Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚎 ─ 𝚑𝚘𝚖𝚎
When I woke up the next morning, I found Christian standing at the end of the bed, suitcase in hand.
"Finally. If I'd let you, I bet you'd sleep until two." He throws the suitcase on the bed and begins putting his clothes in it.
"Where are you going?" I ask him drowsily, rubbing my eyes. I sat up on the bed, throwing my legs over the side.
"We're both going home. Sorry the trip had to be cut short."
"What? I don't want to leave Italy." I stand up and begin walking toward the bathroom. I look in mirror at my hair that looked very similar to a bird's nest.
"Someone tried to kill my family." He says from the bedroom.
"Well-" I pause, "Actually that's a reason I can't really argue with."
"You did a good job convincing my father. He thinks we're actually dating." Christian brings that up, and I feel my heart sink a bit.
"Oh... that's good." I can't help the waver in my voice. If he believed it did that mean this was all over? What if Christian didn't want anything to do with me now. Now that I met him I don't think I could go back to my old life.
"Yeah?"
"What will h-happen now." I try to distract myself my brushing my hair, but it wasn't really working. Christian drops his things and comes into the bathroom with me.
"Wouldn't you like to keep pretending?" He grabs the brush from my hand and sets it down on the counter. Then he leans down and kisses my shoulder. I feel a flurry of butterflies burst through me.
"Yes." I whisper. He watches me in the mirror and pushes a blonde lock of hair behind my ear.
"I'm sure my father doesn't totally believe us... yet." He smirks and I nod, unable to really speak. The more words that come out of his mouth the more I want him to kiss me.
"Christian..." I trail off, but before I can speak his lips were on mine and I was pushed back roughly into the counter.
I was surprised at first, but the shock passes and I relax into the kiss. He picks me up and places me on the counter and I wrap my legs around his waist. There was so many reasons I shouldn't have been doing this, but I ignore all of them. I wanted this, and so did he, and at the moment that was all that mattered.
"I can't believe we have to go home." Katelyn rolls her eyes and took a long sip of her iced coffee. I was more of a tea kind of girl.
"I'm sure Adrian will bring you back." I reply. She glances over at me.
"What about you? Won't Christian bring you back." She asks and I look over at her sadly.
"I don't know." I shrug, "I don't know what's next for us. He has no reason to keep me around now. What if he ditches me once we get back?"
"Well, then you'd still have me... and Adrian too." She adds and I chuckle a bit. The car stops in front of the airport and we get out as the valet hands us our bags.
"You really like him, huh?" I ask her, and she nods.
"He's silly, but I like that about him. I'm excited to see what's next for us."
"That's so cute." I give her a small smile, a bit sad that's not how I felt with Christian. I was kind of jealous. Her relationship with Adrian seemed so easy. Everything with Katelyn was easy. She came from a great family and she had a good job. A lot of the time I wished I was her.
We walk into the airport and I look on my phone to see the text where Christian had told us to where go. The boys took separate cars because Adrian said we were taking too long getting ready. So, now Kate and I had to try not to get lost in this huge airport while looking for the private jet.
"I have to us the bathroom. Stay here, okay?" Katelyn waves slightly before walking off in the crowd. I hold on to her luggage and bite my lip nervously, waiting.
She is gone for about ten minutes before I start to get worried. My eyes scan the crowd and they land on too men coming straight toward me. At first I didn't think anything of it, but the closer they came the sooner I realized they weren't going to stop. I start to walk away and try to get lost in the crowd, but they quicken their pace and suddenly they had both grabbed one of my arms.
"What the hell!" I try to twist away, but they're stronger than me.
"Come with us, Miss Romano."
"You two are very mistaken. You've got the wrong person."
"Quiet." They pull me so quickly I lose the luggage and am shoved out the airport and hustled into a black car with tinted windows before anyone could see.
The two men sat at my side, both their faces forgettable with nothing special about them. Their one defining trait was that they were both big men. Men that reminded me of people like Christian's bodyguards. Someone else sat in the front seat, but I couldn't see them behind the divider that separated me from the driver.
"Hello, Maria." The mystery guy spoke with a small Italian accent. His voice was unfamiliar and made me question how he knew my name.
"Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?"
"Well, you are in the tabloids, aren't you?" He chuckled, "Didn't your boyfriend tell you he was dangerous?"
"Are you dangerous?" I ask. I couldn't see him, but I could feel his grin through the silence.
"Depends on who you ask. To you though, no." He paused, "Not today, anyways."
"Who are you, and why do you want to hurt me." I ask sternly.
"Wow, so many questions, piccolina, but I can't answer them all today. He'll have to tell you." Suddenly he turned around and I got to see his face, "And I don't want to hurt you, Maria, none of us do." His eyes were green and he looked so familiar to me. I just couldn't put my finger on what was odd about him.