Page 4 of The Ache That Stayed
My muscles loosened before I could stop them.
His touch was warm, solid, real. It dragged me back into my body whether I wanted to return or not. Physical touch grounded me when my mind tried to leave. In his arms, I felt wanted instead of broken.
“Let’s sit,” he murmured.
We moved to the covered seating area overlooking the sea. The sea stretched endlessly below us, dark and restless. Waves folded over themselves in a slow, relentless rhythm.
From a distance, it looked calm. Up close, it was chaos disguised as stillness.
My fingers twisted the hem of my shirt, wrinkling the fabric between my fists.
“Sahil’s going on paternity leave. Priya is due any day now,” I said evenly. “Ritu wants me in Ireland. For a whole month.”
He watched me in the same calm way he always did when he expected the inevitable.
“I had anticipated it.”
“What? How? I’m the one who was supposed to—”
I shook my head.
“Forget it,” I said simply. “I’ll just ask someone from the Mumbai office to go.”
“You’ll do no such thing. You’ve been running it since day one,” he said. “You know the site. The contractors trust you. And she wants someone who won’t let them cut corners.”
I bit my lip.
“It’s a month. And the kids—a month is a long time, Marci.”
“Kyra’s school just started. Alessia can manage; I’ve already discussed this with her,” he said. “Plus, Kyra has Sophie and Matteo. It’ll feel like the holidays for them.”
My brows narrowed and I let out a huff.
“What about Romano?” I asked.
“He stays with me.”
“But you have the meeting with Ronnie.”
“I know,” he said, firm but not sharp. “That’s why I’ve called your mother. Once I leave, she’ll join Kyra in Palma.”
He pulled me closer to him, kissing the top of my head.
“I’ve got this, amore. You needn’t worry.”
Marcello liked control. Not the suffocating kind—never that. His control felt like structure. Like the certainty that someone stronger than you was already watching the door.
Work was my territory. Always had been. But the rest of the world—the dangerous parts, the unpredictable ones—I was more than happy to let him handle.
For a man belonging to a mafia empire, Marcello didn’t cage me. He made sure nothing else could.
“I don’t want hawks,” I insisted. “I don’t want to feel watched.”
“I know,” he replied. “I’ll arrange somewhere private. And before you say something else, I promise I won’t buy it, just a rental.”
He had never made me feel trapped. Never treated me like something he owned. And yet…
There were still parts of me he would never see. Things I kept buried so deep even love couldn’t reach them. Because some part of me still believed that if he ever saw everything—the anger, the shadows, the things I’d survived—he might decide I was too much. He might be ashamed of me.
