18. Amanda
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AMANDA
Everyone’s clapping. Well, Eric isn’t. His hands are wrapped around mine.
Diego’s not clapping either, arms crossed over his broad chest, his mouth set in a familiar unimpressed line.
I try to break away from his grasp and join in the applause.
That’s what you do, right? Smile and pretend a five-minute ego monologue didn’t just cast you as the villain in front of a hundred people.
Eric, though, has never played by the rules, and rather than clapping, he’s holding Daray’s gaze because we have nothing to be ashamed of. He presses his thigh against mine beneath the table.
“Wow,” I murmur, under the resumed conversations. “That almost convinced me I was the one who cheated.” A brittle and bitter chuckle joins words I didn’t realize I was saying outloud.
That was Daray at his most charming—convincing and measured, the way he is when he’s practiced a hundred times over. For a moment, the thought simmers. Was I the one who wrecked it? Was I selfish? Unstable?
“Don’t,” Val says, her voice cutting through the noise. “He’s a narcissist, Amanda. He needs control of the narrative, and this is how he gets it.”
Her ability to outline a personality study within seconds helps the thought retreat, but it doesn’t disappear. It lingers at the edge, leaving a sour taste in the back of my throat.
“You want the truth out?” she adds, her gaze flicking downward to my belly. “Just play your cards.”
My barely swollen stomach speaks for itself, and so does Cassie’s.
Before I can respond, Diego cuts in, his voice effortlessly comforting in a way only he can manage. “Enough of this.” He glances toward the Bennetts, who are too quiet. “Come help me set up. There’s supposed to be some dancing before the cake.”
I blink at him. “I’m fine. You don’t need to babysit.”
“Too bad,” he replies with a shrug, already offering his hand. “I feel like flaunting my moves, and Val sure as hell isn’t gonna break the ice.”
Sighing, I follow him toward the DJ booth. Within a few clicks, a familiar beat kicks in, low and heavy. Without hesitation, he pulls me toward the center of the dance floor. This is a message, I realize snickering. I’ve done nothing wrong.
When the bass rises, my shoulders loosen, and my hips catch the rhythm without effort.
It’s a thick beat with attitude that dares you to forget your shame.
Diego’s hips press into mine, his hands steady at my sides.
It might look indecent, but it’s practiced childish mischief.
His body moves with mine in that smooth, serpentine way he has.
He sings along, wine on his breath, then grins. I lower my back and arch his way. He smacks me, laughing until the beat shifts to a melodic Latin tempo I don’t recognize. Diego grabs my hand and waist and switches our dancing.
“How are things with Eric?”
I relax my arms around his shoulders. “They’re what they’ve always been.
” I lie, or maybe I speak the truth. Eric and I have always existed in this gray space, just shy of something.
And Daray, and how fast things went with him, helped keep things neat between us. Made it easier to keep my guard up.
Diego chuckles. “You’ve always been a bad liar.”
“I am not,” I say, nudging him with my hip.
He grins and pokes my ribs. “Shh. It’s a compliment.”
We fall into a lull as the music dips into the chorus. It’s rare for Diego not to fill the silence. Usually, he’s twirling or lip-syncing. Now, he’s taking his time, finding the right words to go with the beat.
“I know you worry about him,” he says finally. “You should. He deserves that kind of loyalty. After you left for Milan… He wore his dejection like a fucking badge of honor.”
My whole body stills. I lose the beat, and Diego steps on my foot. A tremor rolls through me, and it catches in my throat. “You know about that?” I ask. “He told you?”
Diego looks confused for half a second. Then his brows furrow. “Wait… he told you?”
“Yeah, I mean…” I say slowly. “He made it seem like it was an accident. He wasn’t all there. He’d been drinking. And the river was high. Still, I think he wanted something bad to happen. I thought—” My voice falters.
Diego steps back slightly as if the floor just shifted beneath him. “Wait… Are you talking about that winter? Before you moved back?”
I nod. “That first night when I visited for Christmas. He scared the hell out of me.”
“Wait, so he did it again?” he asks.
“What do you mean again?”
“Fuck me. You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what, Diego?” I press. “I thought that was it. That I was there for the worst of it.” I swallow. “Was that not the worst of it?”
His face goes pale. He shakes his head slowly, then presses his mouth.
“Diego.”
He won’t meet my eyes. “Shit.” He sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. “I thought you knew. I thought that’s what you were talking about. Amanda, I didn’t know about that thing with the river.”
I stare at him.
“I wasn’t supposed to say anything,” he says, but the dam’s already broken. “When you left for Italy… He was in a dark place. And I know you were justified to leave. I know he fucked up… but Amanda, do you really not know?”
He swallows. I shake my head as I say, “I know he fell in the river. And it was scary, Diego. It was so scary that I slept in his bed and moved the fuck back.”
He nods, then exhales slowly. “You remember when I visited you in Milan? That was like six weeks after you left, right?”
I nod. “Right before the Harvest Festival.”
He pulls me very close, and until his lips brush my ear when he whispers, “A few weeks after you left, about a week before I came to Milan… I couldn’t get hold of Eric.
Like, nothing. For two days, Amanda. I had been checking in on him daily since you left.
I had a bad feeling and a key to his place.
So I left work in the middle of my shift and went there.
” I already know. My stomach drops before he finishes.
“He was passed out drunk on the bathroom floor. Alone. Empty bottles everywhere. I had to break the door to get in.” Diego pauses, his voice thinning.
“I got him to the ER. They kept him on a psych hold. For days. He didn’t want anyone to know.
But he talked to me, half-conscious, mumbling shit.
It’s the only reason I know what he did.
” He looks up finally, and there are tears in his eyes.
“That’s how I knew it wasn’t just the alcohol.
Amanda… I don’t think he expected anyone to find him. ”
My hands go slack at my sides. The music is still playing, but it might as well be silent. I turn away from him because I don’t trust what’s about to come out of my mouth. My hands are shaking.
“You should’ve told me,” I say, low. “I would have come back. I came back thinking it was just the river.” I swallow. “You let me think he was fine.” I am so pissed, but it isn’t at Diego. This is on me.
His face folds. “I know. God, I know. But you have to believe me. It wasn’t Eric. He didn’t ask me to lie. He didn’t ask me to hide it from you. Just from his mom.”
“Then why?” I snap.
“I came to tell you.” His voice breaks open. “That’s why I got on the fucking plane. I was ready to drag you back if I had to. I was so scared we were going to lose him, Amanda.”
I stare at him, waiting for the part that makes this okay.
“But then I saw you.” He pauses. Long enough for the guilt to fill the air.
“You were smiling. Working. Going out. Doing your thing like you were in a movie set in Italy. But it wasn’t real. Not underneath. I saw it in your eyes. You were barely holding on. If someone asked you to feel one more thing, you’d shatter.”
My breath catches, hating that he saw right through me.
The glassiness in Diego’s eyes recedes, and he tightens the corners of his mouth into a sad smile.
“Sometimes you forget it’s not just Eric that knows you like the back of his hand.
” He squeezes the hand holding my waist. “You couldn’t come back and be his lifeline,” he says gently.
“Not then. You were bleeding out, too. And if he’d seen it…
If he’d seen what he’d done to you in person, day after day?
We would have lost him.” He lets that sit.
And I breathe that truth in. “So I kept my mouth shut. For once in my fucking life. And I let you heal.” Diego wears his emotions in every expression for everyone to read.
Now, he darts his eyes to hide his tears.
“I told myself I was protecting both of you. Maybe I was mistaken. I don’t know.
But I taped him back together the only way I knew how.
So you had the time you needed. Because I knew then, and I know now. He’ll only heal himself for you.”
I want anger to take over, but it’s impossible when his choices are eating him.
“You came back a force,” Diego says quietly. “You reminded him he was still worth something.”
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“No,” I say, blinking hard. “You’re making it sound like I’m supposed to fix him.”
He shakes his head. “I’m saying you’re the only one he never gave up on. Even when he gave up on everything else.”
I step away from him and head back to the table, where Eric is smiling at Val, of all people. Diego grabs my wrist, pulls me back in his arms, and sways. As if dancing can help tame this fear.
“You can’t tell him you know,” he says quietly. “You can’t pity him. You can’t let it change the way you look at him.”
“It doesn’t,” I say, barely keeping myself from raising my voice.
He gives me a long look. “Doesn’t it? Then tell me this. Will you still raise the baby with him?”
“Of course! He’s still Eric, Diego. He’s still—”
“Yours?” His left brow raises like a gavel.
I flinch. No, he isn’t mine. When he could’ve been, he didn’t choose me. And that still hurts, but I want what I can get. This home, this strange little family we’re trying to form, is real to me. And I want it too badly to shy away from it.