Page 116 of Irreplaceable
He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to mine. “You and Aiden are more important to me than anything.”
My jaw dropped. “What? But you can’t just—”
“I can, and I did.” He smoothed my hair away from my face. And when he looked at me, I didn’t feel despair; I felt hope. “And I do not regret it one bit.”
He fell to his knees before me. “I’m begging you. Ti prego—” His voice cracked on the the last word, and I nearly relented. “I’m so fucking grateful the universe gave me a chance to be with you. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you. Please don’t leave me.”
The sight of this strong, tattooed man humbling himself before me was almost more than I could bear. But then I remembered the images of him with Giada.
“What happened with Giada? Why were you with her?”
“I don’t think now’s the—” He stood.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You said you could explain, and I want an answer.” We needed to clear the cobwebs of the past before we could move forward.
He sighed. “She threatened to go to the tabloids again.”
I gnashed my teeth. Would she ever stop? And what was Enzo so scared of?
“I figured she wanted more money,” he said, and I could feel my blood pressure rising the longer he explained. “And I was right. But it was worse than that.”
My stomach churned with unease. “Worse how?”
“She had pictures…” He shook his head. “She threatened to tell everyone that I’d hit her.”
“What?” I jerked my head back. As passionate and as rough as Enzo could be in bed at times, I could never imagine him hurting me or anyone. “You mean, like spanking during sex?”
He nodded. “At first, I’d thought she was into it. But when I realized she wasn’t, I pulled back. I made myself be gentler to give her what she needed.”
As much as I hated the thought of Enzo with another woman, I appreciated him telling me what had happened. Trusting me.
“I hadn’t…done anything like that with her in years. But she said she’d taken pictures of her skin with red marks from my hand. I’m not even sure if that’s true, but she threatened to show them to the press and tell her story. She figured after the incident with me shoving the paparazzi and then being in the spotlight so much for the World Cup, now was the time to cash in.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Supposedly she’d been holding on to them, waiting for a chance to screw me over.”
I wished I could’ve been at that meeting to give her a piece of my mind. How dare she…
Enzo placed his hand over mine. “Uccellina, you have to stay calm.”
Our eyes met and held, and despite my anger, I forced myself to calm down. “That is so wrong.”
“And that’s why I was meeting with her. Val couldn’t reason with Giada. She refused to talk to anyone but me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew it would upset you, and I hoped to just deal with it and move on. But that backfired. I’m so sorry for…everything. You went through something so traumatic. And I’m sorry I was responsible for that.”
“What?” I gasped. “No.” I grabbed his hand. “No. You are not responsible for what happened.”
“But the stress. And your blood pressure. And…” He cleared his throat and said nothing more. It hit me that his concern might be the reason he’d waited to see me. He hadn’t wanted to risk upsetting me.
“Enzo,” I said, waiting until he’d looked at me. “What happened was not your fault. It was no one’s fault.”
I hoped he was listening to me, because I meant it. About this and his dad’s death.
Enzo glanced to the ceiling. “I was so afraid I was going to lose both of you.”