Old Flame Dante’s Story (Morelli Family 8)

Whatever the reason, Alec is normally a pretty laid-back guy, but right now he’s agitated and impatient with me.

“Yes, you are, and this is fucking stupid.” Sighing, he drops onto the booth next to me and meets my gaze. “Just go talk to her. Give her a chance to change her mind. Maybe she’s thinking about you, too. Maybe she’s having doubts about this whole thing. Maybe you showing up tonight is exactly what she needs. Maybe she would call off the wedding and come back voluntarily.”

There are a whole lot of maybes in there, and they’re all bullshit. Colette has had plenty of time to back out and change her mind if she wanted to. Me showing up tonight like some fucking sad sack piece of shit wouldn’t change a goddamned thing—not for the better, anyway.

“If she’s having doubts, she doesn’t marry some other asshole tomorrow,” I tell him. “That’s not a thing you do when you have doubts, Alec.”

“Maybe it’s gone too far for her to back out without a reason. Go give her one.”

I shake my head. “It’s too late for that.”

Besides, I did try to talk to her. After I found out Colette was engaged, I finally broke my own fucking rule and went to the flower shop to see her. To tell her she was making a mistake and I wanted her to leave this stupid asshole and come back home. She didn’t want to hear it then, and there’s no reason to think she’d want to hear it the night before she plans to marry the sorry bastard.

She doesn’t want to come back to me, that’s the problem. Colette Fontaine is exactly where she wants to be tonight—she’s just not where I want her.

No point telling Alec that, though. He wouldn’t approve and it’s none of his fucking business anyway.

“It is not too late,” Alec insists. “Tomorrow it will be too late. If you go through with this, Dante… she may hate you forever. You might really lose her. You may never get her back.”

“Fuck that,” I mutter. I know Colette. She was made for me. I know she might resist initially, but she can’t hate me forever. Only for a time, then it will pass and she’ll be mine again, like she always should have been.

I’m relieved at the sight of the waitress. She brings my drink over, but I don’t even let it hit the table before I snatch it and take another gulp, trying in vain to numb the pain gnawing away at my insides. Trying to numb the trace of paralyzing fear, too. The fear that Alec could be right and I could be wrong, that Colette might hate me forever for what I’m about to do. That I may really never get her back, even I give her no choice but to be with me.

I picture Colette in her room right now, gazing dreamily at the puffy white wedding dress hanging on her mirror. I know it’s hanging on her mirror because I couldn’t keep from checking on her and I saw the goddamn thing. It’s easy to imagine her running her hands along the delicate fabric, envisioning herself in it when she marries the new man of her dreams.

Fucking bullshit. How can he be the man she wants to marry when it used to be me? How can you just change your mind about something like that?

Not for the first time, the thought passes through my mind that maybe I was just wrong about her. I was a few years younger then, greener than I am now, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Maybe she doesn’t love hard enough to be with me and I’m remembering her wrong. Maybe she left because she truly isn’t capable of sticking it out with me and maybe forcing her to come back to me won’t change that. Maybe nothing will.

Nah, fuck that, too. Just like I do every other time the thought blows across my mind, I stomp on it until it’s gone. I know what Colette and I can have together. I know she’s it for me, and if I’m not it for her, well, that’ll just have to change. Colette Fontaine is mine, and nobody is going to stop me from claiming what’s mine.

Not Colette.

Not her fiancé.

Nobody.

I take another gulp. I’m gonna need another refill in a minute, so the waitress hasn’t even bothered to walk away. Alec is going to be so pissed when she goes to get me a refill again after he expressly told her not to, but she’ll do it, anyway. This one wants my dick, and if she thinks ruffling Alec’s feathers to obey me instead of him will finally get it done, she won’t hesitate.

It’s a waste of her fucking time, but I don’t mind wasting her time.