He looked shocked. I was sure he had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know how to explain it to him, but I at least owed him that.
“I won’t be pathetic and desperate,” I told him. “I won’t be the kind of girl that people laugh at for all the stupid things she keeps doing.”
“This isn’t like that.”
“Isn’t it? Isn’t it exactly like that?” I gestured to where the men had been a moment before. My self-loathing was quickly turning to anger, and I started to take it out on him. “I mean, part of me thinks I should just sleep with you so you’ll leave me alone. Because that’s what this is about, right? The conquest? What was it you told me in your club? ‘Men only want what they can’t have.’”
The elevator doors dinged as they opened, and we both turned to look, but we didn’t stop them from closing again.
He finally spoke. “Limone, you can’t mean that.”
“I do mean it! I don’t want this. I want it to matter. I want to be in love with the next person I sleep with. I want to be with the man that I’ll spend the rest of my life with. And you . . .” I let out a short bark of laughter. “You’re are most definitely not the kind of man I’ll end up with.”
His expression was as stunned as if I had just slapped him. “Why would you say that?”
“Look at you! Do you take anything in your life seriously? You’ve had the world handed to you on a platter, and are you grateful for it? I’ve seen the articles online. I know what you’re like.”
“What I’m like?” He finally got angry.
“You are such a womanizer! And you are never going to have a career.”
“Being a prince is a career.” His words were terse, like he was trying to keep his anger in check. I noticed he didn’t deny the womanizer part.
“In fairy tales! You could get an actual job. You could be working for something instead of partying it up in your castle every night with a different girl.”
My anger finally spent itself, and I felt sick at the look on his face. “I can’t believe you’re saying this,” he said.
I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to say it to him. I should have said it the second I saw him for who he really was.
“I want to be with someone who will be my partner and my equal. Who wants to work hard for what they want in life. Who is faithful and loyal to one woman. Someone who doesn’t think that monogamy is a tree.”
It all felt very final. Finished.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened, I’m sorry I led you on. But I’m done. This is done.”
Another long silence stretched between us. He put his hands in his pockets, looking down at the floor. “You’re leaving tomorrow and . . .”
“And it’s for the best. Good-bye, Dante.” The pain on his face when he looked up at me was almost unbearable. It even managed to make me cry. I told myself that he was an excellent actor. He was a player. He knew just how to pull at my heartstrings.
But I wouldn’t let him play me any longer.
I pushed the button, and the elevator doors opened. The tears fell fast and furious, and it blurred my vision. I got inside, watching him as the doors slid shut, closing off that chapter in my life.
I had no intention of ever seeing him again.
He, on the other hand, had other plans.
I found out later that when everyone had disappeared from the costume party, it was because they were staging an impromptu intervention for Princess Violetta, Dante’s eighteen-year-old sister. Which made me feel even worse. He was dealing with something serious like his sister using drugs again, and I was having a hissy fit about my stupid choices.
Sometimes I didn’t understand why he stayed my friend.
Kat had had her own drama on New Year’s Eve with Nico, and so my focus had been totally on her and her problems. It was a good distraction. Kat had asked me once what had happened with Dante, and I’d told her that we had a close encounter of the catastrophic kind. I didn’t elaborate on our gland-to-gland combat, and she didn’t ask, too wrapped up in her own misery.
Now, here in California, I was the one who was miserable, with Dante making that crack about being my hero. It was to remind me, to let me know that he hadn’t forgotten, and neither should I.