The Godfather Was Too Proud to Love Me, So I Walked Away Chapter 05

The Godfather Was Too Proud to Love Me, So I Walked Away Chapter 05

My phone started buzzing on the way to the airport.

First Mrs. Vitale. Then Mr. Vitale.

Eventually, the screen showed only one name, over and over and over.

Renzo.

I stared at it for two seconds. Declined.

Ten seconds later, it rang again.

Declined.

Again.

A familiar stream of text flickered across my vision.

[Here we go! The classic airport chase scene from the original book!]

[She can act cool all she wants. The male lead says “come back” and she’ll go running with her suitcase.]

[In the original she never even makes it onto the plane. She rejects the offer for Renzo.]

My eyelid twitched.

So there was supposed to be an airport scene too.

Right on cue, Renzo’s call came through again.

The second the line connected, his voice hit my ear, barely restrained fury underneath every word.

“Odette, where the hell are you?”

I leaned back against the seat. “Guess.”

“Why is your room empty?”

“Moved.”

He sounded like I was physically testing his blood pressure. His breathing went heavy for a second. “I’m

asking where you are right now.”

“The airport.”

Dead silence on the other end.

A few seconds passed. His voice dropped low.

“Don’t get on that plane.”

My fingers tightened around the phone before I could stop them.

Loving someone was terrifying. Even when your brain had already decided to let go, your heart still leaped at

two words from him.

I said nothing.

Renzo probably took my silence as hesitation, because his tone softened just slightly.

“The family just got Serena back. If you suddenly leave the country, what about your parents? What will

people say?”

That tiny spark of something in my chest died instantly.

Of course.

I couldn’t believe I was still hoping.

The boarding announcement echoed through the terminal. I lowered my eyes and let out a quiet laugh.

“Renzo.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you always assumed that whenever you called, I’d come running back?”

No answer.

But I already knew.

The old me would have. Every single time.

When he had a match, I drove two hours in the middle of the night to be there. When his stomach acted up, I ditched a half-finished brand shoot to bring him medicine. When he casually mentioned he didn’t like long distance, I spent weeks agonizing over whether to turn down the school I had been trying to get into for three

years.

It was probably because I turned around every single time that he assumed I always would.

So the passenger seat could go to someone else. The necklace could go to someone else. The seat at the family dinner could be given away.

Because in a day or two, he would smooth things over, and I would come back like I always did.

I looked through the terminal’s floor-to-ceiling windows at the sky slowly brightening outside, and my own voice surprised me with how steady it was.

“It used to be true.”

“Not anymore.”