The Ruler - A Mafia Romance

4

Back at the hotel, he packed his things in a hurry. Threw everything inside without discrimination. Threw his razor right on top of his blazer and then piled his shoes on top. His toothbrush was shoved into the side of the bag. An open tube of toothpaste was haphazardly shoved into one of the sleeves, and it would probably ruin a batch of his clothes during the flight.

But he didn’t give a s**t.

“You’re going to stay here?” he asked as he zipped up the bag.

I wasn’t going to sit on a plane with him. Wasn’t going to return to the apartment we shared. I didn’t have a plan for my next move, and I’d already sunk some serious cash into this vacation. I wasn’t going to waste that, along with the last two years of my life. “Yes.”

“I’ll pack up your things.” He put his suitcase on the floor and popped the handle so he could roll it out. “Let me know when you’re ready to come get it, and I’ll make sure I’m out.”

“So you just assume you keep the apartment?” I asked spitefully.

He stopped by the door and stared at me. “You moved in with me, so yes.”

What a gentleman. “All right, then.”

He lingered in the doorway, as if he felt he should say something for the first time. Some goodbye words, provide some kind of closure.

I sat on the edge of the bed in my dress and heels. “Just go, Enzo.” I was utterly defeated, somewhat relieved I didn’t have a battle to fight anymore. Didn’t have to wonder what would happen with us because I’d watched the ending credits of the film.

He hesitated for another moment before he opened the door and stepped into the hallway. The heavy door shut behind him the instant he was gone.

The curtains to the window were pulled open, and I couldn’t see much in the darkness, just the light from the streetlamps against the leaves of the trees across the street. One of the lamps on the nightstand was on and cast shadows in the corners of the room. I felt the gravity of my loneliness in that moment, but realized I’d been lonely for a long time, long before Enzo had packed his bags and walked out.

I sat there for at least an hour before the tears flooded my eyes. The waves of agony hit me like ocean waves during a full moon. Why had I put up with this for so long? What had I done that made me so undesirable? What could I have possibly done to be so worthless in someone’s eyes?

How could he tell me he loved me . . . and then make me feel so unwanted?

Walk out of my life without even an apology, let alone an explanation.

I wasn’t worth either, apparently.

I didn’t leave my hotel room the next day. Stayed in bed. Didn’t look at my phone—not that I expected him to call or text. Didn’t reach out to any of my friends to tell them what had happened. Even though I knew the end was drawing close, I still wasn’t ready to describe how cruel it had been.

I didn’t have an appetite, so I didn’t order room service or go for some granita and brioche. I watched streaming programs on my device in the dark because I kept the curtains closed over the window. It wasn’t until the next day that I took a shower and headed into town, but the idea of sitting alone in a restaurant made the situation feel too real, so I sat on the steps by the fountain and people-watched for hours. Everyone seemed to be having a great time on their holiday, while I lived through one of the darkest moments of my life.

By the third day, I was ready to get out.

I packed my camera and took pictures of the town. Went to the beach and climbed rocks and headed to Isola Bella to snap photographs. I was a professional photographer, and getting lost in art was the only coping mechanism I had.

When the sun set, I showered and got ready for my evening, choosing to visit the famous hotel farther up the road. It was the setting for a TV show about a murder mystery, and ever since the show debuted, it’d become a popular attraction for everyone who visited Taormina. I’d wanted to stay there in the first place, but it was way out of my price range. A single night there was a week’s stay at the other hotel. I was certain it was worth it, but I just didn’t have the money.

But anyone could visit the bar, so I put on a black dress and heels and braved the cobblestone walkways and the steep stairs, my ass a little plumper after the journey.

The second I entered the hotel, I heard the quiet music of the piano from the musician in the courtyard. The area was full of swivel armchairs and couches, all occupied by hotel guests or other people like me who couldn’t afford to stay there. Full of trees in pots and potted flowers, the space was an oasis in the center of the hotel. There was also no vacancy, so I headed to the indoor bar, the lights low and most of the tables empty. The ceilings were coffered, with golden seashells, and the modern chandeliers that hung down only offered a slight increase in illumination. The mirrored shelves behind the bar were twenty feet high, stacked with every kind of liquor someone could possibly order. The bar also had a piano, but no musician to play it. Instead, music played from speakers overhead as the waiters circulated. Some couples were seated at the tables, but it was mostly men at the bar, who sat alone.

I found a table with two chairs and took a seat. A booklet menu and a low-burning candle were in the center of the table, so I flipped through the pages to see the tapas they had as well as their cocktails. They listed a spicy margarita with mezcal, my preference over tequila, so I ordered that when the waiter serviced me right away.

I took a sip, my phone on the table next to the glass. I should scroll through my social media or find an article to read instead of awkwardly sitting there, but at this moment in my life, I didn’t care how out of place I looked.

The drink was thirty-five euros, and you got what you paid for, because it was strong. So strong that I would have a hard time meeting their two-drink minimum for those who weren’t hotel guests.

Movement caught my eye, and my stare flicked to the left, to the second sitting area I presumed to be in the direction of where the hotel rooms were situated. In a button-up collared shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows, he entered the bar with a presence that commanded the attention of everyone seated. Even the guys seated at the bar glanced at him in the mirror.

Directly across the room from me was an open table with two seats, and he occupied one of the chairs as he pulled out his phone. With dark-brown hair that looked black in this low light and eyes the color of midnight, he was the same prime cut of meat I’d seen outside Rosticceria Da Cristina a few days ago. Wearing dark jeans, he sat with his knees wide apart, elbows on the armrests as he quickly typed on his phone. A slight smirk sat on his lips, like whoever he was messaging with had said something that amused him. Maybe it was a woman he was flirting with. Maybe it was the same guys from the restaurant. My fingers around my glass, all I did was stare at a man more beautiful than all the sculptures of Apollo, god of music. All the sculptures of the emperors in Rome. A man too perfect to be a living being instead of an inanimate work of art.

If he was staying at the hotel, that meant he didn’t live here. He must be visiting from somewhere else. All of his features were distinctly Italian, so I assumed he was from the mainland like I was. He was model material, so maybe Milan. So utterly entranced by the beauty before me, I could only stare.

It was the first break I’d received. To be consumed by something that didn’t bring me misery.

A group of four girls entered the bar and passed me, and it was clear they noticed the same beautiful man, judging by the way all their heads turned in his direction while they slowed their pace.

He stayed on his phone, so he didn’t notice his fan club.

They moved to a table farther down, the only one available that could accommodate all of them.

He finished typing his message just as the waiter walked over. He didn’t look at the menu, already knowing what he wanted, and gave the order. He put his phone on the table and relaxed his muscular body into the chair.

The waiter walked off.

At first, the man looked at the wall across from him, eyes lifted upward as if he was admiring one of the large paintings that hung there. They lingered awhile before his eyes swept the bar, making a quick scan of everyone as his stare came toward me.

I had a quick opportunity to look away and hide my stare, but his appearance had me in a choke hold I couldn’t fight. Frozen in place, I felt his eyes hit me like a searchlight, blanketing me in a glow that put me on center stage.

His stare didn’t pass by me to the bar or another painting. His eyes stayed rooted in place, his stare slowly hardening into the same one he’d given me through the window at the restaurant. An intensity so severe, he almost looked angry.

I had no proof of my assumption, but I knew he remembered me.

Remembered me as well as I remembered him.

The stare went on far too long for strangers, but neither of us looked away first. Music continued to play overhead and drown out the conversations that took place at different tables and the bar, but it felt quiet in my head. His phone lit up with a message, the glow of the screen hitting one of his cheeks, but he didn’t even glance at it.

Even when the waiter came over with his drink and placed it on a coaster, the man didn’t break eye contact with me. I could see him mouth a thank-you to the waiter. One of his elbows was on the armrest, so he slid his closed knuckles underneath his chin, his fingers lightly touching the shadow on his jawline, the coarse hair that would probably feel sharp against the insides of my thighs.

Oh wow, did I really go there?

I just got out of a two-year relationship a few days ago, and I was eye f*****g this guy across the bar. I was miserable not even five minutes ago, and now I felt a distinct tightness in every muscle of my body. Felt fire-breathing dragons fly around my stomach instead of butterflies from the garden.

I was the first one to look away, because the tension had become too much. I felt a flush on my neck that I knew tinted my skin all the way up to my cheeks. It’d been so long since I’d been available, and I couldn’t remember how to be single. How to play it cool when my knees would buckle if I tried to stand up. I was devoid of confidence and not really sure why he stared at me like that, so I needed a moment of freedom from the suffocating power of his stare to think.

I could walk over there, but then what?

What the f**k would I say to a man who looked like that?

I’d had my share of handsome men, but this man . . . was something else. He had to be at least six foot four. Had to have at least a hundred pounds of muscles stacked on his arms, core, and legs. I bet he could crush a watermelon with his bare hands.

Light-years out of my league.

There was a pause in the music when the song finished. That was when I heard the group of girls from their table.

“Girl, go for it, or I’ll go for it. Someone at this table is getting that d**k tonight.”

“He’s probably married or has a girl,” another one said.

My eyes were down on my drink as I listened to them, but I swore I could still feel his stare. I knew there was only one man in the bar they could possibly be talking about, and it was the same man I wanted for myself.

I couldn’t remember what the women had looked like when they’d passed. I just knew they were well dressed and in heels. Probably attractive if they were confident enough to talk that way.

“Men like that don’t have wives or girlfriends. They play the field until they hit forty, and then they marry a twenty-five-year-old,” one of the girls said. “So I’m going for it unless someone objects?”

The heart palpitations in my chest were instantaneous. The man was a stranger, but I was suddenly under duress at the thought of losing him—when he wasn’t even mine. My eyes flicked back up to his table.

He was still staring at me.

The next song came on, but I heard the distinct scratch of a chair against the hardwood floor as one of the girls stood up.

That meant I needed to haul ass if I wanted to beat her. If I wanted to stake a claim on this painfully gorgeous man.

Just when I was about to go for it, I was knocked over by a wave that no one else could see. Knocked on my ass by the painful reminder of the way I’d been neglected, forgotten, and then dumped. And the man across the bar was a million times better than Enzo ever was, so he’d probably be just as disappointed. Even if it was just a night in his hotel room, I was sure I wouldn’t meet his standards, and it would end in sheer awkwardness.

I looked back at my drink and let her have him.

My eyes searched for the waiter who’d brought me my drink, and I made a quick gesture to signal for the check. To get out of there because I didn’t want to watch him go to his room with someone else. Watch him buy her a drink, share a laugh, connect. I’d pay the fee for the second cocktail and just not drink it in order to get out of here faster.

I would go back to my hotel and find something to watch until I fell asleep.

It took a couple minutes for the waiter to walk over with my bill in a small leather folder. I kept myself occupied by using my phone, searching for emails that I knew wouldn’t be there, looking at social media to see what my friends were doing. I hadn’t posted any pictures of my trip, despite all the photos I’d taken the other day.

I placed my card in the folder and waited for the waiter to take it, desperate to get out of there, to walk home down one of the beautiful side streets and let myself breathe in the crisp air and the smell of dinner from the restaurants that I passed.

To try to forget the man who seared my skin with just his stare.

The waiter returned, and instead of taking the credit card I’d left in the folder, he pulled out the other chair and took a seat.

Then I realized it wasn’t the waiter . . . but him.

My chin lifted, and I stared into the same eyes I’d studied across the bar and through a window from a patio. I’d never been this close to him, and the magnetic pull of his commanding air was even more potent at this proximity.

The fire-breathing dragons in my stomach started to burn everything inside me. The flush that had crept down my neck reverted with increased ferocity. I didn’t know what had happened with the woman who’d visited his table because I hadn’t watched and the music had drowned out their conversation, but I could only assume one thing.

That he chose me.