The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 126

‘Just a little bit of touching … You’re too irresistible to not want to touch.’ It’s a wink, a return of playful and yet my heart plummets.

Don’t go there, Alexi, please. I don’t want to fight again.

I mentally will him to not go down this route and just push his hand away as he smiles my way.

‘Did you have some sort of personality transplant when I was gone?’ I chide him, half serious and deflating inside, knowing that this was a dumb invitation to accept. There’s too much between us that comes out whenever we are left alone, and I don’t think we should try to build any sort of camaraderie outside of the club if this is anything to go by. History means there is so much tension and resentment lying in the silence that neither of us wants to air. I’m not that great a communicator, and he seems like he wants avoidance of the before too.

‘Maybe I just had a wake-up call … in more ways than one.’

‘Because your club went down the shitter and you realised you might actually need me?’ It comes out impulsively. Damn that quick bitch in me, and I throw him a knowing look aiming for sarcasm, still trying to jest in my witty banter even if there is a heavier tone to it. This time he looks me dead in the eye and it hits me a little more precisely.

‘Or I just realised I needed you without giving a shit about the club at all.’ Alexi throws me a serious look, something in his expression that makes me instantly terrified, heart pouncing up in my rib cage and I hit the instant sweats. I look away, breath eluding me as cold fear takes a grip on me all over.

‘Don’t go down this route, please Alexi. I can’t … just … stop the car. I’m getting out.’ Panic overtakes me, irrational internal hysteria that I know where this is heading. Straight to Alexi’s form of hell and heartbreak and I pull off my belt impulsively; Fully intending on jumping out of his moving car if he doesn’t stop, rather than be pulled into another emotional game where he fucks my head up and pushes me beyond my limits of coping.

I thought I was stronger than this when it came to him, but my heart is thudding and my head is spinning as my eyes well up with tears. I’m not as immune as I thought, and hints of him trying to pull me back down that road of caring about him send me into an all-out panic attack as the car closes in on me.

‘Cam, don’t be stupid. Put your belt back on,’ Alexi barks at me, reaching to grab me harshly as it slides off; Blinded by the claustrophobic need to just get away from him.

‘Stop the car,’ I repeat emotionally, tears overflowing pathetically now, and I go to grab the handle when he makes no effort to pull over. I yank it, so the door opens a click and then gasp with physical contact as I’m hauled sideways. Alexi grabs hold of me by the upper arm, pulls me towards him so there’s no way in hell I can jump out, and swerves his car to the side of the road recklessly, almost clipping the rear of a car in front and turns on me furiously.

‘What the fuck are you doing? Do you know how serious that could have gotten if you tried to get out of a moving vehicle, Cam?!?!’ he yells at me angrily, fierce-faced and gripping me as though his life depends on it, hurting me slightly with his force.

‘What the fuck are YOU doing? All this bullshit you are throwing at me!’ I yell straight back in his face, shocked impulse, trying like crazy to pull his hand from me but his fingers are biting in with that death grip of his.

‘Trying to be honest with you!’ Alexi bites back but I finally wrench free, losing his hot fingers around my slender arm, and shove him off nastily. I turn to throw my door open and dodge another attempt to lasso me.

I won’t stay here and do this, I’ll walk back to the club, get my shit and leave.

I say nothing, just haul myself upright out of the car and quickly start pacing back in the direction we came, body on fire and mind racing. I jump when Alexi comes up behind me at speed, catches me fast and spins me around to face him with a tug that almost sends me spiralling over.

‘Cam, stop! You’re being stupid.’ He pulls me by the arms towards him to steady me and keep me close and I just lash out and slap them away.

‘No, you stop! You said this was business … you said you would leave me alone … you said it would be different this time! I wouldn’t have come back if you hadn’t agreed. I won’t let you do this to me again … I won’t let you get back in my head with your mind games and veiled motives, to hurt me all over again. You promised!’ I wail at him, words tumbling out in a torrent of rushed panic and upset, tears blinding me and running down my face as my words break with sobs I cannot contain. Unconcealed misery in the way I’m falling apart in front of him.

The bastard still has the same power over me, despite everything, and all it took was a hint of pulling my heart towards him gently and he has me running scared. Like a rabbit being chased by a wolf. I’m terrified and overwrought and trying so hard to just get away from him.

‘I’m not going to hurt you. I swear. I have no motives this time and I’m not doing anything to try to fuck with you. You have to believe me, Cam.’ Alexi sounds strained, voice low and almost emotional, but I’m too caught up in my own agony. I can’t take him at face value.

‘Yes, you will. It’s what you do; it’s what you always do. It’s what you can’t help yourself from doing to me at every opportunity you get.’ I keep slapping away the hands he tries to lay on me, hysteria building crazily from deep down inside, and he seems to give up entirely. Lifting his hands defensively as though trying to show he will stop grabbing me if I just calm down. Eyes locked on my face in an expression that just screams at me to breathe.

‘Okay … okay … I’m done. I’ll drop it. I didn’t want to upset you and make this worse. I’m not touching … look … I swear. I don’t want to hurt you and I definitely don’t want to keep fighting with you.’ He looks pensive, that face not giving much away but his voice is unusually hoarse, even if it’s soft-toned and low, and his eyes are boring into mine in an almost pleading way. Nodding at me as if to make me look around and realise he has let me go. He’s trying to corral a wild animal with a soft approach.

I try and calm myself a little, aware that people around us are looking our way and take some heavy inhales to self-soothe; I wipe my face and bring myself back to sane as shame overwhelms me. Gutted that I just showed him how afraid of him I can be when it’s a case of my feelings being chewed up all over again. I exposed my weakness after saying I never would.

‘I told you that this had to be different or I would walk away,’ I remind him, shuddering with an emotional inhale, and Alexi lowers his hands slowly. Deliberate, precise movements that have the strange effect of helping me settle too. He’s being careful not to antagonise me and something in his manner is helping me come back down to Earth.

‘I know … I heard you … loud and clear.’ Alexi sounds softer, indulgent maybe. He probably just wants me to stop drawing attention to us and get back in his car, but I’m still wringing myself out, riding the tears and painful stabs to my heart.

‘I will go,’ I add strongly, making it clear that my boundaries are set, and playing with me mentally will cross the line.

‘I know you will. You don’t have to convince me. I don’t doubt it.’ He quietens too, sombre toned and his eyes flicker down to our feet for a moment. A show of submission from him is very rare.

‘I don’t want you to go.’ It’s almost inaudible, he says it so quietly.

‘Then don’t mess with my head, or try to make this more than it is; Business—it’s all we are and it’s the only way this works.’ I lift my chin with one final swift sniff and stubborn is plastered back on my face—emotionally pulling my shit back together and smoothing myself down.

Alexi closes his eyes for a moment, only a second, but I see it and as he exhales slowly, he brings those pale greys up to mine. Although they look foggier storm over the sea right now, and he penetrates me with a loaded look.

‘If that’s what you want … need … to stay. Then that’s what you get from me. I swear.’ He seems resigned to give up which is completely unusual for him.

‘It is!’ I answer shortly, and Alexi, a look of defeat overtaking his face that is alien on him, moves back, gesturing to his abandoned car on the pavement which is drawing a lot of angry looks from pedestrians. Both doors are sitting slightly open and I take another steadying heavy breath to calm my nerves, reeling it all back in with a degree of control before I walk past him and head back to it.

I don’t trust him, but his club is important enough to him that it seems to give me some bargaining power. If he wanted me, he could easily break me like he did so many times before. I just proved that.

Seduction, forcefully ignoring my wishes—He still has the tools.

I don’t get why he seems passive and obedient this time around when I put up my boundaries. Something in our separation changed whatever this is between us and I am not sure it’s just about the club. I am not sure there isn’t something else that I don’t understand, yet.

I get back in the car without fuss, embarrassed by my public meltdown and silent when he joins me in his own seat. Neither of us says anything as we both buckle up and he starts the car again. That strained heaviness back between us.

We continue our drive uptown with very little interaction, but the sizzling atmosphere and weird quiet is thick and imposing. He flicks on the radio, almost to cover the awkwardness and seems introverted and lost in thought. That good old deadpan and unemotional face he wears most of the time taking over, and I revert to inside my head to get myself back on track.

Push away the little scene we had and try to find that part of me that is capable of standing up to him. Despising how he just managed to push me over and shake my emotional foundations. I hate that it’s still in me—that I still care about him so deeply that he can affect me. I can’t deny it after losing my shit so easily.

He still terrifies me, but not in the way he once did. It’s not fear of retribution or fear of how sadistic he can be anymore. It’s the fear of feeling things; that he could pull me down that road to loving him again and break me even harder than he did last time around. It’s the terror that my heart isn’t as closed off and immune as I kept telling myself it was, and being around a different side to Alexi, more than he said we would see each other, is having an effect. He’s weakening my resolve and my heart is starting to remember what it’s like to love him.

He said he would stay away … yet he doesn’t.

He said he wouldn’t touch me … and yet he does.

He said it would be just about business … yet it’s not.

I can’t let him mean something to me once more. I have to find that inner strength and push it all down and learn that when it comes to Alexi Carrero … that ship has long sailed and my heart should go back to sleep in its dark recesses. It’s nothing but a tragedy waiting to happen, and like last time, he would walk away unscathed while I’m left festering in my own misery.

I can’t forget what he did or what he pushed me to do. It’s a deterrent from ever giving him control again.