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That just pissed me off all over again.
“Then why in the fuck didn’t you come back?” I snarled.
“Because I didn’t think that you’d take me back,” she replied honestly. “You were the biggest sacrifice that I’d ever had to make, and so I had to succeed without you, or else that sacrifice would have been for nothing.” I watched her let out another shaky breath. “So, I decided to try to make the best of it and carve out a new life for myself.”
“Yeah, and how did that work out for you?”
It was a cheap shot, and I knew it.
“Wow,” she said, and the disappointment in her voice almost dropped me to my knees. “Yeah, okay…I guess you’re entitled to that one.”
“Savina-”
“Do you mind if I take a shower?” she asked, all business, and if I wasn’t insane by the end of the week, I’d be surprised.
Letting go of my anger for the moment, I walked up to her, then took her face in my hands, saying something that I couldn’t recall saying in decades. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “That was uncalled for.”
“Was it?”
I nodded. “There’s no value in kicking you when you’re already down, and that’s not how you deserve to be treated.”
“I’m not a victim, Aurelio,” she stated vehemently.
“I didn’t say that you were,” I replied. “I’m just saying that women deserve better.”
She pulled her face out of my hands before saying, “I need a shower.”
“We’re not done here,” I pointed out.
“What’s left to say, Aurelio?” she challenged. “No amount of arguing is going to change anything. No amount of arguing is going to undo what’s been done.”
She was right, of course.
“Nonetheless, I cannot allow you to get away with what you’ve done, Savina,” I told her, something that she already knew, but it didn’t hurt to remind her of that.
“Meaning?”
“I’ll allow you the time to transition your clients to other real estate agents, and if you’d like to go back to the brownstone for your personal affects, then we can do that as well,” I answered. “But moving forward, whatever you do, you’ll be doing it as a Sartori.”
“My parents-”
“Are irrelevant,” I snapped.
“Aurelio-”
“Go take your shower,” I ordered. “I’ll get you something to wear.”
“I’m not going to give up my career, Aurelio,” she said as she made her way towards the bathroom. “I know that it seems trivial-”
“You can be a real estate agent here,” I told her, interrupting her speech on independence. “If you feel like you have to work, then we’ll figure it out. However, we’ll figure it out here.”
Savina eyed me, and she was obviously trying to decide if it was more important to her to argue with me or take a shower. It was obvious that she was exhausted, but despite how she had lived these past two years, Savina wasn’t a weak woman. She wasn’t the type to cower to a man, which just kept reiterating how it’d been a choice to suffer that shit with Ashton, and that she wasn’t a victim.
“One of these days, you’re going to learn that your word isn’t law where I’m concerned, Aurelio,” she finally said.
“Maybe,” I conceded. “But today’s not that day, baby.”
The woman just arched a brow at me before making her way into the bathroom, and as soon as the door shut behind her, I dropped on the bed, then ran my hands through my hair. I wasn’t sure how she was going to take it, but it was obvious that marriage was the only solution to her insolence, and even if she still turned out to be a pain in my ass, she’d be legally mine, and she’d never be able to leave me again, not that I’d allow that anyway, but still.
