CHAPTER 8: SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE

ALLESSIO'S POV

My gaze followed Haven, who's speed-walking in the opposite direction of where I'm at. She doesn't look like she's in a hurry because she forgot about something important, but rather she looks more like a cat that has been spooked and now is scurrying away.

This wasn't the first time that this happened. In fact, every time that we saw each other in the house, she wouldn't let me get out anything more than a hello. She's always in a rush that it's impossible to have a conversation with her.

"Did something happen to her?"

When Fierro didn't answer me, I glanced at him. I saw him watching me as if he's finding something amusing.

"What?" I asked, nearly in a growl. "I told you to report everything to me. Did the men mention anything about Haven?"

"Unless you count her scowling at your photo every time she walks past the frame in the library? No."

There's a couple of picture frames hanging in one of the sections of the library. It's filled with family photos, but there is one that is a solo shot of me. It was gifted to me by my mother, who loves taking photographs.

My forehead knotted in confusion. "Why?"

"I think you're the only one who can answer that," he said with a shrug.

We reached my office, and yet I still couldn't take my mind away from Haven. I have no idea why she's acting like I have the plague. She has every reason to fear me just for being who I am, but I don't think I've given her a reason to detest even the mere sight of me.

"Boss?"

I turned to Fierro. "What?"

His lips lifted in the corners. "The meeting."

I glared at him, which only made him smile wider. I went behind my desk, and opened my computer to start the virtual meeting that I would rather skip but couldn't. Not when it involves the same woman who's treating me the way I wanted her to treat me in the first place.

Do I want her to stay away from me? I do. Especially when it's me who's finding it an every day battle to keep my distance from her?

I'm intentionally keeping myself busy so that I have no reason to come home. It's driving my men crazy because I'm involving myself with everything that I normally don't give my attention to because I know they could handle what I entrusted them to do.

"They're ready," Fierro said, pulling me away from my thoughts.

I forced myself to focus on the meeting which is crucial in making sure of Haven's safety. It passed the hour mark, and I'm still in the meeting to talk about the drug distribution between Idalion and the criminal group that Haven's parents owed money to.

"I think offering one of your markets is not too much to ask, Mr. Cascella, given that we're talking about the safety of your woman."

I ignored the way he regarded Haven as if she were mine. Kosmas Makris, the leader of the small criminal group in Greece, wants exclusive rights to distribute drugs in one of Idalion's prime markets. Which is something I'm not stupid to allow.

Even doing it virtually, the look I gave the man had just as much impact as if I had done it face-to-face, judging by the way he squirmed on the screen.

"I don't respond well to threats, Makris. She will be safe with or without the success of this meeting." The way he paled, the threat behind my own words didn't escaped him. "I will allow safe passages of your products in my borders, but that's the only business I'm offering. Don't mistake this meeting for a negotiation. I'm offering you a better way to settle everything, but you have every right to say no."

He heard what's behind my words. He could say no, and that means making an enemy of Idalion.

"Contact Fierro Mancini once you're decided." The other man opened his lips as if to say something, but I beat him to it. "I don't like to be kept waiting. You have a day to decide on it."

I ended the meeting without waiting for his answer. It was then that I heard sweet bells of laughter from the outside. As if my body had a mind of its own, I stood up to walk in the direction of the window.

The sight at the pool area was enough to wake up my usually misguided moral compass and make me step back from the window, if only I hadn't seen the reason for Haven's laughter.

Pietro was standing in front of her while holding a plate of waffle with giant scoops of ice cream on it, decorated with so many sprinkles that it's drowning the whole plate.

"Is he needed?" I managed to ask through gritted teeth.

"Who?"

"Pietro. Do we need him?"

"He's Rosa's favorite since he helps in the kitchen."

"We can hire chefs from around the world with just one call. He won't be missed if he suddenly goes missing."

He masked his laughter behind a cough. "I think his family will miss him, boss. Especially his father, who happens to be your own father's friend."

I muttered a curse under my breath, and before I knew it, I found myself heading to the pool area.

Pietro wasn't there anymore, but Haven is still in the same position where I first saw her. She was lying down on a lounger, her skin glistering under the sun. She was wearing a white two-piece bikini that I felt an overwhelming urge to burn into ashes.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Haven almost jumped out of her seat in surprise. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but her surprise was gone in a second, and it was replaced by a carefully placed blank expression.

"Sunbathing?" she said, her words coming out as a question.

"Do you have an idea how many men are roaming around the house?"

Her forehead knotted. "And?"

I stepped closer to her, casting a shadow over her. "You're displaying yourself to them! What are you even wearing?"

Her mouth parted in disbelief. Anger colored her cheeks, and she stood up, grabbing the robe from the lounger next to the one she's using. "I am not displaying myself to them. I am in a pool, wearing a swimsuit. I'm sunbathing, which I think you Italians should have heard of considering your country is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea! What am I supposed to be wearing? A jacket and sweatpants?"

"Maybe you should. Considering that you're a distraction."

She let out a bitter laugh. Something that is making me angrier since it's far different from the way she laughed when she was with Pietro.

"A distraction? You're ridiculous. Is that how you view your men? Like fools who don't have self-control?"

"You're a distraction to me!"

My words sounded like a roar of thunder, and I saw how it made her flinch a little. Something that makes me want to kick myself.

She wasn't exactly wrong. I am being ridiculous. I know that my anger is not because my men will do anything because of what she's wearing. A part of me knows that it was solely because I don't want her to be seen by anyone like this. A possessive part of me that wants to monopolize everything about her until every part of her belongs to me.

Only to me.

HAVEN'S POV

I wanted to take the meaning of his words the way they sounded. But I'll be foolish to make something out of it when I doubt he sees me as anything but a burden that he shouldn't have taken in.

"I'm distracting you? How? I barely even see you." I forced myself to push away the surge of emotions trying to drown me but it wasn't easy. "I don't know anyone in this place except for you and Fierro, but both of you are so busy, and you know what? I understand that. I have no right to complain when you already helped me enough. It's not like you're obligated to keep me company. You made sure that I would have a full schedule anyway. But if you have forgotten, I would like to remind you that I'm still human. I'm not a robot programmed to do the same thing again and again tirelessly. Rosa said I could use the pool but I guess she was wrong. I'm sorry if I stepped over some line. I'm sorry that I'm becoming too comfortable."

I hastily wrapped the robe around me, tying it with shaking hands. It wasn't out of fear, but rather it was more out of anger. I've been pressured and pushed to the corner, but this is the first time that I wanted to throw and break something so bad.

"Maybe I should ask permission as well when I'm using your library or if I want to relax in your garden. Should I also reach out to you when I want to eat something from your fridge too? When I touch any of your things? When I go out of the house? When I breathe?"

"Careful, Haven."

"I also can't talk freely?" I chuckled without a single drop of humor. "Consider me warned."

"That's not what I meant," he said through gritted teeth.

"Then what? Parehas naman tayong nagsasalita ng English pero ang hirap mong intindihing Spaghetti Bolognese ka! Gwapo ka lang pero ang sakit mo sa ulo!" I had the urge to stomp my feet. The Tagalog came out of my lips before I could stop myself. "Why are you being like this to me? Is this another kind of your thing? Like when you got angry over pasta? If this is an Italian thing, just send me to some remote island in Madagascar because that would feel like heaven, unlike this place where I'm always at the mercy of your Italian temper!" My eyes prickled with tears, but I stubbornly didn't let them fall. "I'm sorry, okay? You can go back now to ignoring me. I'll be in the room you generously let me use and wait when I'm called—"

My words were caught in my throat when he suddenly took a step closer to me. I automatically stepped back, but the lounger behind me stopped me from going anywhere else.

"Ignoring you? Wasn't it you that keeps running away whenever you see me?"

He was right. Since that night in the kitchen, I have been ignoring him. "Can you still call that ignoring when you're barely even around for me to ignore you? I may not know a lot, but I know when I'm being abandoned, Allessio."

A myriad of emotions crossed his face in a flash, that there was no way that I could discern every one of them. "I wasn't abandoning you."

"Right. To be abandoned, one should be tied to the other somehow. But the two of us... it's not like we're anything."

His jaw tightened, and he didn't say anything else. I thought that was just that so I did what I could at that moment, and that is to run away again. I stepped to the side, intending to walk away. But before I could do anything else, I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back.

"You're right." I opened my mouth to speak, but he stopped me with his blazing gaze. "You're right. I made sure that your time will be occupied while I do my fucking hardest to stay away from you."

My chest tightened. "Allessio—"

"But ignoring you? I was saving you. From me." He traced my parted lips with his thumb, and the fire in his eyes ignited more. "You're too young... too pure. You don't know how hard it is to fight every cell of my body that tells me to make you mine. You don't know what it's like to be owned by me. You have a semblance of freedom right now, but if you become mine, that will all disappear."

"Y-You... you... and that woman. That night you were... you were with her."

His gaze travelled all around my face, his lips tilting up in the corners as if he found something satisfactory. "Were you jealous, gattina?" My cheeks got red with anger. I tried to pull away but it was futile when he stayed firm on not letting me go. "She wasn't anything to me."

"And yet you stayed with her all night."

"I was with her but not the way you're thinking about."

"You can't expect me to believe that."

"Then maybe you can believe this." He pulled me closer and he took my hand to place it on top of the bulge in his pants. "She can't make me hard the way you do. She can take her clothes off and it won't do anything for me. Not like you do when you simply just exist."

"T-That's... that's crazy."

"Crazy? I am. That's what I'm trying to save you from." He leaned down and I whimpered when I felt him bit the lobe of my ear. "Run, gattina. While I still can let you go."

It was too much. Allessio must have understood how overwhelming everything is for me because his hold on me loosened and he moved back, giving me the space that I needed. But I couldn't find it in me to run just like he wanted me to. Instead, I stayed rooted in the same place, hesitating.

His eyes burned with intensity, understanding my hesitation. I didn't want to go, but I don't think staying would do me any good when I can't process everything all at once yet. "Go. We'll talk about this later."

"Would we?" I asked quietly.

His gaze softened. "I don't fail at anything, bellissima, but I think this is the first time I did because I can't stay away from you anymore."

With shaking knees, I nodded and started to walk back to the house. Before I could do so, he called out to me, making me turn back to him.

"Spaghatti bolognese is not a thing. We don't eat bolognese with spaghetti. We have ragù alla bolognese."

"What?" I whispered.

"And maybe you should take a medicine. I don't want my handsome face to make your head hurt more."

My mind replayed what I just said to him moments ago, which I wasn't expecting him to understand since I used Tagalog to say it. I was basically telling him that we're both speaking in English but it's hard to understand him—a person I called a Spaghetti Bolognese. I also told him that he's handsome, but he's giving me a headache.

Holy shit! He can understand Tagalog?!