Page 101 of Ruined

“Don’t you get sick of lying to yourself?”

I sighed. “Maybe I like my space.”

“Maybe you’re scared.”

I clenched my jaw. “Can’t you give me a break?”

“This isn’t about you,” he said, stabbing into his eggs. “I don’t like it. When I wake up and the bed’s empty, it pisses me off.”

I hesitated. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

“Of course I do. I’ve had enough people disappear on me without warning. I don’t need it happening in my own bed.”

My chest ached. “I didn’t disappear. I was on the couch.”

“That’s not the point.” He set the fork down, staring at me. “It reminds me of someone.”

I bristled. “Frank?”

“Yeah. We were together for a year.”

An entire year?I swallowed my rage down. “What happened?”

“We kept it a secret because he couldn’t come out. I put up with it, even though it really bothered me. One night, he left in the middle of the night,” Dominic muttered, his gaze dropping to the table. “I woke up, and he was gone.”

I froze, the fork halfway to my mouth.

“The next day, I found out he was engaged. To a woman.”

My grip on the fork tightened. “Seriously?”

His lips twisted. “A week later, they had a big engagement party. I wasn’t invited, of course, but I heard all about it. Blonde, sweet, exactly the kind of girl his family would approve of.”

“Did he ever explain himself?”

Dominic’s jaw tightened. “He called me once. Weeks later. Said I was fun, but he had to move on with his life. Then he asked me to keep quiet about us.”

My blood boiled.I’ll kill him.

“He has kids now. Two of them. A boy and a girl. I don’t care anymore. It’s water under the bridge.”

The thought of that bastard walking around, pretending to be a family man while lusting after Dominic, made me want to burn his whole life to the ground.

Dominic leaned back in his chair. “I bump into him all the time at work. He still drops hints that he’d fuck me behind his wife’s back.”

That piece of shit. “I thought I made it clear to that scumbag you were off-limits.”

“Frank doesn’t take hints. He’s like a dog with a bone.”

“So, he’s going to keep hanging around, waiting for you to give him the time of day?”

“Luca, I don’t need you fighting my battles.”

I swallowed hard. “I wasn’t trying to.”

“Frank’s my problem, not yours. Stay away from him.”

My jaw tightened. “Why?”