Chapter 85 -
Nia sat up, immediately regretting it when the room spun violently. She pressed her hands to her temples, breathing slowly until the world stopped tilting. Then she stood on shaky legs and made her way to the door, each step sending fresh waves of pain through her skull.
She unlocked it and pulled it open to find Lucia standing in the hallway looking like she had just walked out of a fashion magazine. Her dark hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, her makeup perfect, her black dress hugging her curves in a way that should have been illegal. She took one look at Nia and her expression softened slightly.
“You look terrible,” Lucia said, but there was no judgment in it. Just observation.
“I feel worse,” Nia admitted. She was still wearing the clothes she had slept in, her hair a tangled mess, her eyes red and swollen from crying.
“I brought coffee,” Lucia said, holding up a cup that smelled like heaven. “And aspirin. And the understanding that we are going to talk about what happened last night.”
“I do not want to talk about it,” Nia said, but she took the coffee anyway, wrapping her hands around the warm ceramic like it was a lifeline.
“Too bad,” Lucia said. She pushed past Nia into the room, making herself comfortable in the armchair by the window. “Because we are talking about it anyway. Now sit down before you fall down.”
Nia obeyed, sinking onto the edge of the bed and taking a long sip of coffee. It was hot and bitter and exactly what she needed. The aspirin Lucia handed her went down with the second sip, chalky and unpleasant but necessary.
“How much do you know?” Nia asked quietly.
“Everything,” Lucia said. “Rosa told me this morning. About you going to Leo’s room. About him being an idiot and pushing you away.”
“Rosa has a big mouth,” Nia muttered into her coffee.
“Rosa cares about you,” Lucia corrected. “And she knows I would find out eventually anyway. This house has no secrets. Not really.”
Nia took another sip of coffee, letting the caffeine start its slow work of making her feel almost human again. “I am an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot,” Lucia said firmly. “You are a woman who developed feelings for a complicated man. That does not make you stupid. It makes you human.”
“I kissed him,” Nia said. Saying it out loud to someone else made it real in a way it had not been when she was just thinking it. “I went to his room in the middle of the night, drunk on his whiskey, and I kissed him.”
“And he kissed you back,” Lucia said.
“Then he pushed me away and told me it was a mistake,” Nia finished. She stared down into her coffee, watching the dark liquid swirl. “He made it very clear that I am just his prisoner. That anything between us is wrong because there is a power imbalance that makes real consent impossible.”
“He is not wrong about that,” Lucia said carefully. “There is a power imbalance. You are being held here against your will. That complicates things.”
“I know that,” Nia said. Frustration was starting to burn through the embarrassment, hot and sharp. “But I also know what I feel. And what I felt last night when I kissed him, that was real. That was not just me being desperate or lonely or confused. That was me making a choice.”
“What did Leo say when you told him that?” Lucia asked.
“He did not believe me,” Nia said bitterly. “He thinks the alcohol made me do it. He thinks I am going to wake up this morning and regret everything.”
“Do you?” Lucia asked. “Regret it?”
Nia thought about it. Really thought about it. She regretted the embarrassment. She regretted the rejection.
But did she regret the kiss itself? Did she regret finally being honest about what she felt?
“No,” Nia said quietly. “I do not regret it. I regret how it ended. I regret that he was too afraid to let himself feel something real. But I do not regret trying.”
Lucia smiled, small and sad. “Then you are braver than I ever was.”
“I do not feel brave,” Nia said. “I feel humiliated and heartbroken and like I never want to see Leonardo DeSanto again.”
“Unfortunately,” Lucia said, “that is not really an option. You are still here. He is still here. And at some point, probably very soon, you are going to have to face him.”
“I know,” Nia said miserably. She finished her coffee and set the cup down on the nightstand. “I just need more time. More coffee. More aspirin. More something before I can do that.”
“Take today,” Lucia said. She stood, smoothing down her dress. “Stay in your room. Rest. Let yourself feel whatever you need to feel. But tomorrow, you are going to have to get up and face this. Face him. And when you do, you are going to hold your head high and refuse to let him see how much he hurt you.”
“Why?” Nia asked. “Why should I pretend I am fine when I am not?”
“Because that is what we do in this family,” Lucia said. “We survive. We endure. We take whatever blows life gives us and we keep standing. And we never, ever let the men who hurt us see us break.”
She moved toward the door, pausing with her hand on the knob. “You are stronger than you think, Nia Wallace. Stronger than Leo gives you credit for. Do not let one rejected kiss make you forget that.”
Then she was gone, leaving Nia alone with an empty coffee cup and the slowly fading pounding in her head.
Nia lay back down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. The plaster had a small crack in the corner that she had never noticed before. She focused on it, tracing the line with her eyes, trying to think about anything other than Leo.
It did not work. Everything kept circling back to him. The way he had looked at her when she hugged him. The sound he had made when she kissed him. The desperate way he had held her like she was something precious.
And then the fear in his eyes when he pushed her away.
“I kissed Leo DeSanto,” Nia whispered to the empty room. “And he pushed me away.”
The words hurt less each time she said them. Or maybe she was just getting used to the pain. Either way, she knew Lucia was right. She could hide in this room today. She could nurse her hangover and her heartbreak in private.
But tomorrow, she would have to face him. And when she did, she would have to find a way to survive it.