Marry. Ride. Love.

I knew how I could get it again and again

*Isabella*

My eyes were terribly swollen when I looked in the mirror the next morning.

I just quickly got ready, then prepared breakfast and disappeared right away. I didn't want anyone to see me like that.

Especially not Valentino or Pecco.

However, for different reasons.

I didn't want to see Valentino because he wouldn't have cared that I looked so teary, and I didn't want to see that not bothering look.

And I didn't want to see Pecco because he would have immediately asked why I had been crying. Basically, he knew that already and I wasn't particularly keen on talking about it again. I really liked Pecco, but that didn't make it any easier, because I knew I had already let him get way too close to me.

If I went any further, let him get any closer, I was afraid I'd be able to last the year much less. If I really liked him...

I already put this thought aside when I could hear footsteps behind me. I had just walked a bit away from the house and settled down under a tree because I didn't know where else to go.

I didn't really want to be found, after all. Even though I hadn't really been hiding at all.

I just wanted to be alone.

"You weren't in the house. I was worried.", Valentino stood next to me and looked at me with a look I couldn't interpret. He didn't even understand what he was doing to me.

I gave him a sideways glance and immediately got angry. Especially after that one night when we had kissed and I had had hopes that there might be something between us. After he had fought for me and had suddenly been so gentle. The disappointment had been much worse when he had pushed me away the next morning, when I had realized it at that moment.

The pain had come later.

And it made me angry.

Because all I basically wanted was just a little bit of his attention.

No, actually I wanted more. I wanted this feeling that he had given me. This feeling of being loved. I wanted to feel his hands again, to kiss him again.

But all he saw in me was the money my father "donated" to him. It wasn't even the right term for it. He was basically paying Valentino to keep me here for a year. And I hated my father more for it every day. Because he had shown me a place where I wanted more than ever to feel at home, but couldn't. And he'd married me to a man whose love I wanted like I'd never wanted in anyone before, but would never have.

"Were you worried about your money? Worried about me running away?", I hissed venomously and pushed myself up to meet him at eye level "Don't worry, I'm not running away.", I hissed "I have a good reason to stay here and you'll get your money.".

I knew exactly how to interpret the sentence too. That maybe Pecco was my good reason to stay. I just wanted him to get angry and feel the same as I did. That he felt anything at all towards me except nothing at all. And even if he didn't get the hint, at least he understood that I needed to stay.

I wondered if it had never occurred to him that I might have been forced here.

"Cuoricina..." but this time I pushed past him.

"Just leave me!", I hissed, but this time he followed me and grabbed my wrist to spin me around.

"I told you to leave me alone! Don't touch me!", I tried to pull my hand away from him, but he held it tightly.

"Just listen to me for a moment.", he tried to say calmly, but I could see impatience slowly but surely rising in his eyes, and anger.

Good, then at least he felt something when he looked at me.