I shook my head. “It’s not that I don’t give a damn about her. I just don’t feel the way I used to. How many times do I have to say it?”
He stared at the surface of the table for a while and ran his fingers through his hair. “You loved her once. I think you could love her again if you wanted to. You wouldn’t even have to try.”
It was my turn to stare at the table. “But I don’t want to try.”
20
Sofia
It took a few weeks for us to move to Florence. I put the house on the market and left it up to the real estate agent to sell before fall. Thankfully, my inheritance was sizable enough that we had been able to hold on to our old place close to the hotel. It’d been vacant for a while now, and my mom didn’t have the heart to sell it.
I hadn’t spoken to Hades since our last painful conversation because I dreaded talking to him now. He was a heartless asshole, and I could only take rejection so many times. Before I officially made the move, I stopped by Ash’s place to say goodbye.
“Where’s the little stud?” He didn’t seem to care about me at all, just his nephew, whom he’d grown so fond of.
“He’s not a stud…at least not yet. I’d like to keep it that way for a long time.”
“If he’s anything like me and Hades, he’ll start young. I think I lost my virginity…”
“Anyway…did you talk to Hades?” Ash had never called me, so I assumed he only had bad news.
He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. “He said everything that you had already told me. It doesn’t make any sense…I don’t get any of it. But his story didn’t change. He’s just a different person. No idea why.”
Ash had been my last hope to get something out of Hades. Damien would probably have been more helpful, but since they weren’t friends anymore, he was useless. Now I felt even more devastated because I didn’t know what else to do besides give up.
Ash gave me a soft expression. “I’m sorry…”
“Yeah…me too.” If Hades was this cold to me, that meant he’d probably already moved on with his life. He had different women at his place, and my old wedding ring sat in the nightstand where it’d been forgotten. I didn’t want to let him go, but I didn’t know what choice I had. It wasn’t like I could change his mind. “I guess that’s it…” Tears burned behind my eyes, but I didn’t let them rise to the surface. I’d lost the love of my life, and now he acted like he hated me. Just woke up one day, and everything was different.
“I don’t think you’ll ever understand his decision. And you probably won’t change his mind. But maybe you could do something else.”
“Like what?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t recommend this. Personally, I wouldn’t do it because I have way too much pride. But if you still love him and want to keep fighting for him…”
“I do.”
“Then you can make him fall in love with you again.”
That seemed impossible right now. “I don’t even know how I would do that.”
“What did you do the first time?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. In the beginning, we were just hooking up…”
“Then try that again. Be the person in his bed…so no one can replace you.”
I used to feel sexy when I was with him, but now I didn’t feel sexy at all. My body was different after having a baby, so I wasn’t the size zero I used to be. It wasn’t the same as it was years ago. I doubted I was the kind of fantasy he had. “I don’t think he’ll want me.”
“Trust me, he will.”
“Why? I’m twenty pounds heavier than I used to be, and my boobs are different.”
“A guy doesn’t care about a woman looking perfect. He cares about a woman fucking perfect. Something tells me you have that down.” He winked at me. “If you really love him, I would at least try. Because if you don’t try…you’ll probably never get him back.”
My mother watched Andrew while I was at work at the hotel. She was a free babysitter, and she looked forward to spending time with her grandson every single day. I didn’t have to worry about him because I knew he was in safe hands.
It was nice to be back at the Tuscan Rose. There were other vacant offices, so I could have worked somewhere else and avoided the crime scene, but I actually felt safe while working in the place where Maddox died.
Where I shot him.
It made me feel like the victor, the solution to my own problem. I wished Hades were more thankful for the sacrifice I’d made, but he seemed ambivalent about it. Brainwashed was the best description to explain his behavior. But whatever the cause, it didn’t change the illness.
I thought about Hades often and tried to think of an excuse to see him, but my only reasonable move was to talk about the son we shared. But having the baby with us made it difficult for us to be ourselves. We couldn’t scream at each other because it’d make Andrew cry.
I called Damien as I sat at my desk.
He answered after a couple rings. “It’s been a long time…”
Damien and I had fallen out of touch when I’d moved to Rome. Now that he and Hades weren’t close anymore, he drifted to the outskirts of my thoughts. I’d always thought the two of them would make up, but it’d been so long that seemed impossible now. “I know. Life just got hectic… You know how it is.”
“Life is shitty, if that’s what you mean.”
Ain’t that the truth. “How are things with you?”
He had a soft heart under that hard body because he continued to talk to me even though he really had no reason to. “Hades is trying to push me out of the business, and he thinks I’m a liar…and I haven’t caught any good tail lately. So, things have been better.”
“Why would he want to get rid of you?”
He sighed into the phone. “Because he’s an arrogant bastard who thinks he doesn’t need anyone anymore.” The venom in his voice was unmistakable. Even if Hades apologized, Damien probably wouldn’t give a shit. That bridge had been burned.
“Why does he think you’re a liar?”
“He assumes I collaborated with you to kill Maddox when I promised I wouldn’t get involved.”
My heart sank when I realized I’d caused a greater rift between the two men. “It was me and Ash…”
“Yeah, I figured that out a couple hours later. But he’s so stubborn, he can’t think straight.”
“Did you tell him that?”
His voice came out like ice. “No.”
“Well, you should.”
“Well, I don’t want to. His opinion of me means nothing. I don’t give a damn if he thinks I’m a liar and a cheat. I know I fucked up in the past, but I’ve always been a good friend to him. It’s not my fault he can’t see that.”
Now I wondered if Hades had really lost his mind. Maybe being stuck with Maddox for so long messed with his head. It changed him, traumatized him until he couldn’t handle it anymore. He responded the only way he knew how…by snapping to cope. “Yeah, he’s definitely lost touch.”