Chapter 3 “I know you like him.”

Since leaving Cynthia, Carlo reoccurred dreams of the day they separated practically every night.

  It was a rainy day and his father had sent for him to leave her. Naturally, he was reluctant to go, having promised Cynthia long ago that he would stay with her for the rest of his life.

  His Cynthia, who, although she would often scold him for being stupid, would be the first to buy him a cupcake on her payday, now said to him with a cold face: "Carlo, I don't want you anymore, I've sold you to them, you know I'm most afraid of trouble, and with you gone, my trouble is gone." 

  The scenes she left without looking back is still replayed in Carlo's dreams every night. He used to think that in this world, if he treated people sincerely enough and gave enough love, he would gain the approval of the people he loved most. But reality shattered his good intentions like a powerful storm in a peaceful life. It took him a long time to react, his mind going blank, tears sliding down the corners of his eyes and dripping onto his worn-out shoes. 

 When he finally realized that Cynthia was really leaving him, Carlo froze, he ran on the road and pulled Cynthia by the scruff of his coat and cried in a kind of tears: 

"Don't sell me, I'll do as I'm told, I really will, I'll never eat a cupcake again, I'll never let you down again. I said I'd stay with you.I'll be your dog for your rest life instead of Luke. Why did you have to throw me away? Can't I have just you by my side? Answer me, Cynthia!"

  Carlo cried, his heart breaking, Cynthia just turned her back to him, he couldn't see her expression. carlo tried to hold her cold hand, tried again and again to confirm to her that none of this was true. She looked back, no lingering look in her eyes.

  Cynthia swatted his hand away, cold and desperate: "I don't need your company, I could pick up a dog from the side of the road and be more obedient than you. Don't you understand that you are of no use to me anymore? Money, do you have money? They gave me a lot of money, enough to cover my expenses for ten years. As for you, if I say I don't want you, I don't want you!"

  He did not know if it was an illusion or not but Carlo seemed to hear a slight choke in Cynthia's last words. Before this last flame of hope could burn for long, the group covered his mouth and nose with a towel and forcibly took him away, he vaguely saw Cynthia's thin figure getting smaller and smaller until it was out of sight and in a rush he jumped from the car. 

  The skin of his body could not felt the pain from the friction or the impact with the ground. He stood up and wanted to limped to walk back to Cynthia's side. But soon his eyes went black and he fell into a bottomless abyss, surrounded by darkness and a voice telling him that he would never see his beloved again in his life. The darkness came upon him and the next moment it was about to swallow him up, Carlo woke up with a start from his dream and looked down to find Cynthia in his arms, his heart overflowing with the feeling of having lost and found, he kissed the top of her hair and held her tighter, he would never let her leave him again.

An abandoned dog would not want to hate its master, but would only fear loss more. He thought that even if Cynthia would never forgive him again, he won't regret doing it. 

 He looked at the bars of the cage and held Cynthia in his arms and buried his head in the nook of her neck, rubbing it lovingly.

Cynthia awoke to find herself held firmly in Carlo's arms, his chin resting on the nape of her neck, with no gap between them. He seemed like an unweaned baby who couldn't leave his mother. She raised her hand to shield herself from the incoming sunlight, and looking at Carlo's quiet sleeping face, she couldn't help but reach out and gently cover his eyelids, shielding the beams of the rising sun from the back of her hand. She couldn't say why she had done it, but by the time she had reacted, she had done so.

  Carlo's breath sprayed against Cynthia's ear, making her heart beat faster and her ear-tipped cheeks flush. She tried to get out of Carlo's arms, but her newly recovered body was weak again from last night's wild sex and she tried several times without breaking free.

Carlo woke up to her movement and tightened the force on his arms, "Don't leave me ....."

 "You're strangling me ......" Cynthia whined loudly, her voice as soft as her body, sounding like she was pouting.

The kisses landed on the back of her neck and the hands that had been strangling her tightly, though released a little, began to fumble her body irresistibly.

  Cynthia pressed down on a hand that was probing beneath her and whispered her refusal, "No, it still hurts ...."

This time the refusal worked, Carlo stopped moving and honestly took her into his arms again and buried himself in the crook of her neck and inhaled hard, "You smell good, the same as before." When Carlo had been living with Cynthia, he had always thought she smelled good, but he couldn't tell what it was, it was just a light freshness that he couldn't get enough of. 

  He kissed her neck greedily, a happy smile curving the corners of his mouth as he held Cynthia tighter in his own arms.

Cynthia, still unawake and not quite clear-headed, opened her mouth in a daze and called out, "Carlo."

The hand on her waist gave a noticeable twitch and Carlo said, "I'm here."

Cynthia had seen Carlo twice since her memory had returned, and both times her memories were of him raping her so badly that she had a preconceived dislike for this Carlo. Was the gentlemanly Carlo really not coming back, she thought sadly?

"When did you ...... get your memory back?" Cynthia asked.

  The pain of the crash returned to Carlo's mind almost instantly. The day he left Cynthia, he had jumped from the car and been in a coma for a whole month, and when he woke up he had recovered his memories from before he met her. It's just that the memories of those six months living with Cynthia and being abandoned by her are so profound that they overshadow even his previous hardships surviving in the Ricci family. And the memories of being forced to take over the underground industry and deal with the triads.

His life has not been a glamorous one.Or even said that his life was full of dark power struggles.The world says that all suffering in this world comes from the uncertainty of fate, from those sudden changes.

Carlo Ricci never believed in this, nor did he have the same faith as others. He could overcome fate and difficulties, and he felt indifferent to them all. It was not until the day he was abandoned by Cynthia that he realised that it was not the darkness and loneliness of life that was truly frightening, but the lovelessness of the future. 

It was the feeling of despair around his throat that was his lifelong nightmare.

The time he had lived with Cynthia was the only warm and happy time he had had in the last twenty years, so after being abandoned he would often wake up in the middle of the night and find his face rather wet. He couldn't understand why Cynthia, who had given him hope, had to extinguish it with her own hands.

Now, in Carlo's mind, Cynthia was his true family in the world and he wondered whether he should tell Cynthia everything that had happened to him over the years.

  But there were so many complicated things about him, each of which could be a threat to Cynthia's safety, that he didn't want Cynthia to know. He looked into Cynthia's misty eyes and said.

"It doesn't matter, what matters is that you're with me now."

Carlo's tone was intimate and the illusion of warmth made Cynthia think she had a chance to talk to him about her thoughts, she was brave enough to follow his lead: "But you can't keep me like this, I have painting to do and students to teach, will you let me go back?You give me some time to sort things out between us, I want to ......" Carlo lost his gentle smile and before Cynthia could say the next words Carlo cut him off, "No!" He got up and got out of bed and picked Cynthia up off the bed with the blanket and headed straight for the metal cage in the room.

He was so unpredictable!

"Why not? You have no right to restrict my personal freedom, put me down! You're crazy!" Cynthia struggled in Carlo's arms, but she was nowhere near as strong as Carlo and the struggle was futile.

"I'm just crazy, I've been crazy since the moment you dropped me." Carlo put the person in the cage and closed and locked the door, "Be a good girl and wait here for me until I return, a maid will bring you food later."

"You're not the real Carlo, you're just crazy! Bastard!" Cynthia shouted in disbelief, slapping the bars of the cage and cursing.

"Remember, my full name is Carlo Ricci ,and you will be buried in the same grave as me even if you die in this life." Carlo said as he put on his tie, the young master of the dreaded Ricci family was back.He appeared to be the polar opposite of how he had been at first.Not long ago he was laying in bed, compassionately caressing Cynthia.

He is dressed in a suit and has put on his eyeglasses, which reflect the cold glint of light on his lenses. He no longer cared for any of Cynthia's curses and abuse. At the moment he was the only one who ruled the place.

Cynthia's body shook with anger, her body was still sore, the hidden spot between her legs still felt burning and it hurt like hell to take two steps, but it was no more painful than the humiliation Carlo had brought her: "You're only making me hate you more."

Carlo's body paused as he reached the door, he didn't turn his head, no emotion could be heard in his voice: "If only you could be by my side, I knew you didn't like me, you liked that cowardly man called Antonio, I knew it before in the old flat."

  He knew that Cynthia liked her childhood friend Antonio, who didn't like her at all.Antonio had grown up with Cynthia, the two of them had studied painting together and gone away to school together, and later opened a studio to teach students, where Cynthia helped as a teacher.

  It was ridiculous for her, a graduate of a top art school, to teach a bunch of chattering, noisy kids who didn't know anything about anything.Cynthia was happy to do it. She even getting drunk and nearly drowning herself in the bathroom after Antonio got a girlfriend.

  As the door slammed, Cynthia snapped back to her senses.

She had a crush on Antonio for seven years, from youth to society, but she knew in her heart that Antonio had a girl he liked and that he couldn't possibly like her. It's just that as a friend he brings her so much warmth and care that sometimes Cynthia gets the wrong  illusion.

  Even if Antonio liked her, there was no way they could be together because their family backgrounds were so different and Cynthia could not help but feel inferior and uncomfortable in front of him, even though if they were in love.

  Cynthia thought that this would be the end of her life, that she would probably live in poverty and loneliness for the rest of her life. But then Carlo came to her and everything changed.

When Carlo first moved in he was given the living room. He was so tall and curled up on the narrow sofa, like a large dog trying to fit into a cat's litter, looking awkward and funny, but there was no room for him in the house, and he was not allowed to visit to her grandmother's bedroom.

At night, with the lights off, Cynthia was about to fall asleep when she heard a cold wind blowing through the window, scaring her enough. When she opened her eyes, she saw Carlo crouching by the bed with tears in his eyes like a fool, crying with tears in his eyes: "Cynthia, I'm afraid of the dark, I'm afraid to sleep alone ........."

The first time she saw a man who was afraid of the dark.

Cynthia suspected that she might die from his anger if she couldn't catch her breath: "What's there to be afraid of, why are you so timid?"

"I'm just scared," he said, and Carlo cried even harder, so much so that she couldn't hear the words coming out of his mouth.

It took him a while to continue, "I want to sleep with you..."

Cynthia sat up and turned on the bedside lamp: "Are you crazy! Go to bed now or I'll sell you tomorrow!"

Carlo was so simple minded that when Cynthia said she was going to sell him, he thought she really thought she was going to sell him and cowered in fear, not even daring to cry, "Don't sell me, I'm going to bed now."

Cynthia couldn't sleep and, fearing that the fool might do something extreme out of fear, she quietly opened the door and found him lying curled up on the sofa with a small painting that Cynthia had given him during the day in her arms.

Carlo couldn't sleep at all and sat up with his eyes open at the sound of the voice: "Sister Cynthia ...... I'm still scared,"

Cynthia pressed her forehead, "Don't call me sister, we're not sure who's older, you can just call me Cynthia, that's my nickname."

"Sister Cynthia ...."

Cynthia was convinced, sister is sister, she said in a bad mood, "Come inside, you sleep on the floor, no the bed!"

"Okay!" Carlo immediately replied happily like a puppy being rewarded by its owner.

After that Carlo stayed on the floor in her bedroom .Until the day Cynthia found out Antonio had a girlfriend and nearly drowned in the bathroom.

She'd liked Antonio for seven years, so long that the liking had become a habit. So when Antonio brought the petite girl into the studio and introduced her to her, she couldn't take it for a second.

She didn't know how she spent that whole day, and when she got home she drank lots and lots of wine, feeling bursting hot under the alcohol catalyst, and simply put on a bath of cold water. She buried her body underwater, trying to escape the world for a short time but the blurring of her five senses from too much alcohol caused her to forget to change her breath.

Her consciousness peeled away a little, and in a trance she seemed to see her parents, whom she had longed for. Until Carlo breaks down the door and pulls her out of the bath.

The incident scared Carlo so much that he burst into tears, which made Cynthia feel so guilty that she didn't have the energy to think about her own feelings as she tried to comfort him.

Maybe it really scared him.

Whenever Cynthia took a shower, Carlo would wait at the door, as if he was afraid she would never get out.

It was also on that occasion that Cynthia's secret was discovered by Carlo.

Cynthia knew he was stupid, so she told him about her feeling with Antonio. Carlo said he couldn't understand why Cynthia was so nice but just can't get the love of Antonio's boss. Cynthia just laughed.

Later Cynthia asked him again if he would think he was a monster, a piece of trash not worthy of love. He remembers Carlo answering him like this:

"You're not a monster and you're not rubbish. I think it's probably just that God thinks you're so good looking and wants to sneak you a gift that no one else's has! That is your talent for art! I love to sleep with your paintings every day! Because looking at your paintings I feel like I've entered a safe otherworldly dimension. When you weren't home with me, it was your paintings that I fell asleep with."

It was the first time she had ever heard someone describe her like that, and her heart warmed with emotion. For the first time in all these years, she was cherished like a treasure.

Probably because she had slept on the cold floor after saving her without having time to dry off, Carlo had a fever the next day, and Cynthia blamed herself and asked Carlo to come to bed with her.

Although she drew a line between the two of them and did not allow Carlo to cross it, he was still happy. In fact, sometimes Cynthia envied him because his happiness was always so simple. At night Carlo was long asleep, and as Cynthia watched the moonlight spill over the body of the man beside her, she secretly reached out and touched the hair on the forehead of the man in front of her. On a night so intimate and private, they slept together.