Because I Need You: An Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance (Because Series) by Claire Contreras

Author:Claire Contreras [Contreras, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780999444863
Publisher: The Wicked Pen
Published: 2022-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

24

ISABEL

I boarded the private jet with Petra and Joey Z in tow. It was a different one than the one we’d taken the other day. It was always a different one, but it was always the same two pilots and the same woman handing us drinks and snacks. Neither of them spoke much. They just smiled when they were supposed to and gave as much (or little) information as they could. I appreciated that in a way, especially today. I kept looking between the window beside me and the door, which was still open, waiting for him to waltz in at any moment. He hadn’t ridden with us. He hadn’t even been there when I got out of my bedroom. I didn’t know why, but I needed to look in his, just to make sure he was gone, and he was. The bed was unmade, the sheets all wrinkled from our night together. My heart felt heavy as I left the apartment and followed Petra to the car. Something changed after I told him what that man did to me. I knew it would. Maybe that was why I’d never spoken about it. There was an underlying shame to it all. Like maybe I’d been at fault for it. In my nightmares, I’d replayed it over, and over, trying to figure out what I’d done or said or worn or what kind of smile I must have had on my face for them to target me. I knew it wasn’t any of those things. I knew I wasn’t the problem. I knew that if the world were a good place, I’d be able to walk outside completely naked and not worry about a man thinking my nudity had anything to do with him. But that wasn’t the world we lived in.

Giovanni had been the first person I told. Maybe because I knew he wouldn’t judge me, not really. And he didn’t, but he did get pissed, and that made me get even more mad because what the fuck? I’d been the one who endured that night and every single night after that. I’d been the one to pick myself up and take myself to a therapist when I realized the nightmares weren’t going away and that I couldn’t just go back to class and finish my semester. I’d been the one to fight for online schooling for the remainder of my college years and miss out on the full experience, because if the full experience meant dealing with entitled assholes who thought everything, including other people’s bodies, belonged to them, I wanted no part in it. I’d been the one to get up every morning, look in the mirror, and make the choice that I wouldn’t let it define who I was. So, for him to be upset? It annoyed me. Maybe I should have felt proud or happy or turned on? But I didn’t. I felt annoyed and through the annoyance I tried to tell myself it was irrational, but I knew it wasn’t.

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