The Italian Billionaire’s Nubian Queen

So she would have to pick up the pieces somehow, and she would have to go on.

“Alyssa, it’s not… Look, I can explain it all. I swear, I can explain.”

“You’ve tried to explain and it hasn’t really sounded very good so far.”

“It’s not a big deal. Alyssa, listen to me. It’s not a big deal.”

She turned away, closed her eyes, and wondered how he could say that.

“Alyssa, please. Listen to me.”

She shook her head.

“There’s nothing to listen to. There’s nothing you can say, Matteo. There’s nothing. You’re engaged. There’s no getting around that.”

“Alyssa.”

“You can stay the night. It’s raining, I don’t want to ask you to leave now. But in the morning, I want you to leave, and I want you to know that it’s final.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Of course I can do that. Of course I can. This is my life, too, Matteo. You’ve planned everything, haven’t you? You’ve planned how my life will be from now on! You’ve planned what I’ll do with my shop, where I’ll live, what I’ll do—how could you think that that would be okay? It’s my life!”

“What are you angry about right now? A technicality that means nothing? Or are you angry at me because I’ve recognized and accepted what there is between us?”

“What are you even talking about!”

Alyssa threw her hands up in the air, nearly throwing her phone at him.

“You’re just angry because I have seen what we have. I have recognized it. You’re angry because you can’t accept it.”

Alyssa took a step forward, finally fed up.

“I don’t care what you think we have. I don’t care what you think we’re supposed to have. Listen to me, Matteo. This is my life. This is betrayal. This photo, it shouldn’t have been a shock to me when somebody sent it to me. You should have been able to tell me that it’s from a long time ago, and it’s in the past—without qualifiers. Without telling me that technically maybe you are actually engaged to be married! To somebody else! Even if we were fated to have the kind of love story that’s written in the stars, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Because I still get to choose. I will never choose to be with a man who let me find out another way that he’s engaged to be married. I will not choose to be with a man who wants to take away my choice. Who thinks that expecting me to uproot my life for him is a reasonable thing. I don’t care if you understand where I’m coming from. If you don’t understand, then you don’t understand. That’s all there is to it. But this is done. We’re over, Matteo. Whatever we think we’ve got, we don’t have it. Without honesty, without respect, there is nothing. Nothing, do you understand? Nothing.”

“You can’t mean this. I came all this way for you. I rearranged my life because I love you!”

Alyssa shook her head furiously.

“You did it for yourself. So what if we had a few dreams? Our lives aren’t spent in dream. They’re lived in the real world. In the real world, you have no respect for me. You came here because you believed that I belong to you. Well, I’ve got news for you, mister. I don’t belong to anybody but myself. You can take that to the bank.”

Matteo glared at her, his eyes cold, his face set.

“You refuse to listen.”

“Fine. I refuse to listen. I admit it. Now will you leave me alone?”

He went still.

“You want me to leave you alone.”

“Yes. I want you and your brother to get out of my life. He’s latched onto my sister, do you know that? She’s in a bad place and now he’s got his hooks into her. She’s not seeing straight right now. He will ruin her life, won’t he? It’s what you do, the both of you. This whole thing, it’s got something to do with your father’s will, doesn’t it? Your brother came here because of it. You were surprised to see him. Don’t tell me you weren’t. It was obvious that you were.”

“Things are complicated between us.”

“Sure. Sure, when it’s something to do with your actual life, you brush it off by saying it’s complicated as if that’s not the biggest cliché in the world. But you have no problem planning my entire life out to your convenience. We don’t even know each other!”

“We know each other! We could know each other for a thousand years and we wouldn’t know each other better.”

She shook her head in denial, and with great effort, she stepped back, and she stepped away.

“This is over. Whatever it is, it’s over. I don’t know what kind of madness this was, but none of it was anything like me. None of this is like anything I would do. I don’t care. This is over. I want you to leave tomorrow, and we’ll go back to our sane lives.”

This time, he didn’t try to explain. He didn’t try to convince her that she was wrong. He just looked at her grimly and nodded.

“If that’s how you feel, Alyssa. You won’t be bothered by me again.”

“I… You can stay till morning. It’s raining.”

“I won’t melt in the rain. Goodbye.”

“Your clothes are in the wash.”

“Donate them.”

He walked out of the kitchen, leaving her alone, and he walked out of her life. Alyssa told herself that she’d done the right thing. Of course she’d done the right thing.

She heard her front door open and close, and she waited for the relief.

She waited for the madness to pass.

She waited for her life to start making sense.

But it didn’t. Nothing made sense, still.

Everything hurt.

The rain fell, and fell, all night. She sat at her kitchen table and waited for the numbness to go away. But that didn’t go away, either.

She waited for the pain, then. Anything.

But she felt nothing. It was as if he’d taken her heart with him, and she had nothing left to feel with.

She just needed time, she told herself. She just needed time to sort out everything that had happened. Sure, it had only been a couple of weeks, but it had been wild. Things that simply didn’t happen in real life had happened to her. She would soon come to her senses and realize that she wasn’t in love with Matteo. She would soon understand that. Her heart would catch up with her head and she would stop feeling so melodramatic about everything.

She sat there and waited, feeling more and more alone, and she finally began to feel something as the sun rose. It wasn’t any of the things she’d hoped to feel, though. All she felt was emptiness where she had felt happy and fulfilled when he’d been close by. All she felt was an immense sense of loss that she couldn’t even begin to explain to herself.