Chapter 15
15
S ALVATORE WOULD HAVE LOVED to be able to say that clarity came with the dawn, but if anything, waking up with Emilia in his arms only served to further muddy the waters. Because holding her like this, seeing her sleeping face and remembering those awful seconds when she’d been at the bottom of the stairs, flat on the landing, and he’d had no idea if she would live or die, had been one of the worst moments of his life.
That had brought with it clarity. In that moment, he’d understood what he’d been wilfully ignoring almost the whole time he’d known her—that this was more than sex, more than a fling, more even than a relationship. It was love, just like she’d said. The kind of love that breathed its way into a person and took them over completely.
The kind of love that became your reason for being, your absolute everything. The kind of love that required of a person any kind of sacrifice. Because love wasn’t selfish and it wasn’t just about feeling good.
While staying here in his apartment and ignoring the realities of their families did indeed feel good, it wasn’t the path forward. Nor was running around hiding this from the people they loved most.
The only way through this—with any hope of success—was to face the music. And see what happened. Even then, Salvatore couldn’t ignore the risks. Hurting Emilia was a possibility, but not an inevitability. God knew he’d do anything he could to avoid hurting her. And that meant being brave enough to give this a try. If he walked away without giving her that, he’d be hurting her regardless. Perhaps if he’d done the smart thing and left it at that one incredible night in Moricosia. If he’d walked away from temptation, knowing that nothing good could come from this, then maybe none of this would have happened.
But neither of them walked away. They dove in, feet first, and fell in love.
“Good morning.”
He had been so enveloped by his thoughts that he’d missed the moment she’d woken and blinked at him, all sweet and sleepy. If he’d had any doubts about how he felt, then the way his heart exploded at that sight would have convinced him.
“I love you,” he said, because he realised then that he hadn’t actually spoken those words. That there might be some doubt inside of her, that they were on the same page.
Her smile was like the sun breaking out from behind the clouds. It was beautiful and perfect. So he spoke quickly, also needing to temper her response with the reality of this situation.
“But this isn’t going to be easy.”
Predictably, her smile slipped. “Why not?”
“Because our families are going to fucking hate the idea of what we’re doing.”
She grimaced. “Yeah…I know. Can’t we just…hide out a while longer?”
“Leandro knows. There’s no going back.”
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug.
“Besides, I don’t want to keep running around, lying to everyone. The thing is, I love you. I really love you. In a way I’ve never known before. In a way that makes me want to take out a full-page ad in every newspaper in the world and shout I LOVE EMILIA VALENTINO! I’m done with hiding.”
Her lips parted in genuine surprise at his admission. But so what? He knew how he felt, and he wanted her to know it, too.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” he said, moving a hand to her hip.
“Yeah?”
“What if we were to go to Italy today.”
Her eyes roamed his face, her expression impossible to read. “Why would we do that?”
“Because it’s where our families live, and it’s time for us to tell them about this. Besides, you wanted to go for your birthday, didn’t you?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Do we have to?”
“Yes.” He didn’t want to expand on that. He didn’t want to tell her that this path she was choosing might seem less appealing, when they’d been through the ringer. Partly, because he didn’t want to admit that, even to himself. “Let’s go to Italy, my darling. Maybe our families will surprise us.”
Their families did not surprise them. Every single fear of Salvatore’s was confirmed, and every hope of Emilia’s dashed. There was no mistaking the genuinely vitriolic response they received. Nor the intractable outcome of both meetings.
Emilia’s parents had told her the same thing Leandro had Salvatore: if you’re in a relationship with a Santoro, you are no longer welcome in the family. He watched the woman he loved sit there and absorb those verbal blows, shrinking into herself with each tongue lashing until he barely recognised her. The moment they were out of the house, he pulled her into his arms and held her close, while she sobbed and cried, and his gut rolled with a sense of absolute devastation.
He was someone who worked to achieve whatever goal he held, but as he’d suspected, this was a lose, lose situation.
He was braced for his parents’ reaction, even when he hoped—because of how loving they were as a rule—for something better, and different. He’d even felt a flare of pride when they’d arrived at his family home—to be bringing Emilia here, like his brothers and cousins had with the women they loved. He understood now what a joy it was to show your partner the place you grew up, to share the memories that were so much a part of you. But that pleasure was short lived. His parents’ reactions were almost identical to the Valentinos. While they didn’t threaten to all but remove Salvatore from the family, they did promise him that Emilia would never be welcomed into their home, their lives, their business. They swore that she would never be mentioned, never be accepted, so Salvatore had had no choice but to stand up, take her hand and tell them that if she wasn’t welcome, he wouldn’t come either.
Even then, he’d thought perhaps that might inspire a change of heart from his mother. His mother, who had wrapped her arms around every stray, loved fiercely and proactively his whole life. Surely his threatened absence would make her wake up and see that Emilia deserved a chance.
It didn’t.
When he reminded them of his father’s favourite saying, ‘ famiglia e tutto’—family is everything— Gianni had simply nodded. “Exactly. And you are choosing the opposite of family. We can never forgive this, my son.” It had been one of the worst moments of Salvatore’s life.
They walked away from his family’s house, and yet, in his heart, Salvatore was devastated. Not just for himself, and his parents, but for Emilia. It was impossible to feel anything but shell shocked as they left Italy behind—along with a wake of awful, devastating conversations.
For as long as he could remember, Salvatore’s life had been interwoven with his brothers and cousins. They spoke daily, texted, video called, and worked together. It became evident very quickly that they had sided with his parents—something he would never have expected. But the anger and rage towards the Valentinos was so fierce, particularly given the recent corporate disasters the Santoros had experienced because of Emilia’s family. But how could their families fail to put that aside?
It hit Emilia just as hard. Three days after leaving Italy, she received an email from her company’s legal team—not even one of her brothers—telling her that she’d been removed as a director of her charitable foundation, and that the Moricosian deal had been taken over by another department.
Salvatore was outraged. He wanted to fight on her behalf, to bring his own lawyers into it, but she’d simply shaken her head and stared out of the window as a single tear slid down her cheek. Impotence had grown like a snake in his belly, twisting and spitting so for the first time in a long time, he felt his emotions burst through him in an uncontrollable way that he hated. Because what was the good of anger? They’d known they’d have to go through this. They’d prepared for it, as best they could. And it was worth it.
It had to be.
They left for Singapore the next day, to look at the land Salvatore wanted to buy, and in the back of his mind was the hope that with a change of scenery, the problems with their families would fade. That their original anger would mute in time, as they came to see that Salvatore and Emilia weren’t going to be dissuaded by their disapproval.
It didn’t work.
They spent Emilia’s birthday celebrating as though nothing was wrong. Salvatore went into overdrive to compensate for the fact that the only messages Emilia received on the day were from her sisters in law, Andie and Skye. Both wrote lovely things, but neither of her brothers messaged, and her parents didn’t call.
Weeks passed. They missed things. Other birthdays. Successes. Events. Dinners.
Each one, Salvatore felt like a stitch in his soul—not of pain, but of certainty. His fury at his family, for cutting him out like this, because he dared, for the first time in a long time, to reach out with both hands for what would make him happy, just made him love Emilia more, appreciating her for the faith she’d put in him by choosing to blend their lives. For choosing to love him, even when it meant this amount of estrangement from both of their families.
It was a conviction though that faded with time. As weeks turned into a month and then another, and Christmas approached, and Emilia began to make throw away comments about her family’s traditions, her memories, and he saw the absences in their lives with more clarity, more feeling than indignation, he knew he couldn’t leave it as it was. Not without attempting, once more, to resolve this.
For Emilia, he had to try. And that meant starting with Leandro.
After more than a week of leaving messages and making calls to Leandro, Salvatore arrived at the Valentino man’s office, recognizing he had no other choice. While he’d happily go the rest of his life without seeing Leandro again, this wasn’t about him. It was about Emilia, and what he would do to give her everything she deserved. He needed to know he’d tried everything—even this.
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Valentino is busy.”
Salvatore ground his teeth, reminding himself that the diminutive receptionist wasn’t to blame. “I’m sure he can make time.”
“I’m sorry, sir?—,”
“Let me put it this way,” he interrupted. “I’m going into his office. If that’s a problem, call security.”
He strode across the marbled floor without pausing to see her reaction, and then, at the double timber doors that led to Leandro’s office, he simply barged in.
And bam. Double whammy. Not only was Leandro in situ , but his brother Maximillian as well, the bastard who’d taken Acto from under their noses. He stared at both of them, rage and hatred bubbling beneath his belly. But amazingly, it wasn’t rage about Acto. Nor was it anger about the Moricosia deal. Every single shred of fury he felt towards them was on behalf of Emilia, the love of his life. The only love in his life. The woman he would run through the fires of hell for, if she required it of him. Hell, even if she didn’t.
And so, there he stood, staring down these two men who undeniably hated him, knowing he was just about to go through the most important moments of his life.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Max had been sitting, reclined, in a chair by the window, but he jack-knifed out of it as Salvatore burst through the doors, staring the other man down as Leandro strode towards him.
“I’m not here for round two,” Salvatore said, holding up his hands towards Leandro.
“Then what the hell are you doing here?” Max was now striding towards him, repeating his question with more outrage. “Haven’t we made it clear? You’re not welcome.”
“Oh, you’ve made it patently clear,” Salvatore said, dropping his hands and putting them on his hips, holding their gazes as though his blood wasn’t boiling with anger. He didn’t give a shit that these men hated him. It was mutual. But the fact they could so easily cut Emilia out of their lives, as though she meant nothing, made him question their sanity, intelligence and loyalty. It made him want to turn around and storm the hell out of there. But he’d come for Emilia, and he’d see it through. He’d do whatever it took, if there was even the slightest chance that he could make this better. Even just a little.
Because as certain as he was that he loved her, he knew that their happiness would never be complete like this. His first instinct had been right.
While they loved each other, and he didn’t doubt it, he couldn’t keep doing this to her. He wouldn’t be the reason she lost her family.
“I came to talk,” he said, his voice deep and gruff. “I came to talk about the woman we all love—who you’re destroying with this stupid estrangement.”
Max flinched and Leandro had the decency to look close to ashamed.
“Don’t you dare,” Leandro recovered quickly though. “Don’t you dare come here and act as though you have any right to even speak her name. What gives you the goddamn right?”
“I love her,” he growled. “Don’t you get that? I love her, and she loves me. We’re in love. She is everything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”
“You are the one destroying her, not us,” Max said.
“How do you figure?”
“You knew ,” Leandro spat. “I told you what would happen. I knew how they’d react. Family means the world to us, and you are destroying that. Do you have any idea what this is doing to our parents?”
“So help me fix it,” Salvatore said.
“There is no fixing it. Not for as long as you are in her life.”
“Jesus,” Salvatore groaned. “Do you hear yourselves? You are pushing away your sister, allowing your parents to do the same to their daughter, over a vendetta from generations ago. Yes, things happened in the past. Yes, our families have always hated one another. But we can change that. We have to.”
“You’re a fantasist. That hatred doesn’t exist in a void,” Max growled. “To us, you may as well be the devil incarnate. We cannot have you in our lives. If that means cutting out Emilia, then it is as it has to be.”
“Do you hear yourself?”
“You think you’re the only one living with this? The only one suffering through it? You think we don’t miss her? She is our best friend. We loved her first, and we will love her always. When all this bullshit is over and she comes home, inevitably ruined by you and your family, we will be there to pick up the pieces. How can you possibly ask us for more than that?”
The reality they painted was so bleak, so unbearably bleak, that Salvatore stumbled back a step. “That’s not going to happen.”
“No? Then what is? What’s the end result of this? Do you think you’re going to end up living happily ever after?”
A whole future formed in his mind in the blink of an eye. He saw his life, long and expansive before him, and he saw his life without Emilia in it. He couldn’t imagine it. He couldn’t bear it.
“Yes. I think she and I have made it abundantly clear that’s what we want.”
“And is that what you’ve got?” Max demanded. “Are either of you truly happy, knowing what you’ve done to us? And presumably to your family?”
Salvatore absorbed that like a body blow, because it was so very accurate. Of course their happiness was marred by the awful truth of this betrayal. “I love her,” he said, simply. “I cannot end it.”
“Even when you know what we do?”
“And what’s that?”
“Emilia could be happy with any number of men. In staying with her, you’re making it impossible for us to be in her life. Are you okay with that?”
His gut churned. How often had he thought that? How often had he grappled with the reality of what their relationship was doing to their loved ones.
“If you love her, you have to walk away. It’s that simple.”
Salvatore shook his head. “Why can you not give this—us—a chance? You don’t know me. You don’t know what we’re like as a couple. Spend time with us—see that you’re wrong. I’m begging you.”
And if either Max or Leandro knew what it took for a man like Salvatore to arrive, cap in hand, and beg, they would have understood that it was absolutely everything they needed to know about his devotion to their sister. For he was not a man to debase himself and beg; he was not a man to plead. But for Emilia, there was no end to what he’d do.
“It’s impossible,” Max said, but his eyes showed, briefly sympathy.
“You have to understand,” Leandro said, with the same expression on his features—a look, for a moment, of compassion. “This is never going to happen. You can stay with her, but one day, she’s going to wake up and resent you for it. She’s going to wake up and want to come home; and you’ll never be able to give her that.”
Salvatore’s gut churned with a nauseating sense of loss—and the certainty that they were right. The worst thing was, he’d known it all along. He hadn’t been ready to walk away from Emilia—he probably never would be. But that didn’t negate the necessity of it.
“I love her,” he said, because he needed them to understand that. To know what they were asking of him. And then, staring into their eyes as if his life depended on their comprehension—which, in a way it did, “Please, promise me you’ll take care of her. Don’t punish her for any of this. She doesn’t deserve it.”
Max closed his eyes.
But panic gripped Salvatore. “I need to know she’ll be okay. If I’m not in her life, I need to know she’s safe, that no harm will come to her.”
“We would never hurt our sister,” Leandro contradicted.
But that wasn’t what Salvatore meant. The deep, dark fear that had dogged him for so long clawed its way around him, now. If he was going to break up with Emilia, he couldn’t worry that her life would fall apart. Because of him. Panic surged through his chest, even when he accepted that putting her through this temporary pain would ultimately be right for her. Because she’d meet someone else, they were right. And then, she’d be happier, and have her family.
“Swear on your lives,” he growled, “that she’ll be okay. That you’ll take care of her.”
They stared at each other, all three of them, for several beats, and Max nodded once, before extending his hand. Salvatore regarded it, long and hard, knowing that to take it was to make a deal with the devil. Worse, it was to sign the death warrant on his relationship with Emilia. He could hardly bear it.
Only the deepest love in the world would demand it of him.
He held out his hand, to take Max’s, and he shook, firmly, with determination. It was a promise—and he felt it, deep in his gut. For her sake, he had to set Emilia free. He just wished he’d had the courage to do it sooner, before she’d gone through all this hardship. Before he’d lost his heart and soul to her.