The Carrero Contract - Selling Your Soul (Mafia Romance) novel Chapter 164

I like this apartment; it somehow seems like I have been here before even though I have never laid eyes on it. I love the open space and simple furnishings. Nothing overly showy or flashy, nothing fussy. Just enough to feel comfy and relaxed in a way that invites you to come in and lounge your cares away. It’s peaceful and feels like home, even though I’m a stranger within its walls.

It’s no surprise I like it though; one thing I found when making the club gorgeous was that Lexi and I have a similar taste in décor, and we gel well in terms of style. We can argue about most things, but we never argued over styling choices.

I waste no time in sinking into the hot bath and letting my weary bones blend with the water, turning my limbs to fluid weightlessness. I exhale with relief at the comforting feel of hot liquid overtaking my skin as it submerges and slides over all the little marks and grazes littering the surface, cleansing them of grime and blood. Stings and nips becoming numb as I adjust to the heat and sigh heavily to let all my woes go.

I needed this so badly, just to reset and calm down.

It smells like rose water, courtesy of the maid no doubt as it’s hardly an Alexi smell, and the bubbles surround my face, blocking out all thoughts for a moment as I just revel in this kind of perfection. I use my foot to turn the tap off when the water brims to the very highest edges of the bath and just sink, allowing my bum to lift off the bottom as I’m suspended, floating in relaxation.

Not that overflow would be an issue with a fully tiled floor and a drain in the centre. There is an open shower across from me so I’m guessing this is a wet room and often gets a drenching when he uses it. I’m shocked he has a tub at all as he does not seem the type to use one.

I allow myself to float for a bit, lifting my bum up enough to feel as though I’m being carried on a cloud of bubbles, and close my eyes. So overwrought and anxious inside still, even if it’s deep and not so apparent and I try to let it go as my body unfurls.

All the stress and emotion that was overwhelming me seeps out from my body and drifts away. I only wish my mind would follow suit and I try to blank out the many thoughts and feelings still tormenting one another in the background, causing the twisted tight feeling in the pit of my stomach. I feel like my insides are on a wash cycle and I know it’s down to the fear of how he will be when he arrives, even if I’m not actively pondering it now.

I stare at the ceiling, submerged to my temples and ears and let myself lie out straight so I’m fully suspended in the hot bubbles, far from touching the sides, even if I cannot let my mind flow so easily into relaxation. I close my eyes, exhale slowly so my body and face sink into the water and completely submerge myself to blot the world out. Like slipping into another dimension, or through clouds peacefully to another world below. I just disappear from the surface without barely a trace.

My ageless method of truly trying to let it go for a few minutes.

Sinking to the bottom gracefully until the hard base catches me from my floating realm, letting it all go, and focusing on the steady beat of my heart. My mind distracted with keeping my breath. The noise of the water pressure in my ears always did the trick for me when I was young and needed an escape. It’s hard for your mind to keep fretting when your body launches into survival mode and focuses on not drowning as you stay in the depths for as long as your lungs can handle.

I always used this when I couldn’t find relief any other way. I stay under for as long as my lungs allow; until they burn and my throat aches with the need to inhale. I let my hands and legs do as they please, just motionless, blocking out everything while I listen to that loud bubbling pressure around me and it blots all my woes and troubles out.

Just bubbles, heartbeat and weightlessness. Caught in a timeless watery world where stress gives me a little respite.

It’s only a couple of minutes of true freedom and solitude before I push myself up to take a much-needed breath, gasping dramatically because I pushed myself to the utter brink of not being able to breathe like I always did. Lungs burning with the effort. I swipe the water, diluted makeup and bubbles off my face with my hands, sliding it back over my head to smooth my drenched hair flat. Inhaling and gasping the oxygen I was depriving myself. Sitting up, pulling my knees up to steady myself and revelling in the after-effects of my self-levelling therapy technique. Feeling calmer and refreshed somehow.

“You still do that?” The voice makes me jump, body flinching, and I scramble to cover my breasts with my palms, looking towards the uninvited figure propped against the door frame. Heart almost ripping out of my rib cage in fright when my blurry vision settles on a foreboding body in black. Stifling a yelp with the sudden shock of his appearance.

‘Alexi! You scared me.’ I gasp, as all warmth leaves my body and my blood once again runs cold with impending terror.

Alexi is watching me, looking extremely serious and unreadable with a straight brow, standing casually with his shoulder wedged in the frame and leaning in as though it’s keeping him upright. Nothing obvious in his manner but he isn’t as smoothed out, tailored and smart as normal. His clothes are a little ruffled, his hair unruly in its styling and a darkness in his eyes that send the fear of God through me.

I’m very aware of my naked, vulnerable state and pull bubbles in to cover me up while I face him. Scrambling for calm and completely unnerved under that penetrative gaze.

“Do what?” I blurt in reply to his question, to break the intense way he is pinning me with a loaded look, shocked at his sudden arrival and back to nervous and breathless as my heart rate explodes. A little frantic with the unexpectedness of his appearance and still reeling from that.

“Drowning yourself to escape reality.” He smirks at his description of it and reminds me it was something else he would have read in those damn journals. My method of escape.

I hate that he knows everything like that.

He seems odd. Not quite his normal smug self and yet not seething mad like he was earlier, and it just ups my nerves because I simply cannot read this mood at all. It’s weird and almost resigned in a way. All my alarm bells instantly singing out loud and it just adds to the weight of my anxiety around him.

“Another ten seconds I would have dragged you out of there. Wasn’t sure if you were escaping or committing suicide. I can never tell when it’s you and me.” He pushes off from the door, that sarcastic comment biting me cruelly and walks in to perch his arse on the end of the bath at my feet, where he leans forward and rests his elbow on his legs without much of a look towards me as he does so.

I look down into the water, eyes smarting at his words and unable to meet his. Bruised with how he reminded me of that attempt and a little hurt he would say it in such a way. I suddenly feel feeble, and all my Camilla fire takes a run and jumps out the window. I sit stiffly and try not to over analyse his posture or his cool manner.

He is still in the same sweats and t-shirt from earlier and looks only slightly dusty compared to how filthy I was. Although, I spot the reddening marks on his knuckles and slight bruising from this angle, and shiver at knowing exactly how he got them. It’s more than punching one man one time in his throat would cause and I guess they found the other one.

Alexi would not be here already if they hadn’t. Knowing him, the guy is tied up in some warehouse somewhere while his most trusted interrogate the life out of him. Alexi only occasionally does it himself from what I have heard, but I can guarantee his knuckles are evidence of him taking his fury for me out on someone else. It’s why he’s calmer. He had his outlet, and that puts me in a better position and less likely a target for that much high energy aggression. That’s a blessing in itself.

“Funny.” I glance up at him warily, no real amusement in my tone and stay in my upright perched position, pulling more bubbles towards me to use as a covering so I don’t need to keep my hands on my breasts. Aware that any other person invading while I was in a bath would outrage me, but it doesn’t even cross my mind with him. He’s had me naked, seen me so, and this doesn’t feel like an invasion or crossing of a line. In a way, I’m glad he just sprung on me, so I didn’t have time to plan and torture myself for his arrival. This way is like a ripping a band-aid off. Although I might need a bigger one after he is done.

He turns his head and watches me for a second. I can feel his gaze, then he looks at the floor and away from me too. Both of us suddenly unsure, awkward and unable to look at each other. It just heightens the tense atmosphere and my heart sinks to the hard base of the bath. Deflating me more.

I can already tell all that anger and hostility has majorly subsided, and he just seems very distant and weirdly aloof.

I don’t like it.

When he is like this you, just can’t get a read on what he is thinking or feeling. You don’t know if he is pissed off, tired, or what. Just closed off and the energy is buzzing but not with his explosive side.

It makes me feel worse, not better and I would rather he stormed in to deliver a chastising. It’s what I expected and waited for and now the lack of it has me overly suspicious. Mind going into overdrive.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I overreacted, I acted stupidly.” I blurt it out nervously, pressured by his oddness to apologise, to make this right as thoughts of calm before the storm in the past weigh on me heavily. He just shrugs and picks at his thumbnail with his other hand.

It’s not one of his mannerisms and even though it should be completely insignificant, it’s not. To me, it’s Alexi behaving outside his normal and a signal that we are not okay by a long shot. He is not okay, and all this is NOT okay. I feel sick again, nausea swirling up as my insides tighten with that heaviness of dread so intense, I struggle to swallow or breathe.

“I don’t know what to say anymore, Cam … us … this …” He inhales heavily, fixes his eyes on his shoes and then shrugs again. A defeated tone, his body sagging slightly, and I stare at his gorgeous profile and try to dig a meaning out of that. Clinging to him visually. Desperate for him to snap out of it and maybe just—snap.

I know how to deal with angry and explosive. I don’t know how to deal with this.

“What about us?” I manage to swallow a sudden huge lump in my throat with a bit of effort, my gut telling me this isn’t good and sit forward slightly. Stiffer, heart beating faster as though I can sense this is about to get worse.

“It’s not working, is it? Nothing I do or say; it won’t fix it.” He drops his hands between his knees, lowers his head and runs his fingers through his hair in agitation, scratching his scalp for a second before sitting up properly and I just hold my breath. A little shell-shocked by this response to getting here. I expected a tornado or a pissed Carrero with punishment on his mind. Not this calm, quiet version who seems like he has just had enough.

Of me.

“What do you mean?” I ask shakily, my nerves jumping around inside my stomach and my heartbeat starts bouncing out of my chest, banging against my rib cage erratically. Pain splicing me deep down as my senses piece his words together. A horrible sense of foreboding turning into a full-blown panic attack.

“You fight me at every turn. Rebel, disobey and almost get yourself killed. You don’t want this and no amount of me trying hard will change that. You’re never going to forgive me, never going to trust me and you are sure as hell never going to love me the way I love you. I know when something is dead. I promised you the club and you can have it. All of it. Take it. I’m done. I’d rather you were alive and safe away from me than dead because I was too stupid to let you go.”

He sounds completely defeated as the words flow smoothly from that devil’s tongue to stab me in the chest over and over. My body hit all at once with the shrapnel of excruciating, slicing and biting mini bullets. I literally gawp at him, but he doesn’t even glance at me, just pushes himself up, turns on his heel after that shocking statement and walks out of the bathroom away from me. Strong purposeful strides, right out the door before I even get a chance to say anything to him.

It was the last thing I expected, and it triggers instant anger inside me, fuelled by my extreme heartache. A bubbling lava pit of rage and hurt, heart shattering but pride picking up a piece because she’s going to stab him in the face with it for doing this to me.

“Hell NO!!! Don’t you walk away from me.” I yell after him, hauling arse out of the tub so water and bubbles spill everywhere dramatically, sloshing all over the floor in a crescendo of noise; dragging the robe on over my sodden body and twist out my hair to dump the excess water on the floor. Stomping my naked feet on the slippery surface I follow him like a bat out of hell. Forgetting all fear and all humble apologies when he just pressed my red ignite button and has the nerve to walk off mid-conversation.

This is not some minor detail he can brush off. This is my heart, my soul and the rest of my goddamn life hanging in the balance.

I catch up with him as he wanders across the bedroom to the door, ignoring me completely. That stubborn high and mighty walk of a guy who knows he’s in the shit and I literally have to control the urge to push him over, flat on his face. Anger and the need to hurt him in somehow because it’s exactly what he’s doing to me. I have a growing, swelling balloon of ‘arghh’ expanding inside of me and it just switches on that hell hath no fury venom in me.

“You are a fucking liar and a bloody coward!” I shout at him, tearfully enraged, angry and so fucking distraught all in one. Bubbling over, pouring my hot, spicy fury all over the place and leaving wet footprints on the polished floor. He stops in his tracks, turns his head and glares at me angrily.

“Liar?? You know, for the record, I haven’t touched a single woman, not in any sexual or inappropriate way, except you, since that night they tried to take you from me in the club. Not even one! Because of you fucking with my head and making it impossible to want anyone else. I haven’t lied to you either, about anything, since I brought you back for a second chance because I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I wanted you to trust me. So, liar, no. Not about anything. Whether you believe me or not, it’s a fact.” It’s the hoarse tone and the utter devastation that pushes through in his furious expression that breaks me further. So much inside of me bubbling to the surface, and how dare he walk the fuck away and tell me he’s done with us after everything he has put me through.

He doesn’t get to just walk away from me in that way. He can’t. I need him.

“Yes, you are! You say you love me, will do anything to keep me and yet here you are, walking the fuck away. That’s not love. You’re giving up on me because I’m hard work. Because I make mistakes. What about the mistakes you’ve made, huh? You don’t fucking deserve me if that’s the case, no man does. If you loved me, you would fight to the goddamn end for me, no matter how hard I can be. That’s what love is!” I blurt it out, voice cracking as tears clog my throat. Hating on him viciously, in disbelief that he is leaving me this way after everything he said. He promised he would do anything to keep me, yet he’s bailing like everyone else in my life has done. Discarding me with the trash instead of fighting for me. Reconfirming I’m the worthless nothing my mother always told me I was.

If someone as fucked up as Alexi cannot even stick with me, then what hope is there for me?

He made me believe I was worth more to him than this and I did … I believed it.

Alexi instantly looks enraged, frowning, jaw tightening to severe chiselled proportions and that tiny clenched flicker. That hint of fierce anger peeks up again. Rounding on me so we are face to face, bearing down with intimidating height and muscle as I stand half covered and barefoot while dripping all over the floor and struggle to pull the robe over wet limbs to tie it shut.

“That’s bullshit. I’m walking away because I want to protect you, nothing else. I know when I should give up and when all I’m doing is putting you in danger. Don’t hit me with this crap, Cam. I would fucking die for you; you have no idea how deep my feelings for you go. You’re ingrained in me, my thoughts, my feeling and my dreams. None of that will make you love me though. I will never stop wanting you, but I love you enough to let you go. Even knowing I will spend my life broken without you.” Alexi, for the first time ever, sounds like he might just break too. Real emotion in his voice, the tone full of hurt, and a raspy shake to his voice as his eyes mist over. It just makes my own tears burst out. That genuine raw, vulnerable emotion coming from him breaks me into a thousand sharp and gnarly pieces which twist me inside out.

Tears building and heart breaking. I want so badly to just scream at him, tell myself this is what I expected, and he isn’t worth my time or my heartache, but I can’t. I need him too. I can’t let him walk away in defeat and never see where this could go. He loves me. He really does and he is offering me everything I ever wanted.

“Don’t you dare do that. Say all this to me when your intentions are to leave me and walk away. You told me you would always look after me!”

“Isn’t today proof of why I should? Look at us. We’re volatile and fucked up, and we bring out the worst in each other. You could have died, Cam. I have never felt fear like that in all my life. Thinking I wouldn’t get to you in time. It scared the shit out of me, and I can’t do that again. I can’t put you in that kind of danger, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.” He rubs his face, pushing away frustrations, pain and visible emotions, antsy and restless because this is as hard for him as it is me. I just stare at him hopelessly, cradling my body and shivering from the dampness still gracing my skin as it bothers me and adds to my fragile mood.

“Today was a lot of things. Stupid knee-jerk reactions fuelled by jealousy and a broken heart. I thought you were betraying me all over again.” I sigh dejectedly, trying so hard to make him see sense; afraid that he really means to end this and hating him for it. My words just seem to piss him off even more.

“How many times? I’m trying to prove to you that I’m not going to hurt you again. I changed for you; I’m trying for you! Everything I do, Cam, it’s for you!” He erupts, not in temper but a snap of raw hurt at my lack of faith in him. Eyes boring back into mine under furrowed brows and a complete look of exasperation.

“I know. Do you think I would be standing here if I believed you cheated on me? I calmed down, I thought about it and I realised what an arsehole I was. It’s why I went outside. I was afraid of what you might to do to me after I realised how wrong I was and how stupid I acted. I was afraid you would punish me and how much that would end us. I didn’t want us to end.” It comes out in an exasperated rush of words, not really doing a good job of explaining all the emotion and thoughtlessness that went through me today, just so desperate to have him change his mind.

“Jesus Christ! This is exactly what I’m talking about.” He snaps again, temper riling and instead of understanding me I just seem to make him madder.

“Punish you? What have I been saying repeatedly? Everything I know about you, everything I’m trying to prove to you, and you think I would still do things I admitted I regret? I WON’T FUCKING HURT YOU! I would never do the things I did again. I learned my lesson!” He yells it at me, loudly, and despite myself, I flinch.

“This right here, this is what I mean when I say you will never forgive me, never trust me, never believe I can be someone else for you and you will never love me the way I love you. It’s pointless.”

His outburst triggers one of my own, igniting so much inside of me that my simmer pops and my boiling pot explodes right in his face. In sheer exasperation at how dense and thick-skulled he can be, I snap right back.

“Who says I don’t love you; you complete fucking idiot of a man?” It’s yelled hysterically, tearfully, stubbornly, feeling exposed and vulnerable but just so exasperated that he cannot see the feelings behind all my insecurities and actions.

He’s walking away because he thinks my actions are down to never being able to feel any trust or love for him. They are in fact, the exact opposite. He rips me up and chews me to shreds because he has owned my soul all along. I couldn’t love him more than this if I tried, and nothing he has ever done has managed to kill the way I feel about him. Even when I wanted so badly to hate him.

I’m seething mad that he is so blind to it and stupid sometimes. Walking away because he thinks I’m rebelling, instead of realising I’m just afraid to let him see how weak I am for him.

Complete fucking knobhead.