Chapter 332: Lie

KATYA POV

“Why are you truly here?” Romeo simply looked at me. His expression remained as unreadable as ever, those pale gray eyes fixed on mine with the same unnerving steadiness that always made me feel as though he could see every frantic thought racing through my head.

“Sit.”

I blinked. “…What?” Romeo gaze drifted briefly toward the bed behind me. “You’re standing like you’re preparing to flee.”

His tone remained even. “Sit.”

I instinctively glanced down at myself.I was. I hadn’t even realized it.

I’d planted myself beside the foot of the bed so rigidly that my knees were locked, my shoulders tight, my hands clasped together in front of me as though I were waiting for permission to exist.

Heat crept into my cheeks. Was I really that obvious? A stubborn part of me wanted to refuse. Another part reminded me why I’d come here in the first place.

Not to argue. Not to prove some point. I wanted answers. If sitting down meant this conversation actually happened.Then fine.

Without another word, I lowered myself onto the edge of the bed. The mattress dipped beneath my weight.

My hands immediately found my lap, fingers intertwining to stop myself from fidgeting.

Only then did Romeo move.

Instead of taking the armchair across the room, or remaining by the hidden door, he walked toward my vanity.

The antique makeup desk sat beneath the large mirror near the windows, polished white wood with delicate carved legs that Nonna had brought in for me after Chiara insisted, claiming I needed something like it as a girl.

Romeo leaned back against it. The wood gave a quiet, protesting groan beneath his weight.

Both of his hands settled behind him against the edge of the vanity, supporting his weight with effortless ease.

The artificial fluorescent catching against his skin. Against the defined lines of that rose tatto on his neck and his shoulders. The muscles across his arms shifted subtly beneath the light as he adjusted his balance, veins standing out faintly beneath tanned skin.

My eyes caught the movement before I could stop them. Immediately I looked away.

Nope. Absolutely not. My gaze climbed higher. Past his shoulders. Past his neck. Until it landed firmly on his face.

There. His face. That was a perfectly reasonable place to look. I cleared my throat quietly. Then repeated myself.

“Why are you truly here?”

This time he answered. “My grandmother asked me to come.” I frowned before I could stop myself. Nonna was also shocked with his visit, how would she had invited him and not informed me? it was impossible, Romeo was definitely lying through his teeth and I wasn’t up for this.

“That’s a lie” I voiced out and his eyebrow lifted. “Really?”

I nodded my head. “Chiara told me you’ve never come back.”

His expression didn’t change. “She said after you left Italy…” I hesitated, trying to remember her exact words. “…you never returned.”

“Amd so” Romeo sounded invested in what I was saying, I could see the surprise in his face as to how I knew about this, it wasn’t as if I asked about him from Chiara, I was just informed.

I looked deeply into those stormy gray eyes and continued. “So why now?”

Silence. I thought he was going to ignore me, tell me what’s my concern with all these but then he finialy opened his mouth and says….

“She has asked before.” I stared at him. That answer unsettled me more than if he’d refused to answer altogether.

Because it felt honest. Incomplete. But honest.

I’d come into this conversation convinced there had to be a reason connected to me. To the club. To everything that had happened over the past week. Yet listening to him now… That certainty began to wobble.

What if…

I’d been wrong?

What if Romeo Salvatore hadn’t crossed countries because of me at all? I took a breath and spoke again. “So why now? After all those years she been asking for you”

Romeo gave the smallest shrug. “I felt like coming.”

I gagged. “…What?”

“I felt like coming.” His tone remained maddeningly even, as though he’d just explained the weather. “So I came.”

I stared at him. That… couldn’t seriously be his answer. “That’s it?”

A slight tilt of his head. “Must there be more?” Frustration bubbled up before I could stop it.

“After all those years?” I asked, unable to keep the disbelief from my voice. “You never came back. Not once.” His expression didn’t change.

“And now you suddenly…” I gestured vaguely around us. “…just felt like it?”

Another shrug.

“Yes.”

I couldn’t wrap my head around it. That couldn’t possibly be all.

People didn’t stay away from their home country for years and then return simply because they woke up one morning and decided they felt like it.

Did they?

A tiny, irritating voice whispered inside my head.

Why not? This was his home. Italy. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation for coming back. He didn’t need some elaborate motive. He could return whenever he pleased.

Without it having anything to do with me. The realization settled somewhere uncomfortable inside my chest. And, before I could stop it, another thought slipped in.

So he didn’t come because of me. I immediately recoiled from my own thoughts.

What?

Where had that come from?

Why would I even—

I mentally cringed.

Seriously, Katya?

Had some ridiculous part of me actually expected his return to revolve around me? That was absurd. Completely absurd.

Heat crept into my face as I looked away for a brief second, annoyed with myself more than anything else. What on earth was wrong with me?

Romeo’s voice cut cleanly through the argument happening inside my own head.

“Are you alright?” My eyes lifted back to him. For the first time since this conversation had started… There was the faintest crease between his brows.

It wasn’t much but was enough to suggest he’d noticed my expression changing three different times in the space of a few seconds.

I realized I must have looked ridiculous. Embarrassed. Confused and Annoyed.

Probably all at once. “I’m fine,” I said a little too quickly. His gaze lingered on me for another second. Like deciding whether he believed me.

Then he said nothing. I shook my head once, almost trying to physically scatter my own thoughts.

Forget it. Whatever reason had brought him back to Italy… It clearly wasn’t the answer I was looking for. There were more important things. Much more important things. I drew in a slow breath.

“Forget that.” My fingers tightened together in my lap.

“The police…” I swallowed.

“Why didn’t they question you?”