Chapter Thirteen
ADRIANO
D ELLbrOOK, NEW JERSEY looks like it was left behind by time and economics decades ago. Boarded storefronts line the main street. Faded awnings hang over dusty windows. Cars from the previous century rust in driveways. The air smells of factory exhaust and defeat. It's a place that no one in his right mind would choose to live...and that makes Dellbrook also the perfect town to hide.
It took three private investigators and a small fortune to find Shayla here, of all places. Fifty miles and a universe away from Manhattan's glass towers and marble lobbies.
I lean against my Maserati—painfully conspicuous on this rundown street—and stare at the shabby building across from me. Peeling paint. Cracked windows. A hand-painted sign that reads "Dellbrook Community Legal Aid."
I'm going to rescue her from this dump. Bring her back to where she belongs. To me.
The door to the center opens, and people begin trickling out. I straighten, scanning faces, and then—
There she is.
Shayla emerges into the afternoon sunlight, surrounded by a small group of people. An elderly couple. A young mother with a toddler. A man in a worn uniform.
She's talking animatedly, hands gesturing as she explains something. And then she laughs, head thrown back, sunlight catching in her hair.
I've never seen her more beautiful. More peaceful. More...herself.
And that's when I realize I had it all wrong.
She's not the one who needs rescuing me. I do.
She's not the one who's trapped. I am.
It's me, not her, who's all the things I thought she would be, and it shames me to think how I could be so damn full of myself not to see that from the start.
On the day I had bumped into Colin and Hope, the couple had sent a package to my apartment. It was a Bible, of all things. My first Bible, too, to be honest. I had opened it to a random page, and even now I remember how my ego still had me so damn blind, that the verse I ended up reading didn't bother me one bit.
God opposes the proud but exalts the humble.
It didn't make sense then. But it does now. Painfully and terrifyingly so.
Because the longer I watch her, the more I see the way she interacts so joyfully with the people around her, and how they dote on her in return—
I get it now, God.
While driving here, I had convinced myself that she had to forgive me. And that she needed me to rescue her from a place like Dellbrook. But now, it's just so damn clear.
I'm the poor one here , I realize numbly. Not her.
And if I truly loved Shayla, wouldn't it be better for her to be without—
"You're that famous lawyer, ain't you?"
I turn to find an elderly woman beside me, cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth.
"I've been known to practice law."
" Hmph ." She takes a long drag. "Seen you on the TV. That pharmaceutical case. Good work." Her gaze turns cunning. "You here for Shayla?"
"You know her?"
She looks at me disdainfully. "Everyone here knows her." The woman gestures toward the building. "Place is run by volunteers. Offers free legal help to folks who can't afford fancy lawyers." She eyes me appraisingly. "She started volunteering after leaving some hotshot firm in the city. Said she needed to remember why she loved the law in the first place."
This woman clearly isn't the type to pull punches. Good for her. Hell for me. Because now I'm even more convinced that I just have to let her go—
God, is there truly no other way?
—if I truly love her.
"She's studying for the bar, too," the woman continues. "Gonna be a fine lawyer. Better than you, probably."
"There's no 'probably' about it," I say quietly. Shayla is better than me in every way. I just...I just wasn't as smart as Pietro. I didn't know I had a good one when I had it.
Across the street, the small crowd around Shayla has dispersed. She turns to my direction, and her body jerks, her face paling as soon as our gazes finally collide.
I'm sorry.
Because me just being here—it's discomfort that she doesn't deserve. She's already moved on, deservingly so, but here I am, ruining things for her again.
I'll just apologize, I tell myself doggedly, and then that's it.
Her face crumbles as I start to cross the street, and my heart does the same. I give her every chance to turn and walk away if that's what she wants, but Shayla remains perfectly still. She only watches me approach, eyes wide, hands clutching her bag like a shield.
People around us step back, creating a small circle of privacy in the public space. Their protective stance tells me everything—they care about her. They know she's good.
While I, the idiot who've known her for nearly a decade, was so swift to condemn her.
"I'm sorry," I say hoarsely when I reach her. "For being the biggest idiot in the world. I'm sorry for—"
"Being traumatized?" she cuts me off, eyes brimming with tears.
What was she talking about?
"I won't deny how much you've hurt me," she whispers. "I won't deny I've been praying for God to help me stop loving you—"
Please don't answer her prayer, God.
"But do you know how He answered me?"
You didn't have to ask? It's all part of the plan that Adriano Kontides live the rest of his life in torment?
"I received a call from Hope as soon as I finished praying," she says shakily. "And she told me..."
Ah.
"How you lost your mind because you were jealous of a dog."
I honestly wouldn't put it that way, but...
That was what it was.
And when Shayla actually starts laughing...
It can't be this easy, God.
It can't.
How can you not punish me for hurting someone like Shayla?
I wasn't expecting an answer. I didn't think I deserve one. But God...
God.
I'm finally starting to understand just how much He loves even cruel idiots like me as I hear Him say, Forgive yourself, son. Just like Shayla and I've already forgiven You.
SHAYLA
The past two weeks have been hard. But bearable. I kept waiting for myself to lose hope. But I never did. I kept waiting for myself to start feeling alone again. But I never did. And most of all, I kept waiting for my heart to finally break into pieces. So I could start hating him and stop loving him. But none of those things happened either.
And it was only when I received Hope's call yesterday that everything became clear.
A dog, for goodness' sake!
A dog!
Adriano is one of East Coast's toughest and smartest litigators...and yet he still ended up dumping me because of a dog?
It made me laugh and cry while listening to my friend excitedly discuss her every hypothesis, all of which I also believe to be true.
Because I know my boss.
I've been working for him for eight-and-a-half years.
I know what makes him tick. What makes him smile. And most of all, I know what would make someone who's always been noble...do something so, so cruel out of the blue.
"I don't deserve your forgiveness."
His words make me want to laugh. And cry. I know there's a saying about how opposites attract, but I think in our case, it's the other away around. We're each other's mirror image, and it's why, even from the start, we've always understood each other.
Just like how I understand he's punishing himself the way I used to punish myself.
Needlessly.
I place one trembling hand on his cheek, and his big body shudders at my touch.
"We've both hurt each other because of our past, Adriano. But when it comes to what we've both said and done to each other?" A smile wobbles to my lips. "Everything we did, every day we've spent together, it was always good and beautiful. We were falling in love with each other from the first day we met. We just didn't know—"
His jaw suddenly clenches, and I stop speaking as fear gets the better of me.
Oh no. Oh please. Don't let there be another misunderstanding.
"You have it wrong."
"W-What do you mean?"
"When I look back on that day," Adriano says unsteadily, "I think I've always known."
It takes me a while to realize I was scared for nothing.
"The moment I saw you, somewhere in my heart, I knew—"
And I start to cry even as his hands settle on my waist as he slowly pulls me close.
"I've found the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with."
I close my eyes as he lowers his head. Our lips meet, and the whole world fades away.
This man...is my boss.
And someday, my husband.
But from the very start, he was the man God chose for me, and the man I'll love for the rest of my life.