Chapter 152: Completely, Utterly Doomed

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When we finally pulled apart, Lorenzo rested his forehead against mine again, and I felt his breath against my lips.

"You’re going to ruin my reputation," he murmured.

I sniffed in response. "Your reputation survived me calling you Dracula. I think it can withstand some tears."

His lips curved slightly, a hint of amusement breaking through.

Then he lifted one of my hands and pressed a gentle kiss into my palm.

The gesture caught me completely off guard, so tender that it stole my breath.

He adjusted my hand slightly and kissed my other palm as well, lingering for a moment, and suddenly, I was reminded of all the times we had touched each other, all those heated moments I thought I understood our intimacy.

I had clearly been mistaken.

Because this felt far more intimate than any of those instances, more vulnerable than anything we had done when desire was running the show.

There was no performance, no teasing, and no need to act like we weren’t terrified of what the other might discover.

Just Lorenzo, holding my hands as if they were the most precious things in the world.

"I have to go," he said eventually, his voice returning to its typical steadiness, though his gaze remained softer than before. "The investigation can’t wait forever."

"How inconsiderate of it."

"I’ll return as soon as I can."

"You’d better. I’m naked, emotionally unstable, and considering several crimes against your brother’s well-being."

"Please hold off on any crimes until I return, tesoro."

"No promises."

He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then reached for the robe draped over a nearby chair I had randomly tossed there when building my nest...and he wrapped it around my shoulders, tying it with the same gentle care he used when he thought I might be too distracted to take care of myself.

I wanted to complain that I could dress myself just fine, but truthfully, I appreciated the gesture, so I let him have this small victory.

At the door, he paused, glancing back at me.

"My mother would have loved you." He said softly.

So soft I had barely heard him.

I could only blink at him in response as my brain went blank once more.

Then he stepped into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

I remained standing in the middle of the disheveled bed, gazing at the spot where he had disappeared, while the silence of the room enveloped me once more.

Sunlight streamed across the bed, lighting up the crumpled sheets and the tossed pillows, while the fading scent of what we had shared clung to the blankets.

Everything looked just like it did before Lorenzo opened up to me, which felt deeply unfair since I was pretty sure something within me had shifted in ways I couldn’t quite recognize.

Huh...

His mother... would have loved me?

I eased myself onto the mattress’s edge, tightening the robe around my body, and pressed my hand against my chest.

My heart was racing.

For once, I knew that had nothing to do with the warmth in the room.

Now, I understood Lorenzo a bit better, and it made a lot about him painfully clear.

His need to control everything wasn’t just arrogance, although he had enough of that to go around.

His possessiveness wasn’t merely about wanting to own things, either, even if he had this maddening way of acting like my freedom was a security risk that he needed to oversee personally.

Beneath all that control was a boy who learned that love could vanish in an instant, that promises couldn’t always shelter the ones who made them, and that doing everything right didn’t mean you’d get to keep those you loved.

He’d lost his mother despite pleading for her life, and his little sister before she could even know the world existed.

Then he grew into a man who thought that if he could foresee every danger, manage every aspect, and keep those he cared about close, maybe he could stop history from repeating itself.

Just like Frederick had taught him to.

That didn’t excuse every choice he made, and I certainly wasn’t about to turn into the kind of husband who followed his orders without question.

No way. I had my own standards, and one of them was being able to walk out of a room without asking a guy who could probably shut down a whole street just because he didn’t like the traffic.

But now, I got him.

And understanding him didn’t make me want to bolt.

It made me want to stick around long enough to show him that loving someone didn’t mean preparing for their exit, that trusting me didn’t make him weak, and that I wouldn’t look at his scars and see a monster where a scared boy used to be.

Was it because I was an Omega?

Curse my heart and sympathetic urges!

Why couldn’t I have been born with a rough and tough heart like the Alphas?!

Fuck...

Anyways...deep down, I had a feeling that Lorenzo and I had always seen something familiar in each other, even when we couldn’t name it.

We were both the lonely ones, who learned to guard ourselves in ways that sometimes made it tough to accept the very things we desired most.

Maybe that’s why being near him felt so different from anything I’d experienced before, because under all the heat, the arguments, and the crazy amount of money he spent to keep me comfortable and happy, there was this quiet understanding we didn’t need to put into words.

I glanced down at my hand, recalling the kiss he placed on my palm, and let out a shaky breath as my heart raced even quicker.

"Oh, I’m in deep trouble," I murmured to the empty room.

Not because Lorenzo Castelli was a mafia Don, or because he was enough to drive an entire security team nuts, or even because he had a face that made sensible choices feel like a hassle.

I was in trouble because I had glimpsed the boy beneath the monster everyone else had painted, and I wanted him to realize he had never needed to be that monster to be loved.

And judging by how my heart kept racing under my palm, I was already falling for him even more than before.

God... I was far gone, wasn’t I?