It smelled like lilies and rain mixed with golden warmth. It smelled like her, and it was so damn intoxicating I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes even though the strength of the sun on my skin told me it was late morning.
I was usually in the office by six, but I didn’t want to wake up and find out last night had been a dream. There’d been too many of those, and too many subsequent showers where I’d washed off my disappointment over Alessandra’s absence in real life.
Snippets from the previous evening floated past my mind’s eye. Seeing her at the restaurant, bringing her home, our kiss and what came after…
A niggling feeling told me I was forgetting an important piece of the puzzle, but I’d deal with that later. She was home where she belonged, and I
—
The soft rustle of clothes dragged me out of my slumberous bliss.
I cracked my eyes open, my stomach hollowing when I saw the bed beside me was empty. Another rustle wrenched my attention to the corner where Alessandra was pulling her dress over her head. The sunlight bathed her in an ethereal glow—hair shot through with gold, skin a deep bronze against red silk. She had her back to me, but she was etched so thoroughly in my brain I could picture every flicker in her expression. Feel every curve, map every dip and valley I’d spent hours worshiping last night.
Her dress spilled over her thighs, and she zipped up the back with agonizing care. She didn’t want to wake me, which meant…
My stomach hollowed further. “Where are you going?”
My question echoed like a gunshot in the silence. Alessandra froze for a second before she resumed dressing. “Back to Sloane’s. I have a lot of work to do.”
“I see.” I got out of bed, my movements slow and precise. Controlled, unlike the dread and anger flaring in my chest. “Were you planning to say goodbye, or were you going to sneak out like I’m a one-night stand you regret?”
No reply.
Goddammit. I’d thought we were making progress, but I could feel her slipping away before I truly had a chance to have her again.
“What happened last night—”
“Was a mistake.” Her fingers shook as she smoothed the front of her dress. “And so was what happened at the bar.”
“It didn’t sound like a mistake when you were screaming my name and begging me to let you come.” My silken response didn’t match the thorny vines creeping through my chest. The more seconds that passed, the deeper they gouged.
Scarlet washed over Alessandra’s face. “It was just sex.” Her voice wobbled on the word sex, but her body remained stiff and unyielding as I crossed the room to stand in front of her. “It didn’t mean anything.”
“Bullshit.” I’d seen the way she looked at me and heard the way she whispered my name. Neither of us did “just sex,” much less with each other.
“Our sex life wasn’t an issue, but we can’t solve our issues with sex.”
Alessandra finally met my eyes, her expression locked tight behind a steel wall. “I was drunk at the bar, and we were caught up in the adrenaline of what happened at Le Boudoir last night. There were too many emotions flying around that had nothing to do with this.” She gestured between us.
Le Boudoir. Roman. Fuck. That was a whole other mess, but I’d deal with it later. For now, I focused all my energy on breathing through the strangling knot in the back of my throat. Beneath it, a fresh ember of anger sparked, and I grasped at it like a drowning man at rope.
“So what? You’re going to walk out and pretend like nothing happened?
What are you going to do, Alessandra?” I bit out. “Run to your fancy divorce lawyer and ask him to do your dirty work for you again because you’re too scared to face me yourself?”
An audible inhale. “Fuck you.”
“You already did.”
I saw it coming, but the crack of her palm against my cheek hurt more than I’d expected. The fire spread from my face to my chest, where it ate away at the pieces of my heart while Alessandra and I stared at each other, our breaths jagged.
“I’m…I didn’t mean…” She faltered, looking stunned.
My anger drained so quickly I didn’t have time to register its loss, and the cold shock of remorse took its place.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Broken relationships belonged in the past with the old Dominic, who had nothing to keep people around. No one had cared about me until I made something of myself. The more money I accumulated, the more people gravitated toward me. It was a law of human nature. I wasn’t supposed to lose the only person I cared about keeping now, when I was richer than I’d ever been.
“Get out of my classroom.”
“You stupid, stupid boy. No wonder your own mother abandoned you…”
“Your current foster parents have requested you be moved to a different home…”
I forced the memories at bay. I didn’t live in that world anymore, and I would rather die than return.
I touched my cheek. The aftermath of Alessandra’s slap stung less than the chasm between us. She stood less than a foot away, but we might as well be on different continents.
In a distant part of the house, the sound of a vacuum started up and severed the spell keeping us frozen. Alessandra turned, and I grasped her wrist before she could leave.
“Don’t.” My heart fought to break out of my chest with vicious blows.
“I’m sorry, amor.”
I’d been an asshole, but when my only choices were pain or anger, my instinct was to seek shelter in the latter.
She exhaled a shuddering breath. “Let me go.”
My grip tightened. She wasn’t talking about just this moment, and we both knew it.
“I wish I could.” It would be easier if I never fell for her. I went into our first meeting determined to hate her, not knowing she would be the one who showed me what real love was instead. I might not have expressed it as often as I should’ve, but she’d always been the sun keeping my world in orbit.
Alessandra shook her head, her cheeks shining with wetness. “Dominic, it’s over. Accept it. You’re only dragging out the inevitable.”
Accept it, my ass. This couldn’t be it. Not for us, not after last night.
“Then why can’t you look at me?” I demanded.
She shook her head again, her shoulders trembling with silent sobs.
“Dammit, Ále.” A small, humiliating crack split her name in half. I was breaking into a million pieces, and she couldn’t even be bothered to notice.
“Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me anymore?”
“Loving you was never the problem!” She finally met my eyes, her expression equal parts infuriated and anguished. “I’ve loved you for eleven years, Dom. I loved you so much I lost myself. Everything I did, everything I gave up and endured was for you. The late nights, the missed dates, the canceled trips. I believed in you and wanted you to succeed, not because I cared about the money, but because you did. I thought one day, it would be enough, and you would be happy with what we had. But you’ll never be happy, and I’ll never be enough.”
A bitter laugh mixed with her sob. “Do you know that there were times when I wished you had a mistress? At least then, I would have something concrete to fight. But I can’t fight what I can’t see, so I went to sleep every night in an empty bed, and I woke up every morning to an empty house. I faked my smiles for so long I couldn’t remember what a real one felt like, and I hate myself because despite all that, I couldn’t let go of what we once had.” Alessandra’s voice broke. “You’re right. I do still love you. A part of me always will. But you’re not the person I fell in love with anymore, and all this time that I’ve spent trying to pretend you are? It’s killing me.”
The room blurred, and a painful roar filled my ears as I dropped her arm.
I couldn’t draw enough oxygen into my lungs. Couldn’t think clearly.
Couldn’t breathe.
Throughout it all—the long weeks, the ignored calls, even the damn divorce papers—I’d thought we would make it. After all, perseverance had gotten me this far. The unwanted foster kid from Ohio turned king of Wall Street. The pauper turned billionaire. The unlovable turned husband.
But perseverance crumbled in the face of truth, and Alessandra’s truth smashed any excuses I might’ve had to smithereens. So I went with my own truth, the only one that had remained indisputable since the day she walked into my life.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever loved.” I didn’t recognize my voice. It was too raw, too laced with emotions I’d sworn I would never feel. “Even if I didn’t show it. It’s always been you.”
A fresh tear slid down her cheek. “I know.”
But it’s not enough.
I knew her well enough to hear the unspoken words, and if it was possible to die multiple deaths, I would’ve visited hell a thousandfold in that one moment.
“If you really loved me,” Alessandra whispered, “you would let me go.
Please.”
Silence echoed, deep and mournful. There was nothing left to say.
A strange, watery film obstructed my vision, so I relied on muscle memory to navigate to the nightstand. Shards of glass wedged between my ribs with each step, but an icy numbness enveloped me as I opened the top drawer.
I retrieved a pen, slid a sheaf of documents out from the waiting manila envelope, and, after one last, agonizing heartbeat, I signed our divorce papers.
