For the Love of Fire

Chapter 27 Dani

As the door clicks and Matteo turns, resting his back to the door. I can see his stress as he drops his head. I watch him from the counter. Like he is meditation. When his head rises looking at me I feel naked. Nerves igniting. He just watches me with a smirk. Like he knows something I don't. In a few paced steps he is standing near me. He holds out his hand for mine.

" You're scaring me." I say in a low pitched voice.

" Dani, I love you. You do realize Tony is into guys right?"

" I do now." Slamming my hand on the wood feeling the vibration to my elbow. My mind starts racing.

"Thoughts so." He lets out a long breath. " However, the good thing is he would marry you for the family. He just wouldn't do married life. It would be more like a best friend."

" So this isn't set then." Running my hands through my hair. I thought I gave him an out. I thought I figured out I can have an okay life. I can be with my family and this stupid war can end. How did the queens ever put up with all of this?

" Run away with me." He whispers. " I'll get my family and we will go."

" I can't do that." His eyes narrow and go dark.

" Why can't we?" His hands meet my neck. " We love each other."

" Because I love my family too. No matter their mess ups I can't leave them."

The room goes silent. Thick with the unknown of what is to come of my life. I won't be able to stay here. I won't be able to be with him anymore and we both know it. We both know we have to walk away and say goodbye. I just don't want to let him go yet.

" I have to get food." Matteo says after way too long.

" I have to go home." I admit. Trying to rip the band aid off.

" Don't go yet." He pulls me into his arms. " Stay one more night."

I shake my head knowing it. I think about it more. I will cry and I don't want to cry. I don't want to be that girl that can't handle the hard parts of life. I don't like showing my soft side. Matteo is the only man outside my family I feel so comfortable doing so with. I didn't even feel this comfortable with Walker. It was like he broke part of my walls I built up but Matteo lit the dynamite.

Damn this man and his love for me. I need him to let me go. I need this to be easy. I am not delusional. I know it won't be easy in the least but I need to try. I took my phone from the bowl he put it in when we got here and looked up at home.

"I have to go home." My throat is dry.

" Not yet."

" Matteo, this isn't going to be any easier tomorrow. I have to go home." I shrug my shoulders trying to hold back my tears. Releasing his hands from my arms and walking around him for the door that everyone planning my life out of for me just walked through.

When I twist the door I hear him gasp. " Danielle...."

I don't turn around and look at him knowing it will be too hard. " I couldn't help falling in love with you. I will always love you."

I don't get three steps from the door when it closes and I hear a crash and Matteo screaming. Covering my mouth from my sobs I run down the hall to go home. The home I no longer want to be at. The home that is no longer my home. My home is the man destroying his apartment in agony, that I walked away.

After a very long shower crying on the tile floor. Letting the water take my tears with it. So I can do what I have to do. I have today to cry. I have today to be sad. I have today to mourn the life I loved. I fell in love with the man that kidnapped me. I fell in love with another Ferrari. I will no longer be able to think of a book and movie without thinking of him. Collecting myself I collapse in my empty bed.