Ruined By My Brother's Best Friend (by Silverwriter) novel Chapter 205

No Right To Touch Me

ARABELLA’S POV

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So, it was real… I suddenly felt cold, like a bucket of ice water had been splashed all over my body.

He was going to leave for Russia tomorrow and then get married next month.

He was never coming back, and even if he did, he’d be back as a married man, probably with children. I felt sick, bile rising to my throat and surging upward with such force that I gagged.

Alvise rushed forward and wrapped his hands around me. “What’s the problem? Are you okay?”

I couldn’t stand his touch, so I shook it off and rushed to the farthest corner of the living room. “Don’t come close to me!” I warned. “Just stay there!”

“Come on, Arabella!” Alvise huffed, his voice hard and his eyes stern. “You need to stop doing this…”

“Don’t speak to me! Don’t!” The air caught in my throat, making my voice a hoarse scream. “I don’t want you to fucking talk to me or look at me… Just forget I exist, as you have been doing all this while, and carry on with your life. I beg you!”

Alvise tilted his head to the side, and with so much determination that I would have been foolish enough to believe he cared, he said, “I’m not leaving you alone until you tell me what the fucking problem is.”

“You’re asking me what the problem is?” I laughed, the sound coming out hysterical. “You’re leaving tomorrow, Alvise. You planned on leaving tomorrow and you didn’t tell me anything! You were just going to disappear! You were going to…” I closed my eyes. “Leave me.”

I opened my eyes and rubbed my face furiously, overwhelmed by the surge of emotions threatening to

consume me.

“I didn’t think you’d care.”

I snapped my eyes up to look at him. Was he being serious? He didn’t think I’d care? I had to hold myself back from bursting into another hysterical laugh before I completely lost my mind.

Was there anyone with a brain cell who didn’t know I liked him? You just had to look at me whenever he was in the room to see how much he affected me, and here he was saying he didn’t think I’d care that he was leaving the fucking country.

I nodded, smiling politely. “Yeah, sure. You’re right. Of course I don’t care. Matter of fact, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Arabella.” Alvise took a cautious step forward. “You’re shaking…”

“Tell me something,” I mused, tucking my hair behind my ear, “are you just really clueless, or are you having fun watching me crash out?”

His eyes flashed with something akin to confusion. “What are you driving at?”

I was done with this. For myself and the last bit of sanity I had left, I had to get it together and stop trying to explain anything to him. He wasn’t going to get it.

PERUU MON, Sep 14

Rumed By My Brother’s Best Friend

“Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.” I spat. “And I’m done with it.”

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ke a ticking time bomb that had reached its final countdown and been pushed over the edge by my words, he balled his hands into fists and stalked towards me.

The sheer rage on his face made my heart beat louder and my chest heave up and down, panic swirling from my toes and spreading through my entire body. “Don’t come closer, or I’ll scream.”

Alvise paused halfway to me and tilted his head to the side. “Do you think I care?”

He didn’t. I could see it in the way his face was stoic and his eyes were stripped of every emotion.

He was pissed.

But I’d come to not give a fuck about that because I was pissed too, and I didn’t see him giving a fuck

either.

Before I could process what was happening, Alvise had already stepped into my personal space and pressed me against the wall, his hands moving over my waist before trailing down to my wrists and pinning them above me.

“I’ve let you run this mouth so much that you think you can talk to me like that, right?” He whispered roughly into my ear.

“Get your hands off me!” I gritted, trying to knee him where it hurt, but he caught my leg before I could.

His breath fanned against my neck. “You said so much, Arabella. So, so much that I don’t know where to fucking start.”

I refused to let my mind dwell on a single word that came out of his mouth. “You have no right to touch me, Alvise.”

He pulled back enough to look at me, the expression on his face hinting that I’d just hit a nerve. “I have no right to touch you?”

My throat felt dry, the thought of speaking suddenly feeling impossible, but I forced out my answer. “Yes.

You can’t.”

Like I’d dared him, his hands traveled down to my waist and he pulled me impossibly closer. “Then who does? If I can’t, then who can?”

I closed my eyes, refusing to feel anything other than complete anger. “My future husband,” I mumbled. “Or any man I decide to date.”

His hands on my waist froze, and he tipped his head back, laughing like I’d just said the funniest thing he’d

ever heard.

It was the first time I’d seen him laugh genuinely, not like an awkward or sarcastic chuckle. I stared at his face, probably longer than I should have, because I noticed a dimple.

The devil had a dimple.

“Don’t say things like that in front of me, Arabella.” Alvise breathed. “It makes me never want any other man to touch you.”

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Rumed By My Brother’s Best Friend

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“Don’t you think that’s a double standard? You don’t want another man to touch me, but you’re planning a wedding?” I snorted. “Oh please. Don’t be delusional.”

“You see that tone and those snarky words?” His voice was deadly calm. “That’s the exact thing you do that makes me want to show you just how much I’m not delusional, but quite the opposite.”

He brought his lips close to my ear, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. “If I wanted you right now, in this fucking living room, I would fucking marry you, and I don’t care if I have to bring the whole world down for it.”

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Mon, Sep 14

Ruined By My Brother’s Best Friend

Goodbye

ARABELLA’S POV

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His words sizzled against my skin, sending dangerous, reckless shivers down my spine, and for a moment, just a little moment, I almost allowed myself to ponder his words. But I shoved the thought back into the dark where it came from and shook my head.

“Your words mean nothing to me, Alvise.” I said, standing on my tiptoes to whisper close to his ear. “Nothing.” I straightened and drew my brows together. “If you wanted to?” I scoffed. “But you obviousl don’t. And I don’t need any ‘what ifs’ in my life. You’re obviously trying to mock me, but thankfully, I’ve seen right through your act.”

Alvise released me and stepped back. “Whatever this is, Arabella, I don’t have the time for it.”

“Of course, you don’t.”

“Stop using that fucking tone.”

I rolled my eyes. “Or what? You’re going to lock me up?”

“Try me.”

I clamped my mouth shut and looked away. “My brother.” I said, “I want to see him.”

Pin-drop silence filled the room, and Alvise didn’t reply or even attempt to. Alarmed, I turned my attention back to him and narrowed my eyes.

“Where is Archie?”

Alvise looked away. “I don’t know.”

I blinked. “You don’t know? He’s your best friend. What do you mean by that?”

“Drop it, Arabella.”

Now was not the time to drop it. There was something odd going on. When we walked into the apartment, I’d known something was amiss. Even though I hadn’t been in the best mood to see Archie, I still wondered why he wasn’t present in his own home.

If Francesca was being held downstairs, he would be there, especially when they had just gotten married yesterday. It made no sense.

And for him to leave her in the basement just like that? Something must have happened that Alvise wasn’t telling me about.

“What is going on?” I asked, moving closer to him. “Give me your phone. I want to call him…”

“You can’t call him.” He said firmly. “Go get some rest, Arabella, and leave this discussion for tomorrow.”

I was now almost spiraling with worry. “Just tell me. I cannot wait. Where did he go? Trust me, I can handle it. It’s better I know than being left in the dark.” My voice shook with each breath. “Is he hurt…”

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Ruined By My Brother’s Best Friend

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“He left.” Alvise said, slipping his hands into his pockets, his eyes flashing with a hint of pity as he searched my face.

I parsed my lips and blinked ferociously, trying to see if I was dreaming.

I wasn’t.

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It was real.

“What do you mean by ‘left?”” I choked out, struggling to seem composed.

I could tell I wasn’t doing a good job with the way Alvise took a step closer and his stoic exterior faltered a little.

He looked like he didn’t just worry about me; he pitied me. And more than anything, that made me want to gag and disappear.

I didn’t want his pity. Sure, my life was evidently pathetic, but the last thing I needed was to have the man I could say was at the center of all my chaos pity me.

That would be ironic.

“After seeing the evidence of everything Francesca did, he got overwhelmed and said he needed time to think.” Alvise explained cautiously.

I took a deep breath. “By ‘time to think,’ don’t you mean time away from me?” I smiled sadly. He didn’t want to see me, so he probably went as far away as possible…

I couldn’t be mad at him for it.

After all I’d done and hidden from him, I knew it was guaranteed that he would hate me. I’d made peace with that possibility years ago.

Did that make it hurt any less? Definitely not. It felt like someone had ripped out my heart from my chest and constantly stepped on it until I couldn’t feel anything else but pain.

To be the reason my own brother had to go away from his work, family, and friends just proved how badly I’d treated him and how much I’d hurt him.

I didn’t need him to say it for me to know. It was already clear as day.

He had just realized his whole relationship, and now his marriage, had been a lie, and I’d watched him live through that lie.

I was disgusted with myself.

“Are you hungry?” Alvise asked, now only standing a foot away from me.

I refused to look at his face because I knew if I did, I would break down. He was leaving me, and my brother had left me already.

I was alone. All by myself.

Though I felt the surge of emotions, I didn’t want to hold any resentment. They owed me nothing, and I

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