MIA
Romolo was waiting for me outside the bathroom. “Finally. Let’s go.”
He grabbed my hand in a grip that was too firm and dragged me to the elevator.
My brows pinched together as I struggled to keep up with his long strides. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” The tendons in his neck were taut from the way he was clenching his jaw.
This wasn’t nothing.
“Did something happen? Rom—ouch, you’re hurting me!”
He dropped my hand like it burned him and curled his fingers into a fist at his side. A flash of something—regret?—crossed his face, but it was gone in an instant.
“We need to talk,” he said stiffly. “But not here. I got us a room.”
The way he touched me, the coldness in his eyes…it was like he’d become a stranger in the span of a few minutes.
Confusion knotted in my stomach. Umm, what the hell had happened in the five minutes I was gone?
The elevator ride up was silent. The air felt thick, heavy with a tension that I didn’t fully understand. Romolo didn’t move, didn’t blink. It seemed like he didn’t breathe. He just stared at the doors like he was willing them to open faster.
My wrist still felt the sting of his grip. I rubbed it absentmindedly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the motion and flinched. His face twisted.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, the words rough, like they’d been scraped from his throat.
“It’s fine. Are you okay?” I couldn’t make any sense of this weird shift in his mood.
No answer. When we got to our floor, he stalked down the short hall, obviously expecting me to follow.
The room was nice—tasteful, understated decor in muted shades of gray and blue. But I barely registered the details before the door slammed shut and Romolo’s gaze locked with mine.
It was so intense, so dark, it stole the air out of my lungs.
“It’s over.”
My stomach plummeted to somewhere in the vicinity of my shoes.
“We both know there’s nowhere for this to go from here.”
I stared at him, stunned. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go.
In the bathroom, I’d given myself a pep talk, psyching myself up to be honest with him. To tell him the truth about how I’d fallen for him.
Because if we were ready to admit it—to say it out loud—there had to be a way to make it work. I didn’t have a plan. Just a desperate desire to try, and a bone-deep faith that together, we could figure it out.
I thought Romolo would want to try too. By now, I trusted my intuition when it came to him.
Something must’ve happened in the last few minutes that had set him off.
But I wasn’t going to give up on us that easily.
‘I asked you a question before I went to the bathroom.” My voice sounded far steadier than I felt. ‘Answer it.’
He strode toward the minibar. “What do you want me to say?” His hands shook slightly as he unscrewed a tiny bottle of whiskey and sloshed the amber liquid into a glass. “That I wish we had more time?” He tossed the shot back, his throat working as he swallowed. “We both knew this was never going to work long-term.”
A hollow ache bloomed inside my chest. “Rom, just answer the question.”
How do you feel about me?
His gaze flicked over me. He shrugged. “You were a good fuck.”
The world blurred at the edges, tears stinging my eyes. His words cut deep. I wanted to scream, to demand an explanation for why he was being such an asshole.
Breathe. Just breathe.
He didn’t mean it. I knew he didn’t. He was angry. Lashing out. Scared.
Scared of what?
The desire to understand him steadied me, even as my eyes burned.
“Bullshit.” I took a step forward, hands clenched at my sides. “What happened out there?”
He gripped the edge of the minibar. “Nothing happened. Let it go, Mia.”
“Why should I? Why should I let you lie to me?”
“All we had was sexual chemistry. It would have fizzled out sooner or later. Go home and tell Jenny we’re done.” He swiped a hand across his mouth, like he was trying to erase the taste of those ugly words.
Rom was a good liar, but even he couldn’t reduce us to two people who’d only slept with each other.
“Something triggered you out there. I wish you would just tell me what it was instead of pushing me away.” I took a breath, steeling myself. “Rom, I care about you. I…” The word I was looking for got stuck inside my throat.
Why was this so hard? Why was I so scared?
I wanted him to say it first. I’d spent my life telling my dad and my stepmom that I loved them only to get nothing in return more often than not. There was a fear embedded deep inside me that no one would ever say it to me and mean it.
And right now, when he was like this?
I couldn’t do it.
Romolo exhaled, staring down into his empty glass. “Let’s play it out. Pretend I say the words you want to hear from me.” He pushed off the bar and stalked toward me until he had me backed against a wall. His arms caged me in, his palms flat against the wall on either side of my head. “Then what?” he demanded.
I tipped my head back to meet his gaze, my pulse a wild throb in my throat. “We could keep it a secret until the election, and then…” I drifted off, unsure. I didn’t have all the answers, damn it. “And then, we’ll find a way to tell my family.”
“You’d lose them.”
“Not necess—”
“Mia,” he cut me off. “You’d. Lose. Them. Maybe not forever. But for a while. And no matter what I think about your dad, it’s obvious you love him. That would be the price you’d have to pay to be with me.”
He stared at me, as if trying to make sure his words were sinking in.
They were.
And maybe he was right.
But I wasn’t going to lose faith. Just because something seemed impossible, didn’t mean it wasn’t worth fighting for.
“And what would you get in exchange?” he continued, his eyes burning into mine. “I’m fucking defective, Mia. I’ve got this thing in me that makes me bad for people. It always happens. Always. I ruin their lives. I fuck things up.”
My mind raced. What was he talking about? “I don’t understand.”
He touched his forehead to mine, a heavy sigh spilling past his lips. “I’m bad for you, baby. So fucking bad.”
My instinct was to soothe him. I brushed my fingers over his cheek before settling them on his chest. His heart was pounding beneath my palm. He stared at me, his gaze like a dark abyss, filled with self-loathing.
Whatever Romolo thought about himself was obviously distorted. I knew it wasn’t the whole truth. He wasn’t the villain he painted himself as, at least not with me.
My thumb brushed over his cheekbone. “Rom, you can’t predict the future, or what will—’
He swiped my hand away and took two steps back, dragging his fingers through his hair in clear frustration. “I saw Harper.”
“What?” I asked, disoriented. “When?”
“Just now. Downstairs. She told me how everything fell apart for her after our fling. The end of which you witnessed at Messero’s party.”
A prickle of realization appeared at the back of my mind. So that’s what’d happened while I was gone.
His throat worked. “I don’t want to make your life fall apart too. You might not even see it coming, but one day, you’ll wake up in the midst of ruins and ashes. You’ll look around and realize, bone-deep, that you’d made a mistake choosing me. Then, you’ll want to leave.” He paused. “And here’s the thing, Mia.” His tone darkened. “Once you’re mine, I won’t let you. If we cross this line, there’ll be nothing that can save you from me.”
A shiver ran down my spine. I shut my eyes and took a steadying breath. “What makes you think all these awful things about yourself? You haven’t been bad for me. You’ve made me stronger and more courageous. You’ve made me feel accepted and safe. Two months ago, I would have walked out of here the second you said we were over. And now, here I am, fighting for this. For us.”
He flinched, like I’d physically hurt him.
The silence in the room was loud.
A few beats passed before his shoulders sagged. It was as if all the tension, all the fight, had abruptly drained out of him, leaving him exhausted and empty.
“You want to know who I really am?” His voice was hoarse, no more than a rasp. “Fine. Here’s what I do for my family, Mia. I trade in secrets, favors, and threats. I manipulate people. Find their weaknesses. Dig into their lives until I find dirt. If I can’t find any?” A smile touched his lips, but there was no humor in it. It was a bleak, bitter thing. “I create it. And then I use it to make them serve the interests of the family, whatever those happen to be at the time.”
My heart raced. In politics, they had people like this too. Power brokers, fixers, men who operated in the shadows.
Yes, I could see it. I could see Romolo being that.
The photo of me he’d taken. The one I’d deleted from his phone that night in the Hamptons.
My chest tightened, a vise squeezing my lungs. That had been him trying to create dirt on me, to gain leverage over my father. But in the end… he hadn’t used it. He’d let me erase it.
I pushed off the wall and took a step toward him. “You could have ruined me ten times over by now. But you haven’t. Don’t you see? You’re different with me. I trust you.”
‘Stop.’ He held up a hand. ‘Stop trying to find good in me where there isn’t any.’
“I don’t need to try. I’ve already found it. You’re not the monster that you think you are.”
“You don’t fucking know me,” he snarled, a trapped-animal desperation in his eyes. “That’s the problem. If you did, you’d know I’m capable of anything.”
I tilted my chin up. “What else do I need to know?”
‘Jesus, Mia.’ He stared at me for a long moment, the muscles in his jaw working. Then, suddenly, he turned and sank down onto the edge of the bed.
Silence again, thick and heavy. I watched him wage some internal war with himself, his fingers curling into fists, his knuckles turning white.
Finally, he spoke, his voice so low I had to strain to hear it. ‘The summer I turned eighteen, a few months before I was supposed to be made, my mother came up with a plan…”
