Chapter 29 Gabriella
Back in our hotel suite, Luca immediately pours himself a whiskey. I notice he doesn't offer me one. The days of him playing the polite husband are over. He stands by the window, looking out at Prague's skyline, and the silence stretches between us.
I sit on the edge of the bed, and wait for him to speak first. There's no point in trying to control this conversation. The truth is out, and whatever happens next is up to him.
"What's your real name?" he asks finally, not turning around.
"Gabriella. Gabriella Arcari."
"And Sofia?"
"Is my twin sister. I’m older by six minutes, if it matters."
He takes a sip of whiskey, and I can see his reflection in the window glass. His face is carefully controlled, tight with suppressed rage.
"Tell me about the wedding day."
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
I close my eyes, remembering. "Sofia called me the night before. She was having a complete emotional breakdown. She'd spent months researching your family, reading everything she could find about what you really do. She was terrified."
"Of me?"
"Yes, and of your world. Of what marriage to you would mean.
She knew she couldn't survive it." I open my eyes and stare at his back, willing him to face me.
"Sofia has always been fragile. When she was in university, she had a complete psychological break.
Anxiety, depression, self-harm. She spent three months in a private clinic.
I was very worried about her back then."
"I know about the clinic."
That surprises me. "You investigated her? Why? Wasn’t she good enough for you?"
"I investigate everyone who enters my life." He turns around to face me. "Continue."
"She begged me to come home. Said she couldn't go through with the marriage but couldn't back out either. She knew what it would mean for Papa's business, for the family alliance. You know more than anyone what it would’ve meant had she abandoned you at the altar. Backing out of the wedding wasn’t an option. "
"You asked you to take her place?"
I shake my head. “No, I offered. It was all my idea. I would do anything to protect her. I thought maybe I could stall the wedding, find another solution. But when I got there and saw how desperate she was." I shrug. "I couldn't let her destroy herself for a business arrangement."
"Even if it meant sacrificing your own life?"
"To me, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was a choice." I meet his eyes. "Sofia stayed home and lived the life Papa wanted because she thought she had to. Our mother fled and took me when I was eight to save me from that same life. I’m stronger than Sofia. I’ve traveled the world and learned how to take care of myself. I’m better equipped to handle whatever this world throws at me. "
"You’re stronger?" He moves closer, and I realize how his enemies must feel when they’re on this end of his fury. "Is that what you call lying to me for weeks? Strength?"
"I call it survival."
"Whose? Yours or hers?"
"Both."
He's standing directly in front of me now, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. He’s intentionally trying to intimidate me, but I refuse to cower in front of him now.
"Tell me about the switch. How did you pull it off?"
"It wasn't complicated. We're identical twins.
I cut my hair to match hers, practiced her mannerisms, studied everything about her life.
The morning of the wedding, she left in my clothes and I put on her wedding dress.
You never paid attention to her during the long engagement so fooling you was the easiest thing of all. "
"And your father?"
"He knew nothing about it until the dinner party.
He figured it out and confronted me. You overheard part of our conversation.
" I pause. "He's been panicking ever since, trying to find Sofia and figure out how to fix what we've done.
He wanted to find her and demand she switch back.
As if that was even a remote possibility. "
“And you didn’t want her doing that?”
“Of course not! I wanted her to live her life.”
“I did a thorough background check on Sofia before the engagement, then again recently when I begin to be suspicious of you. Why didn’t you show up as her twin?”
I shrug. “When my mother ran and took me, we both ceased to exist in Papa’s eyes. He sealed records of me as if I was never there at all. Sofia and I were split up at the age of eight and it was years later in our teens that we figured out a way to reconnect. He never knew we were in contact.”
“And your father?”
“I’m dead to him as Gabriella which is fine with me.”
"I can’t help wondering what else you've been lying about." He reaches out and touches my hair, the gesture almost gentle despite the anger in his voice. "Was any of it real? The way you responded to me, the things you said?"
"Yes. All of it was real."
"How can you expect me to believe that? How can I believe anything you say?"
"Because I'm telling you the truth now. Finally.
" I stand up, forcing him to step back. "Everything else was Sofia's life, Sofia's identity. But what happened between us—the way I felt when you touched me, the way I reacted to you—that was only me. And that was as real as anything I’ve ever felt in my life. "
"Are you saying you fell for a man you were deceiving?"
"I fell for a man I married to protect my sister. Do you want to know the irony? Sofia was terrified of you, convinced you were a monster who would hurt her. And you've been nothing but kind to me. Patient, generous, protective. If she had stayed, if she had given you a chance..."
"She would’ve been miserable with me, with my life." Luca finishes. "Because she's not you."
"No. She's not me."
He moves to the bar cart and pours another whiskey, this time offering me one. I accept it gratefully, my hands shaking slightly as I take the glass.
"What is her plan now?" he asks.
"Hopefully, to stay safe and free to live a life on her terms."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the best answer I can give you." I take a sip of whiskey, letting it burn away some of the fear in my throat. "Any consequences for our actions are on me, not her. I came up with the idea. I pushed her to do it. I take full responsibility for everything."
He studies my face, and I wonder what he's seeing. Not Sofia anymore. He's looking at me—really me.
"You realize the impossible position you've put me in," he says finally.
"I know."
"My family doesn't tolerate deception. They don't forgive breaches of trust, especially ones that could make them look weak or foolish. They won’t be able to overlook this deception."
"I know."
"They could demand your death for this. And Sofia's or your father’s."
"I know all of this. I’ve always known. That’s why I had to keep lying." My voice is steady, but inside I'm screaming. "What are you going to do?"
"I haven’t decided."
He sits down in the chair across from the bed, staring at me. "I need more answers. Tell me about your life. Your real life. Before all this. Don’t leave anything important out."
"What else do you want to know?"
"Where you've been, what you've done. Who you really are."
So, I tell him everything.
About our mother passing away from cancer when I was seventeen leaving me all alone in the world.
How I left our tiny apartment with nothing but a backpack and determination.
About working my way across Europe, learning languages and skills I never knew I'd need.
About the hostels and trains and temporary jobs that taught me how to adapt and survive.
About Prague, where I spent time learning to blend in and disappear when necessary.
About Carlos, and the other friends I made in the backpacker community, people who taught me that family isn't just blood but choice.
About the freedom I gave up to save my sister, and how I've been slowly suffocating in Sofia's careful, controlled world.
"You hate it here with me," he says when I finish. "This life. Being Sofia. You hate it all."
"Not all of it. I hate the confinement and the lack of freedom. But I don't hate everything about it."
"What don't you hate?"
"You, Luca,” I reply. “I could never hate you."
The admission hangs between us, honest and dangerous. I've given him everything now—the truth about the switch, about Sofia, about myself. The only thing left is to wait and see what he does with it.
"This whole time you’ve been selling me a woman who doesn't exist," he says quietly.
"Of course she exists. The woman is me. The real me. The woman you know."
I step closer to him, drawn by something I can't name and don't want to fight anymore. He looks up at me, and I see something other than anger in his eyes.
"What am I supposed to do with all this?" he asks.
"Whatever you decide—whether you protect me or destroy me—I want you to know that I don't regret it. Any of it. Saving Sofia, lying to you, falling for you despite knowing it was dangerous. I'd make the same choices again. There are no regrets. I don’t regret one moment of time I spent with you."
"Even knowing what it might cost you?"
"Even then."
He stands up abruptly, setting down his whiskey glass with enough force that it cracks against the marble surface.
"I need time to think," he says. "About what this means, about what I'm going to tell my family."
"How much time?"
"No fucking idea."
He leaves me alone in the suite with nothing but the broken glass and the weight of everything I've confessed. Outside the window, Prague sparkles in the darkness, beautiful and indifferent to the lives being shattered.
I've told him everything. There are no more secrets, no more lies between us.
Now all I can do is wait to see if the truth will save me or destroy me.
At least for now, Sofia is safe.
And that's what matters most.
Even if it costs me everything.