Isabella POV The taxi man drove to my grandmother’s villa and I saw his car before I saw him.
Matteo’s black sedan car wasn’t properly parked, with the driver’s door wide open.
I paid the driver, got out, and stood there for a few seconds, staring at the car.
The engine was off.
He had been here for a long time, I tightened my grip on my handbag and walked toward the house.
I had barely reached the front door when it suddenly opened And there he was.
Matteo.
He looked nothing like the man I had seen yesterday.
That Matteo was calm, cold and unbothered.
He had watched me break apart as if I meant nothing to him.
But the Matteo standing in front of me now was different, from his messy hair to his wrinkled shirt.
“What is he planning,” I thought to myself.
And those eyes staring at me looked relieved.
But there was something else there too.
Something darker.
“Isabella.” The sound of my name from him still had me feeling that butterfly.
I hated that it did.
“Matteo.” I whispered.
He blocked me.
“Where were you?” he asked.
He was trying everything possible to keep his voice under control, maybe not to alert my grandmother.
“I have been calling you since last night.
Your grandmother had no idea where you were.
Isabella?” I looked at him and chuckled.
“When I couldn’t reach you, I was worried,” he said.
“Were you?” I tilted my head, “last night, when I was standing in your bedroom, you did not look worried.
You looked relieved.” His jaw tightened.
“That was different.” “How?” I asked.
“Tell me how, Matteo.
I would genuinely like to understand.” “Isabella, I know you are angry” “I am not angry.” And I meant it, which surprised me.
I had expected to feel the rage come rushing back the moment I saw his face, instead there was just a strange feeling.
The kind of feeling that comes after something has already broken and the pieces have been lying on the floor long enough that you have stopped waiting for them to put themselves back together.
“I am not angry.
I am done.” He took one step closer with me taking a step back.
“You don’t mean that.” “I do.” I replied quietly.
Like a woman who had spent the entire taxi ride home deciding what she would say and had finally arrived at something that was true in every direction.
“The engagement is off.
You can go to the Midnight club and pick your ring from the floor.” I chuckled,”Oh, I remembered, you are not the one that bought the ring.” His eyes narrowed.
“A nightclub.” “Yes.” “You went to a nightclub.” His voice shifted.
Something dangerous crossed his face.
“Alone?
After leaving my house.” “After catching my fiancé in bed with my stepsister,” I corrected.
“Yes.” “And who the hell were you with?” he asked.
The question came out careful and deliberate, like a man placing each word down one at a time.
“Who did you spend the night with, Isabella?” I looked at him.
“That,” I said, “is no longer any of your business.” The composure he had been keeping all day, broke.
Not loudly, it was something quieter and more frightening, the way his shoulders changed, his breathing shifted.
He reached out and took hold of my arm before I had registered he was moving.
“Let go of me.” My voice did not shake.
“You left my house last night and you did not come home,” he said, tightening his hand, “You expect me to just..” “Matteo.” My grandmother’s voice, from the doorway.
We both turned.
She came out standing near the door, wearing her morning housecoat.
Her white hair were neatly tied.
She looked at us and then fixed her eyes on Matteo, with the same expression she had always given him, right from the day they met.
It was not exactly hatred.
It was the cold, quiet look of a woman who had understood what kind of person he was long before she had any proof of it.
“Remove your hand from my granddaughter, before I help” she said quietly.
Matteo released me.
He stepped back, straightened his shirt, and turned towards my grandmother.
“Mrs Hart,” he said.
“I apologize, I was only…” “You were leaving,” she said.
“That is what you were doing.
And if I see your car around here, without an invitation, I will call the authorities on you.” He looked at me, then at her with an unreadable expression.
“I’m not yet done with you, Isabella,” he said quietly.
“But I’m done,” I told him.
He stared at me for a moment, with that expression that says, “what do I do,” then he walked past me, got into his car, and drove away.
I stood there, lost, guilty of my grandmother’s warning, that even when I stopped hearing his sound engine, I did not react.
My grandmother came down from where she was standing and stopped beside me.
She said nothing for a moment.
Her hand found mine, and she held it.
Then she said, “Come inside.” We sat in the living room, with a glass of water that she offered me when we entered.
I told her everything, from the moment I had arrived at Matteo’s apartment with good news and a smile I could not stop, to the bedroom doorway, to Vanessa’s expression, to his voice saying, “Good, now I don’t have to hide it anymore.” I told her about my little club visit but left my little adventure with the strange man.
Honestly, I don’t even understand what happened, let alone telling someone.
That would be a disaster.
She listened without interrupting, which was not easing my beating heart.
Though, her hands were being supportive, as she placed it on mine.
Her eyes stayed on my face the whole time.
“How long did you know?” I asked.
My voice came out low.
“How long did you know about him?” She released a heavy breath, “I did not know, honestly” she said.
“It was just an old people feeling, from the very first day you brought him to this house, I knew he was bad news.” I looked down at our joined hands.
“I’m sorry grandma, I should have listened to you when you warned me.” “Don’t, you were in love,” she said, “love is weakness or strong but not stupidity.
It simply makes the warning signs harder to read.” She squeezed my hands once.
“But you read them in the end.
That is what matters.” I nodded, and did not trust my voice enough to say anything else at the moment.
“Have you eaten?” She asked.
I don’t want to give her more reason to worry.
“No” I answered, even though I was not in the mood to eat anything.
She made me eat until I had taken enough spoonfuls to satisfy her, and then she smoothed my hair back from my face the way she had done since I was small and told me to go and rest.
I went to my room to find it, exactly the way I had left it, the last time I was here.
The bed scattered, the blanket on one side, my mother’s photo on the bed, then the pillow not properly placed.
On the dressers was the group picture I took with grandmother and mum.
The afternoon light reflecting on the room.
Everything here reminded me of childhood.
I sat down on the bed, and placed my phone on the bedside table.
It lit up, the screen showing a new message From Matteo.
I picked up the phone and opened the message without thinking.
“You think this is over.
You have no idea what you just started.
Come back to me, Isabella and I will forgive you.
This is your last warning.
Don’t allow me to show you the dark side of me that people who think they can walk away from me experience.” I read it for the second time, this time around, slower, making sure I had understood every word correctly.
I set the phone face-down on the bed beside me and sat very still in the quiet of my room, with everything rushing down to me.
Matteo, who had never once raised his voice at me in four years.
Matteo, who had sent flowers when I had bad days.
Matteo, who had whispered how much he loved me every night before I fell asleep.
“What went wrong, how did he turn out to be a cheat.” I thought I had left the worst version of him in that bedroom last night.
I was beginning to understand that I had not yet met the worst version