Chapter 47 Camilla
One month after I stayed past dawn, Renato tells me it's done.
We're having breakfast on the terrace. Our new routine, mornings spent together with coffee and pastries and comfortable silence. No more pretending the nights don't exist. No more careful distance during daylight hours.
Just us. Together. Figuring out what that means one day at a time.
"The Rossi family is finished," he says, setting down his espresso. "Lorenzo has nothing left."
I look up from my cornetto. "How did you make that happen?"
"Called in every debt they owed. Bought out their legitimate businesses for pennies on the dollar.
Turned their allies against them." He shrugs, but there's satisfaction in his eyes.
"Exposed some of Lorenzo's more creative accounting to the authorities.
The family assets are frozen, their accounts are empty, and their reputation is destroyed. "
"You didn't kill him?”
"You asked me not to." He reaches across the table to take my hand. "Death would have been kinder. This way, he gets to live with the knowledge that he lost everything. That the woman he tried to use as a business transaction destroyed his entire empire."
I should probably feel guilty.
But I don't. In fact, it makes me happy.
"Thank you," I say simply.
Lorenzo tried to use me as a pawn. Now he has nothing. And I have everything.
I have choice. Freedom. A man who loves me and asks for nothing in return except the chance to prove himself every day.
"I called my father yesterday," I mention casually, taking another bite of pastry.
Renato's hand tightens slightly on mine. "How did that go?"
"I told him I'm not coming back. That if he wanted a daughter instead of a business asset, he should have treated me like one." I meet his eyes. "He didn't argue. Just asked if I was safe. Then asked if I had any money."
"What did you tell him?"
"That I'm safer than I've ever been. And that if he loses all his money because of his bad decisions, that's his problem, not mine." I squeeze his hand. "He said he understood. That he hopes I'm happy."
"Are you?" The question is soft, vulnerable. "Happy?"
I think about the past weeks. Waking up in his arms every morning.
Learning to exist together in daylight without the careful boundaries we built.
The easy affection that's developed between us.
His hand on my lower back as we walk, my fingers in his hair as we sit together, stolen kisses in hallways and lingering touches over breakfast.
The way he looks at me like I'm the best thing that ever happened to him.
The way I'm starting to believe he might be the best thing that ever happened to me.
"Yes," I say honestly. "I am."
He lifts my hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to my knuckles. "I hope so."
We finish breakfast in comfortable silence, and I'm thinking about what to do with the day—maybe another drive through the mountains, or a swim in the pool, or just staying here on the terrace with him—when he stands abruptly.
"I need to show you something I found," he says. "Wait here."
He disappears inside, leaving me curious and slightly confused. A minute later he returns carrying something white and carefully wrapped.
My heart stops when I recognize what it is.
The top tier of my wedding cake.
"You kept it?" I ask, laughing.
He sets it on the table between us. "I meant to throw it away and then forgot about it. What do you want to do with this damn inedible cake?"
I look at the cake, then at him, then back at the cake.
An idea forms—absolutely ridiculous, completely cathartic, and exactly what I need.
"Come with me," I say, standing and picking up the wrapped tier. "And bring champagne if you have any."
His eyebrows raise. "Champagne?"
"Wedding champagne specifically. Didn’t you steal a few bottles for spite?"
Understanding dawns in his expression, followed by something that might be delight. "I might have a few bottles."
"Fantastic. Go get one."
I carry the cake outside into the garden. Renato follows with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. When I reach an open area of grass with a good view of the lake, I stop.
"What are we doing?" he asks, though I can see he's already guessing.
I unwrap the cake carefully, then look up at him with a smile that feels wild and free and absolutely perfect.
"We're destroying my wedding cake," I say.
Then I throw the cake on the ground. It hits with a satisfying splat, the carefully preserved frosting cracking, white fondant and buttercream spreading across the grass.
For a moment, I just look at it. This symbol of everything that was wrong about that day. The forced marriage. The business transaction. The complete absence of choice.
Then I lift my bare foot and stomp down hard.
The cake explodes under my heel, frosting and sponge squishing up around my foot. And I start laughing.
Not polite laughter. Not careful laughter. Wild, hysterical, absolutely gleeful laughter as I stomp the cake again and again, destroying it completely, grinding it into the grass with savage satisfaction.
Renato watches me with this expression of complete adoration, making no move to stop me, just letting me have this moment of ridiculous, cathartic destruction.
When the cake is completely obliterated—nothing but frosting and crumbs mashed into the lawn—I'm breathing hard and laughing so hard my sides hurt and covered in white buttercream up to my knees.
"Feel better now?" he asks, his voice warm with affection.
"Much better." I wipe frosting off my leg. "Now open that champagne."
He doesn't bother with glasses. Just pops the cork—it flies across the garden—and hands me the bottle.
I take a long drink straight from it, the bubbles sharp and perfect on my tongue. This champagne was meant for toasting a marriage I never wanted. Now I'm drinking it to celebrate its destruction.
I pass the bottle back to Renato, and he drinks too, his eyes never leaving my face.
"To destroying the past," I say.
"To choosing the future," he counters, handing the bottle back.
We pass it between us, drinking champagne in the morning sun, standing over the ruins of my wedding cake. I'm covered in frosting and probably look completely insane, but I haven't felt this free ever in my entire life.
This is choice. This is power. This is taking everything they tried to do to me and destroying it completely.
And he's here with me, celebrating it, loving me for it.
And me loving him.
The realization hits me so suddenly it steals my breath.
I love him.
Not falling. Not getting there. Not almost.
I love him and there’s no going back.
The bottle dangles from my hand as I turn to face him fully.
"Hey Renato," I say, and something in my voice makes him go very still.
"Yes?"
"I love you."
For a moment, he doesn't move. Doesn't breathe. Just stares at me like I've said something impossible.
Then he's moving, crossing the space between us in two strides. He grabs me—frosting-covered and champagne-drunk and probably completely ridiculous looking—and kisses me.
It's desperate and claiming and filled with every emotion we've both been holding back.
The champagne bottle falls from my hand into the grass as I wrap my arms around his neck, kissing him back with equal intensity. He tastes like champagne and the future I'm choosing.
When we break apart, we're both breathing hard. His hand comes up to cup my face, his thumb tracing my cheekbone with devastating gentleness.
"Say it again," he demands.
"I love you," I repeat, and saying it out loud makes it more real. "I love that you're trying so hard to be better. I love that you let me destroy this cake and stood here watching like it was the most beautiful thing you've ever seen." I kiss him softly. "I love you. And I'm done being scared."
His eyes are bright—too bright—and when he speaks, his voice cracks slightly. "I don't deserve you."
"Yeah, probably not,” I tease. “But I'm choosing you anyway."
He pulls me close, his forehead resting against mine. "I love you more than anything. You know that, right? How I would burn the entire world down to keep you safe? How I will kill anyone who threatens to hurt you?"
"I know." I thread my fingers through his hair. "That's why I'm not scared anymore."
We stand there in the wreckage of my destroyed wedding cake, covered in frosting, the champagne bottle lying forgotten in the grass. And I've never been happier.
This is what choosing feels like. Not being chosen—though he chose me first, in his own fucked up way. But actively choosing. Making the decision for myself.
I choose this man. This life. This future.
All of it.
He’s quiet for a moment, and when he speaks, there's something nervous in his voice, something vulnerable that I've rarely seen. "I want to ask you something,” he says.
"Go ahead."
He takes a breath, then looks at me—really looks at me—and I see everything in his eyes. Love and fear and desperate hope.
"Marry me," he says. "Not because anyone is forcing you. Not because of debts or alliances or business. Marry me because you want to." He gestures at the destroyed cake. "Marry me so we can pick our own wedding cake this time."
Laughter bubbles out of me. "That's your best proposal? I get another wedding cake if I say ‘yes’?"
"I'm serious." He takes my frosting-covered hands in his. "I want to do this right. I want to give you the choice you never had before. And I want to stand up in front of everyone and claim you properly as my wife, with your active participation in the decision."
"Renato—"
"I know it's fast. I know we're still figuring this out. But I also know that I want forever with you. Want to wake up every morning with you in my arms. Want to spend my life proving I'm worthy of the gift you've given me by loving me back."
"Are you finished?" I ask, but I'm smiling so hard my face hurts.
"That depends. Are you going to say yes? Because I can keep going if it helps to convince you."
I step closer, sliding my arms around his neck. "Yes! A hundred times yes. I'll marry you. I'll pick a ridiculous wedding cake with figurines of you and me on the top. And then I’ll gladly spend the rest of my life with you."
The relief and joy that floods his face is almost overwhelming. He lifts me off my feet, spinning me around, and I'm laughing again as he kisses me.
When he sets me down, we're both covered in frosting, and the cake is completely obliterated.
It's perfect.
"We're really getting married," I say, testing the words.
"Yes," he confirms. He pulls me close, and I go willingly, resting my head against his chest and listening to his heartbeat. Strong and steady and mine.
"I love you," he murmurs into my hair. “I’ll try my best to be a good husband to you.”
"I know you will. That’s why I’m marrying you.”
And in the morning sunlight, surrounded by the wreckage of everything that tried to destroy us, we begin again.
Not as captor and captive.
Not as victim and villain.
But as two people who chose each other despite everything.
The past is destroyed, ground into the grass with buttercream and champagne.
The future is ours to choose.
And I choose him.
Renato.