lucchesi people are known as murder-for-hire and I’m a specialist. My name in the underworld is The Beast. It isn’t because I’m a fucking pussycat, Zorah.”
“I know but I didn’t think I’d see it up close!”
“And we promised you as a family you never would again. My entire family apologized to you. You walk around with your nose up in the air like you’re better than all of them. The staff at the farm were reprimanded for talking out of turn but they weren’t the only ones in the wrong. Explain to me why it was none of them knew you spoke Italian. Other than the chef and one or two of the housekeepers, you didn’t exchange any kind of conversation. You came to the farm wanting to hate everyone and the scowling faces and the browbeaten, downtrodden moping you’ve been showing off has everyone feeling you think you’re a snob. Do you want to know why they talk about you? It’s because you didn’t even try to befriend a single person. Benita invited you to sit with her and her cousins and play some cards and you walked away with nothing more than a shake of the head. I know because I saw you do it!”
“She kept pushing me to you!”
“Because she could see how fucking miserable you were and knew if you would only open your heart, you would know what they all know but you’re so wrapped up in your personal vendetta you can’t do it.”
He sighed, “Zorah, I’m tired. It was a long day from the farm to here. I needed to reassure Sidonia over dinner you weren’t hiding from the meal because you were still angry at her for Walrus getting info from her driver. My best friend is pissed at me for planning to let you go. My parents are at a loss because they’d hoped to throw you wedding banquet this past weekend and they couldn’t, and my mother called me in tears today because she feels she gained and lost a daughter in a week.” He waved to the pillow. “Lay down and let’s get some sleep. We can discuss in the morning where you want to go, and I’ll arrange it. You don’t need to try to scheme with some unknown person on the internet to get away from me. I’ll send you myself, anywhere you want to go.”
“I told you though! I told you of the messages. I wouldn’t have made the arrangements like that!”
“Maybe, maybe not. All I know is it’s one-thirty in the morning after a long day and I can’t do this any more tonight when I need to be up at six for a meeting with an associate in London.”
“You stopped kissing me.” She blurted out and then looked away, grateful for the lighting being as it was.
He gave a humorless laugh, “you refused to let me in our bed the first night. You slept with your back to me the second and third night. By the fourth night, you were making sure you were asleep before I got to bed. During the day you’ve avoided me as much as possible and ducked away from even a kiss to your forehead multiple times. I told you before I won’t force you and I’m not going to start kissing you when you’re sleeping or turning your face from me.”
“Oh.” She let him pull her back down so her head was on his chest.
“Sleep Zorah.”
“You’re really going to let me move away?”
“If I have to choose between you becoming so depressed you’re contemplating ending your life or letting you live somewhere else without me, I’m going to want you to live, Zorah.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he spoke one last time for the night, “I love you enough to let you go, Zorah.”
It was all she’d wanted for the last several days. Why then was her heart feeling like it was cracking in half.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
