Chapter 45 - Forty Four: Guardian Angel

" What do you mean by you aren't feeling the relationship anymore?" Becca asked, not understanding what Navaya was talking about.

'Did she know anything about Ace's cheating? Was that why she was losing interest in him?' Different questions ran through Becca's mind as she anticipated Navaya's response.

" I just feel like things aren't the same anymore, it's different now. I don't know how to explain it but the relationship changed, he changed, I changed. Everything changed." Navaya's face turned gloomy, leaving Becca feeling conflicted. She didn't know whether she should be happy that Navaya no longer had feelings for her cheating boyfriend or be upset that her friend's relationship was falling apart.

" But did you ever have feelings for Ace? Did you ever feel the relationship?" And on hearing Becca's question, Navaya cast her eyes to the floor and let out a loud sigh. Truth be told, Navaya really didn't have feelings for Ace when she started dating him, but he was persistently pursuing her back then and because of a couple of personal reasons, she agreed to be his girlfriend.

Navaya decided to give him a chance since he seemed to be in love with her and wanted something special with her. She thought that after being with him for a while, she would learn to love him as well but despite dating him for years, she still didn't feel anything for him.

It was never to be in the first place and Navaya didn't want to feel like she was wasting his time or even using him. She had thought of breaking up with him before but whenever she tried to, Ace always did something all over the top special that always left her feeling guilt trapped and forced her not to push through with it. This happened a couple of times already and it was like a vicious circle where Navaya makes up her mind to end things with Ace but he comes along and pulls up with an extravagant display of affection that makes Navaya feel too guilty to even think of leaving him. He always made her feel bad for thinking about breaking up with him, and Navaya, who had a heart of gold, wouldn't even dream of crushing Ace's feelings like that. Especially when she knew how much he loved her.

" I don't know, Becca. When I agreed to become Ace's girlfriend, I was still working through some emotional stuff and didn't know what I felt for him at that time. And throughout my emotional struggle, he had always been there even when I told him that I wasn't interested. He still stayed and said that he didn't care if I didn't love him, that he would be satisfied just having me next to him. It made me feel bad whenever I pushed him away and I accepted his proposal but now, I don't even know if I did the right thing back then." Navaya explained while Becca quietly listened to everything she said but at the same time, several thoughts ran through her mind.

Becca didn't know why but Navaya's relationship story reminded her of what she was experiencing with Leo even though it wasn't supposed to. Their stories were completely different and moreover, Becca had feelings for Leo, she was attracted to him. But the question here was would simple attraction be enough to build a strong relationship?

Obviously, the answer was no, it wouldn't. Compared to what Leo felt for her, what Becca felt towards him was a crush.

A simple crush. Something that couldn't even come close to the Passionate love Leo had been nurturing towards her for the past fifteen years.

It was like yeah, the guy was hot and said he loved you so why not go ahead and date him. Give him a try and see if you liked what you got like he was some romance novel or something.

This probably wasn't the best way to start a relationship, it was called playing with Leo's feelings and a delicious recipe for cooking up a disastrous relationship. 

A relationship that would end in heartbreak wasn't what Becca was looking forward to in her life and she was starting to reconsider her decision, not just for her sake but for Leo's as well.

Let's get real, who wants to experience heartbreak? Who would stay in a relationship that would just end in a disaster, huh? Who wants to get hurt?

Leo was a real person with real feelings that would get hurt if they continued this one-sided, truly unnamed relationship of theirs and all these were making Becca rethink the decision she made of becoming Leo's woman.

You can't blame her, she just didn't want to be unfair to him but some blame should be allocated to her as well. She should have thought about this before accepting Leo's proposal and now what? Was she going to break up with the guy in less than twenty-four hours of dating him, not that Leo would actually allow her to leave him, but wouldn't that also be crushing his feelings?

This was why Becca was afraid of her feelings, this was why she hated relationships. They were just too complicated for her to truly understand.

Navaya noticed how quiet Becca had become and touched her shoulder. Becca turned to look at Navaya and saw a smile on her face.

" Hey, don't think about it. It's my problem, not yours, so don't worry. I will fix it." Navaya reassured and hugged Becca tightly, patting her back gently. " I'm just glad you finally found someone that you have feelings for and I hope your relationship won't end up like the way mine did," Navaya added, still hugging Becca who let out a soft sigh.

Awful and perplexed didn't even come close to describing how Becca felt at that moment. She felt selfish and horrible for wanting to do what she was thinking of doing but it was the right thing to do, at least it felt like the right thing. It was to prevent Leo from wasting any more of his time, anymore of his love, on someone who didn't even love him back.

Despite how bad it would sound, Becca still needed to make it clear to Leo, she had to tell him how she felt and that she didn't have the same feelings he had for her.

That she didn't love him.

And this was also the exact thing Navaya should do to Ace, tell the cheating fucker that she wasn't into the relationship anymore and was never into it in the first place. Maybe then the bastard would learn to stay with one woman and be faithful.

Talk about an arrow to the chest, Leo definitely wouldn't take. He would be outraged. He would feel used by her and that wasn't even the worst part of all this, he might not even forgive her for it.

A guy like Leo deserved someone better than her, someone, who actually loved him and with that thought, when the workday was over, Becca went straight home. She didn't reply to any of Leo's texts and even switched off her phone. She waited for the time Leo said he would pick her up and right on time, the doorbell rang.

With slow sad steps, Becca dragged her feet to the door and opened it. She saw Leo holding a beautiful bouquet as he stood in front of her with a bright smile on his face and before she could even say anything, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her into a sizzling kiss that was hot enough to melt her skull but she told herself to stay strong. She told herself to stick to the resolve she made.

' Be strong, Becca. Fight his hotness.' Was the mantra she kept chanting in her head and when their lips parted, Leo was the first one to speak.

" All I did today was think about you, I missed you so much." Leo's husky voice said against her lips and wanted to kiss her again but she stopped him. For the first time ever.

" Leo, wait. There's something I have to say to you." She put her hands on his chest to create some space between them.

Leo noticed how apprehensive she looked and raised his hand to caress her face but she stepped further away from him, leaving his hand hanging in the air.

" What's wrong?" Leo's face was now filled with concern and worry. He put down the bouquet on the floor and stepped into the apartment with her. But the more steps he took towards her, the more steps she took away from him till her back hit a wall. His eyes scanned her, her body, and saw how shaky she looked. She looked really sad and even saw tears rolling down her cheeks.

" Becca, I won't hurt you." Leo's first guess for what could have caused her to start acting like that all of the sudden was she somehow found out about his illegal businesses and how he brutally slaughtered people. That he was in the mafia.

He didn't want that, he didn't want her to be afraid of him.

As much as possible, he wanted to keep her away from his mafia activities, keep her in the dark so she wouldn't hate him just like Kristina did. But here she was running away from him, running scared of a monster like him. This shattered his heart to a million pieces and he just stood there watching how tears fell on her face.

He saw her wrap her arms around herself and how she started taking deep breaths to calm herself down.

" Leo," Becca called out after a while of silence, and Leo's head whipped in her direction.

" Yes, my love." He answered and took a single step towards her. Becca used the back of her hands to wipe her tears and cleared her throat which seemed to have dried up. She didn't even know why she was crying so much, the whole breakup thing was her idea so why was she crying about it? Why did she feel like a piece of her soul was being ripped out?

" Leo, we can't be together anymore. We just can't." It took all the courage she had in her to do this, to say those words out loud and though it was for the greater good, it made her feel awful. And Leo just stared at her with an expression on his face that looked like anger mixed with sadness and regret. 

He stared at her for a few seconds, seconds that went by so slowly, it was painful. Then he moved his feet and took steps closer to her until their bodies stood just mere inches apart. He raised his hand and touched her hair

" Whatever it is, we can work it out, don't worry. You can tell me anything, if there's anything you don't like about me, I am willing to change for you, my love. Just don't do this, Becca." Leo pleaded with a calm voice as he caressed her hair but Becca shook her head and fought the second round of tears that came to wet her face.

" It's not you, Leo, it's me. I'm not good enough for you." She pushed his hand away and ran into her bedroom while Leo trailed closely behind her but he wasn't fast enough and she slammed the door on his face.

" My love, please open the door. Don't be like this, let's talk about it. Don't shut me out, please." Leo begged and kept knocking at the door but she didn't open up. He tried the doorknob but the door was already locked. " Becca, please talk to me."

" You need someone deserving of your love, Leo. Not me, I don't deserve it. You deserve someone who feels the same way as you do." Becca said for him to hear, leaning on her bedroom door as uncontrollable tears gushed down her eyes and her turned face red from crying.

One step forward, two steps back. The continuous vicious circle.

" My love, what are you talking about? You do have feelings for me, it's me who isn't deserving of your affection at all. Please open the door." Leo knocked at the door again but she still didn't open up. He was about to knock some more but his hand froze in the air when he heard her speak again.

" I'm sorry but I don't love you, Leo. I have never loved you and I don't know if I ever will." Becca's body slid down the door and she sat on the floor hugging her knees to her chest.

' She would never want a monster like you.'

' You are a monster, you were born a monster and will die as one. No one would ever love you.' 

Those hurtful memories resurfaced in his head and he dropped his hand down, fisting it beside him. Leo bowed his head low and stepped away from her bedroom door. He walked to her entrance door then saw the flowers he kept there, picked them up, and took out a pen from his pocket to write something on the card attached to the bouquet.

When he was done writing on the card, he cast his eyes to Becca's bedroom door and a single tear smeared his cheek but he quickly wiped it off.

Leo never cried, not in so many years.

What had she done to him?

He gently placed the bouquet on her living room couch and with his wounded heart in his hand, he walked out the door.

Even after Becca heard the entrance door shut, she still didn't come out or even get off the floor. She stayed in her room crying her eyes out for another hour before she finally unlocked the door and walked out of the room. She went to her living room and the first thing that caught her eyes was the bouquet that laid neatly on her couch. 

With another round of tears brewing in her eyes, Becca picked the bouquet up and saw a card attached to it. She took a look at the card and the beautiful handwriting on it then read it out loud.

' No matter how much you push me away, I will also be here watching over you like a guardian angel. I don't care what you think I deserve or who deserves me but what I want is you. You're the one I love and will always love.

Ci vediamo, my beautiful distraction.'

Becca instantly dropped down the flowers back on the couch and picked up her phone to translate what ' Ci vediamo' meant and saw it was ' till we meet again' in Italian. Then the hot tears that brewed in her eyes finally started pouring down like a storm on her face, making her feel helpless and vulnerable again.

It felt like the death of her mother all over again. When Amanda was alive, Becca didn't value the time they spent together. She didn't care when her mother was around or not and even thought that staying away from her was the best thing to do but when she died, Becca felt a part of her heart stopped working. The same thing was repeating itself, Becca thought that ending things with Leo would be for the best but as soon as she did it, she instantly felt a part of her soul leaving her. Her tall walls had fallen, leaving her open and vulnerable. Something she never wanted to be but here she was, feeling like shit again after trying to keep herself together for six years. Now the hurt was worst, it fucking tripled in intensity and it was killing her. 

The void in her that was gradually being filled, opened up again even wider and the hurt she felt when she was just eighteen came back but this time, the pain seemed to have tripled and it was unbearable.

Fuck!

Becca couldn't take it.

She cried and sobbed uncontrollably, hugging the bouquet that Leo bought her to her chest and laid on her fluffy living room rug until she eventually fell asleep out of exhaustion.

Even after she fell asleep, all she could dream about was Leo and how he smiled at her.. Only at her.