Chapter 146 The Space I Was Never Meant to Fill
POV Maya:
“What did he say?” I shake my head, not wanting to remember.
“He repeated the same words my parents said before they disappeared. I never want to hear those words again, not even from my own mouth.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.” He tightens his arms around me, and I close my eyes, sinking deeper into sadness.
“Dominic is going to sell Salazar, and I already love that horse so much. I wish I had the money to buy him. I don’t understand why they’re selling the horses they so clearly love.”
“Sometimes we have to lose in order to see more clearly what’s right in front of our eyes,” he says enigmatically. “I believe they’re going through a hard time. Maybe the best thing is—”
“Maya?”
I lift my head and see, over David’s shoulder, the five Moretti brothers. They don’t look happy.
“What are you doing here… with him?”
I pull away from my friend’s chest and try to stand, but David keeps holding me. The Moretti brothers’ eyes are quick to notice that. Feeling a bit dizzy, I force my friend’s hands away and stand up. I can’t let the brothers draw their own conclusions. From their faces, it’s clear they don’t like what they’re seeing.
“I can explain,” I say, moving closer to them. “I needed a few shots of tequila. I was already about to go home.”
“I just ran into her. She seemed sad and I—” David tries to explain, but Dominic doesn’t let him.
“Shut the fuck up, Burt!” I flinch at the rage in his voice. He turns to me, his face twisted into the angriest expression I’ve ever seen since I met him. “You don’t owe any of us an explanation, Maya.”
“But I want to explain,” I insist, not liking the way he and his brothers are looking at me.
“But we don’t want to hear it,” he declares, making the pain in my chest grow. “We’re here because we had the same idea. Why don’t you go back to… whatever you were doing? My brothers and I are going to sit down and have a beer. After all, that’s why we’re here.”
The five of them don’t wait for an answer. They simply turn their backs on us and head to a table in the corner. I look at David, whose face mirrors the same confusion I must be feeling. I glance back at the five of them, trying to understand what’s happening, then sigh and nod at David. I need to talk to them and figure out if they’re upset about what they saw. It’s time for an honest conversation, and I’m going to take this chance to tell them what role David plays in my life—that what we have is just friendship, nothing more than that.
As soon as I approach, I realize I’m not welcome. Their expressions are irritated. Dominic shoots daggers at me. Sebastian barely looks at me. Mikhail and Adrian pretend I’m not even standing there. Luca stares at me, and the way he looks at me, he doesn’t need to say anything—I know he must hate me.
“Can I talk to you?” I ask, afraid they’ll deny me even that. “It’s about David.”
“We don’t want to know,” Luca cuts me off. “What you do with your life is none of our business. We don’t have any kind of relationship, Maya.”
“I thought after—”
“After what? Just because I fucked you and my brothers touched you, we have something?” Luca says, and I feel bile rise in my throat. The way he speaks to me makes me sound like a stranger, not the woman who’s been living with them for almost a month, the woman they shared more than one fuck with.
“Why don’t you go back to sitting on Burt’s lap?” Adrian asks without looking at me. “You seemed pretty comfortable there.”
“That’s not what you’re thinking. I’ve known David for a long time. He’s just a close friend,” I declare, but none of them seem to believe me. “I just needed to clear my head. I was sad about Salazar being sold.”
“And you decide to comfort yourself on the lap of the guy you know we hate?” Sebastian questions, and I’m caught off guard by the aggression in his voice.
“I already said it. He’s my friend,” I defend myself. “And it’s thanks to him that I’m here. He’s the one who told me about you.” I decide to tell the whole truth at once. “If I’m here willing to be your fiancée, it’s because of him.”
The five of them exchange looks, probably shocked to learn about David’s involvement. This is the perfect chance for everything to come out. Enough of unspoken words. The best thing is to lay my desire to be their fiancée out in the open and let them decide whether they want me or not. I’m more than willing to try. All they have to do is choose me. All they have to do is want me.
“Fiancée?” Luca asks, laughing, and his brothers follow.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“Fiancée? This one tops it all,” Adrian agrees.
The hope I was carrying in my heart crumbles. I thought they were considering choosing me, but now I see that it was all something I created in my head.
“At any point during the time we’ve known each other, did you ever think of me as your fiancée?” I ask, because I need to know that at least they considered me, that at some point they thought about building a family with me.
“Maya, what are you talking about?” Mikhail asks, and I frown at him.
I scan the bar for my friend and stop when I see him looking at me sadly. He wouldn’t do something like this to me, would he? He wouldn’t play with my dream. With my eyes full of tears, I turn back to the Moretti brothers and ask the damn question I should have asked the moment I met them.
“Are you looking for a fiancée? Looking for the woman who will love you equally? The woman you’ll build a family with?”
When I face their mocking smiles and the disbelief on their faces, I have my answer.
And it hurts… it hurts so much.