Chapter 84 -
Nia let her eyes close. The darkness behind her eyelids was a relief, a break from having to see the room and the window and the reality of where she was. Rosa’s hand kept moving through her hair, gentle and constant, an anchor in the storm of her thoughts.
Sleep came in waves, pulling her under and then pushing her back to the surface. Each time she started to drift off, her mind would show her Leo’s face. The way he had looked at her when he kissed her, like she was everything. The way he had looked at her when he pushed her away, like she was nothing.
“Shh,” Rosa murmured, like she could sense Nia’s distress even through sleep. “Let it go, dear. Just for tonight, let it all go.”
So Nia did. She let go of the hurt and the anger and the humiliation. She let go of the memory of Leo’s kiss and the sting of his rejection. She let go of trying to understand why caring about someone had to hurt so much.
She let go of everything except the feeling of Rosa’s hand in her hair and the soft darkness pulling her down into unconsciousness.
The last thing she heard before sleep took her completely was Rosa’s voice, quiet and tender.
“Sleep well, child. Tomorrow you will be strong again. But tonight, you are allowed to be broken.”
Then there was nothing but darkness and the blessed absence of thought. Nia curled into herself under the blankets, her body instinctively seeking comfort even as her mind shut down. Her breathing evened out, deep and slow, her face finally relaxing from the tight mask of pain it had been holding.
Rosa sat on the edge of the bed for a long time after Nia fell asleep, watching the girl who had somehow become important to her. She had seen this same scene play out before in this house. Different people, different circumstances, but always the same result. Love and loss and the DeSanto family’s particular talent for destroying anything good that came near them.
But there was something different about Nia Wallace. Something that made Rosa hope that maybe, just maybe, this story might have a different ending.
Eventually, when she was certain Nia was deeply asleep, Rosa stood from the bed. Her knees protested the movement but she ignored them, moving quietly toward the door.
She paused at the threshold, looking back at the girl sleeping beneath expensive blankets in a room that was both a sanctuary and a prison.
“He is a fool,” Rosa said quietly to the empty room. “But perhaps even fools can learn.”
Then she left, closing the door softly behind her, leaving Nia alone with her dreams and her heartbreak and the morning light that was already starting to creep through the gaps in the curtains.
Outside in the hallway, Matteo was still standing guard. He looked at Rosa with questions in his eyes but she shook her head.
“Let her sleep,” Rosa said. “She has earned it.”
“What happened?” Matteo asked.
“What always happens in this house,” Rosa said tiredly. “Someone cared too much and someone else was too afraid to care back.”
She walked away down the hallway, leaving Matteo to his vigil, leaving Nia to her sleep, leaving Leo alone in his room to deal with the consequences of his choices.
~
Pain woke Nia before consciousness fully returned. It started as a dull throb behind her eyes and quickly escalated into something that felt like someone was taking a hammer to the inside of her skull. Each pulse of her heartbeat sent a fresh wave of agony through her head, making her groan and squeeze her eyes tighter against the weak sunlight filtering through the curtains.
“Oh God,” she mumbled into her pillow. The sound of her own voice made her head pound harder. “Oh no. Oh no no no.”
The memories came flooding back all at once, crashing over her like ice water. Walking to Leo’s room with a stolen bottle of whiskey. Knocking on his door at two in the morning. The way he had opened it shirtless and confused and so impossibly real. The things she had said. The things he had said. The hug. The kiss.
Oh God, the kiss.
Nia buried her face deeper into the pillow, pulling the blankets up over her head like she could hide from her own memories. It did not work. Nothing could make her stop seeing the way Leo’s eyes had gone dark when she pressed her lips to his. The way his hand had tangled in her hair. The desperate, hungry way he had kissed her back like she was air and he had been drowning.
And then the way he had pushed her away.
“I kissed him,” Nia said to the darkness under the blankets. Her voice was muffled, thick with mortification and the remnants of tears she had cried before falling asleep. “I kissed Leo DeSanto. I actually kissed him.”
The full weight of what she had done settled over her like a physical thing, pressing down on her chest until it was hard to breathe. She had gone to his room. Drunk. In the middle of the night. She had wrapped her arms around him and told him she was sorry about Andrea and then she had kissed him.
And he had kissed her back. For one perfect, terrible moment, he had kissed her like she mattered. Like she was real. Like maybe all the walls he had built around himself were not as solid as they seemed.
Then he had pushed her away and called for Rosa and made it very clear that Nia was nothing more than his prisoner. That the kiss had been a mistake. That she was drunk and confused and reading things that were not there.
Except she had not been that drunk. Not drunk enough to excuse what she had done. Not drunk enough to pretend she had not meant every word she said to him.
“Oh God,” Nia said again. The words were becoming a mantra, a prayer to a deity she was not sure she believed in. “What did I do? What was I thinking?”