Mattia

"Great party, Mattia."

Nuelle was doing a great job at pushing all my buttons and the smirk on my brother's face as the result of my bitterness was truly the cherry on top.

A little spark of hope had filled my heart when she called back but after hearing Marco talking in the background, I knew that it would not be easy to go through with what I had planned.

Dammit, I cursed at myself. I was aware of the mistakes that I had made in the past, but this time there was a lot more at stake because I was making myself completely vulnerable and could possibly ruin my relationship with my brother.

I watched as she walked up the stairs, not giving either one of us a second look. I turned back to Marco who flashed me his teeth before he attempted to walk straight passed me.

"What did you do?" I stopped him when our shoulders aligned.

He turned sideways to address me, "I took her away from the party because she was too hurt to stay."

"Where did you take her?"

He frowned upon my question, "Why don't you ask Nuelle for the details." He walked away before I had a chance to ask what I actually wanted to know.

I stood quietly for a few seconds, the voices in my head were having a staff meeting about the best approach to deal with this situation. Under no circumstances did I want to hurt the people around me— especially Emmanuelle, not again.

But somehow it seemed impossible for the outcome of this situation to be one hundred percent positive. Either way, someone was going to get hurt.

I returned to my room after Anthony called to tell me that he was on his way. As soon as I ended our call my phone started to ring again. I groaned when I saw Gia's name on the screen.

I put the phone to my side as I sat down on the bed and buried my face in my hands. I could not imagine what must have been going through her mind, I left her on our engagement party in the hope of winning back someone else.

"Mattia," Anthony announced his arrival.

"Yeah," I looked up, my attention was immediately caught by the envelope in his hand.

"Passports and tickets to London. The flight is in three days."

I gulped, "Thanks."

"Have you spoken to her?"

I shook my head, still contemplating whether that would be a good idea or not.

"You're having second thoughts?"

"She came home with Marco just now, wearing his fucking clothes." I complained.

Anthony was surprisingly calm. I had expected him to turn on his protector mode as he usually did when it came to Nuelle.

"You don't seem worried."

"I trust that Marco wouldn't do anything that she didn't want him to do." He explained.

A sarcastic smile coated my lips,  "Well, that's great."

When my phone started ringing again I almost threw it against the wall out of frustration.

"I can feel your judgment, Anthony."

"Can you blame me? Three days ago you were dead sure about getting married to Gia and now you're ignoring her calls, because you want to run away with Nuelle?" He frowned.

"I'm not," I paused to take a deep breath. "I'm not trying to run away."

"Is it because of what Rafael said?"

"What? No!" I shook my head.

"Come on, Mattia. I'm sure the same thing came to your mind when he said that he was going to buy his way into the company. We both know damn well that Marco and Marissa aren't going to sell their shares. That leaves Nuelle."

"This has nothing to do with Rafael! And I don't own anyone in this house an explanation." The words sputtered out of my mouth with such rage.

"Well, you wouldn't be in this shit if you did some explaining every now and then. You know, for a second there I actually believed that you cared about her." He mumbled, throwing the envelope on the bed after which he stormed off.

"What!" I answered Gia's call when the ringing started again.

She had barely started speaking when my mind shut her voice out. I tried very hard to care but I simply could not. Accepting that the feeling I had towards her was not love in its purest form was a revelation that I could not fight against.

Without taking the consequences of the action of being straight forward with Emmanuelle into consideration, I ended the call with Gia and decided to carry it out.

Perhaps I was wrong for thinking that I did not own anyone an explanation for my actions, because being honest about what was going through my mind seemed like the only option at this point.

My nerves slowed me down even more than my restriction of moving fast. I automatically stopped when I reached the stairs. This was the first time I would be going upstairs since the accident. I held onto the railing, said a prayer the best way I possibly could and pushed myself to walk up each step.

For a moment all my worries had disappeared when I made it up the stairs. Leighton was right, my body needed time to heal but turns out my mind needed to heal too.

With a smile on my face I headed to her room. Overcoming the barrier that kept me in the darkest place of my life for the past few months, put me in a better mood. It easily tricked me into thinking that everything would go as planned with Nuelle as well.

Her bedroom door was ajar. I reached out to open it wide. But, I stopped the moment his voice reached my ears.

"What did she say?" Marco asked.

"She blamed Mattia because everything is always his fault, right?" There was a waver in her voice.

"I hate how everyone just lets him ruin their lives," she sighed. "I feel so stupid that this is the person that I wanted to be with."

My heart was slamming against my chest. I should have spared myself from more pain and the potential embarrassment of getting caught listening in on their private conversation. Yet, I could not turn around and leave.

Marco chuckled, "We can't control who we fall for."

During their brief moment of silence I quietly pushed the door open a bit wider to get a better view of them like a fucking stalker.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, his eyes staring directly into hers as she stared back. There was undoubtedly a lot of sexual attraction.
I could tell because she looked at him the way she used to look at me.

Nuelle rolled her eyes in a playful manner to which Marco responded by pulling her closer to him which she did not fight against.

She pressed her face into his chest as he ran his fingers up and down her back whilst his other hand was placed at the back of her head.

When she looked up at him, he took her face in his right hand. Their faces inched closer. Then much to my despair, their lips touched.

My eyes fell closed for a millisecond. I could not fathom why I continued to stand there to watch this happen. I turned 160 degrees towards the stairs and began walking. I struggled to walk down and as if my bad luck did not want to come to an end I saw Gia's car stop in front of the house.

I stopped and waited for her at the end of the staircase, expecting nothing other than for her to be furious. Surprisingly, she was quiet when she walked in. Something was wrong, I could feel it in my gut. But, I could not quite put my finger on it.

"You left me. Why did you leave me?"

"I'm sorry. I—"

Truth is that I did not have an excuse in mind. How was I suppose to tell my fiance that I left her because I had fallen for someone who was making out with my brother?

I could not.

-------------------------------

Q: thoughts on Marco and Nuelle ?