Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ifinally find Alessia in the greenhouse after looking everywhere.
She's kneeling in the dirt with her hands working through the soil around a rosebush that's seen better days, her hair pulled back in a loose braid, the late afternoon sun coming through the glass panels above and catching the strands that have escaped.
She looks up when she hears me come in and makes a face.
"That bad?" she asks with a wince.
I close the door behind me and cross to where she's working and sit on the bench, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.
"I slept with Enzo," I blurt.
Her hands go still in the dirt. She doesn't look up immediately, just stays there with her fingers buried in the soil and her head tilted slightly, like she's processing what I just said and deciding how to respond.
Then she sits back on her heels and looks at me directly.
"Okay," she says. "Tell me everything."
So I do.
I tell her about the cabin and the jacuzzi and the way he looked at me in the dark hallway with the towel.
I tell her about the motel and the fog and the way he kneeled on the floor between my legs and told me he was proud of me.
I tell her about the sex, not the details exactly but enough that she understands it wasn't casual, wasn't meaningless, wasn't something I can just brush off and move past.
I tell her about this morning, about the drive back, about the way he looked at me when Matteo wasn't watching, about the fact that I can still feel him everywhere and it's only been hours.
When I finish she's quiet for a moment, just looking at me with those steady eyes that see everything.
"Do you love him?" she asks.
The question lands harder than it should.
"I don't know," I say honestly. "I've wanted him for so long I'm not sure I can separate wanting from loving. But I know I can't marry Vittorio now. I know that much."
She nods slowly. "So don't."
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"Because the alliance—"
"Fuck the alliance, Isabella." The curse sounds strange coming from her, sharp and completely without her usual measured calm. "You're not a bargaining chip. You're a person. You deserve to choose who you spend your life with."
"I'm a Romano," I say quietly. "I don't get to choose. That's how this works."
"That's how it's always worked. That doesn't mean it's how it has to work.
" She leans forward and her voice goes softer, more urgent.
"Be brave. Fight for what you want. Your brother loves you.
He'll understand. And if he doesn't understand immediately, he'll come around.
But you have to be honest with him. You have to tell him the truth. "
"He trusts Enzo," I say. "Completely. If I tell him what happened, if I tell him we slept together, he'll never trust him again. And Enzo is the best thing Matteo has. I can't take that from him."
"So you're going to sacrifice yourself instead?" Alessia shakes her head. "That's not noble, Isabella. That's just martyrdom dressed up as duty."
The words sting because they're true.
"I don't know what to do," I admit, and my voice cracks slightly around the edges. "I want him. I want to be with him. But I also love my brother and I understand what this family needs and I don't know how to reconcile those things. I also have no idea what’s going on in Enzo’s head."
She reaches out and takes my hand, her fingers cool from the soil, and squeezes gently.
"Talk to Matteo," she says firmly. "Tell him everything.
Let him decide with all the information instead of making the decision for him.
And whatever happens after that, at least you'll know you were honest." She pauses.
"And you might be surprised. Your brother wants you to be happy.
That matters to him more than you think. "
"What about the De Lucas?" I ask. "What about Salvatore and the alliance and everything that depends on this marriage?"
"You let the men figure that out. That's their job, not yours. Your job is to live your life and be happy and stop carrying a weight that was never yours to carry in the first place." She squeezes my hand again. "Be brave, Isabella. Fight for what you want. You deserve that much."
I sit with her words for a long moment, feeling them settle into the spaces where my certainty used to be, feeling them shift things I thought were fixed.
"Thank you," I say quietly.
"Don't thank me yet. Thank me after you talk to your brother and it actually works out."
I stand and she stands with me and pulls me into a hug that smells like earth and roses, and I hold on longer than I probably should before I pull back.
"Go," she says. "Before you lose your nerve."
I leave the greenhouse with my heart pounding and my hands shaking slightly and head toward Matteo's office with the words already forming in my head, the confession already taking shape.
I'm halfway down the hallway when I hear voices.
Matteo's office door is slightly ajar and I can hear him talking with someone, the low rumble of male voices in discussion, and I slow down because something about the tone makes me hesitate.
"I don't see how we fix this without Salvatore," Matteo is saying, and something in his voice sounds tired, sounds stretched thin. "The O'Rourkes are too entrenched. We need the De Luca alliance to have any real leverage."
"There has to be another way." Rafael's voice, firm and certain.
"If there is, I haven't found it." A pause. "The wedding needs to happen. Isabella needs to marry Vittorio. That's the only path forward that doesn't end with us fighting a war on two fronts."
The words hit me like cold water.
I stand in the hallway with my hand halfway to the door and listen to my brother confirm exactly what I already knew but was hoping somehow wasn't true.
He needs this marriage.
The family needs this marriage.
Without it, we're vulnerable in ways that get people killed.
I pull my hand back and turn around and walk away before anyone can hear me, before the conversation can continue, before I have to stand there and listen to my brother outline exactly how much my happiness is worth in the grand scheme of keeping everyone alive.
I wait until late, until the house has gone quiet and the guards have settled into their night rotations, and then I slip out of my room and into the hallway and stop at the door directly next to mine.
Enzo's room.
I knock softly.
The door opens almost immediately and he's standing there in sweatpants and nothing else, his hair damp like he just got out of the shower, and the sight of him shirtless makes my mouth go dry.
"Isabella." His voice is quiet. "What are you doing here?"
"Can I come in?"
He steps back without a word and I slip inside and he closes the door behind me. We stand in his room and look at each other.
"I need to tell you something," I say.
"Okay."
"I'm going through with the marriage."
The words land between us like something dropped from a height.
His face doesn't change immediately but I watch something shift behind his eyes, watch him process what I just said and come to terms with it.
"No, you're not," he says finally.
"Yes I am."
"Isabella—"
"I heard Matteo tonight. Talking with Rafael. He needs this alliance, Enzo. The family needs it. Without the De Lucas we can't handle the O'Rourkes and I'm not going to be the reason people die because I wanted something for myself."
"So you're just going to sacrifice yourself." His voice is flat and cold and barely controlled.
"I'm doing what's necessary."
"That's bullshit." He takes a step toward me and his jaw is tight and his hands are curling into fists at his sides. "You're scared. You're using duty as an excuse to avoid fighting for what you actually want."
"Don't." I hold up one hand. "Don't stand there and tell me what I want when you have no idea what it costs."
"I know exactly what it costs because I'm the one who's going to have to watch you marry someone else.
" His voice cracks slightly on the last word.
"I'm the one who's going to have to stand there and watch Vittorio put his hands on you and know what it feels like to have you and not be able to do a goddamn thing about it. "
The rawness in his voice makes my chest ache.
"I'm going to talk to Matteo tomorrow," he says, quieter now but no less intense. "I'm going to tell him everything. I'm going to offer myself as your husband instead. We'll figure out the alliance another way."
My heart breaks and mends and breaks again in the space of one breath.
"No," I say.
"Isabella—"
"I won't let you do that. I won't let you ruin your relationship with my brother over this. He trusts you. He needs you. I'm not taking that from him." I take a breath. "The wedding is happening. That's final. But—" I stop.
He goes very still. "But what?"
"But we have time before it happens. Days…" I meet his eyes. "We could be together until then."
The silence that follows is so heavy I can barely breathe through it.
"You're asking me to have you temporarily." His voice is dangerous and quiet. "You're asking me to touch you and taste you and be inside you knowing that it ends the second you put on a white dress for someone else."
"Yes," I say simply. "That's what I'm asking."
"That's the cruelest thing you've ever said to me."
"I know." My voice comes out barely a whisper. "But it's all I have to offer. It's this or nothing, Enzo. You decide."
He stares at me and I watch him war with himself, watch him run every angle, watch him try to find a way to say no and failing.
"If I agree to this," he says finally, "I'm going to change your mind. You understand that? I'm going to spend every second we have together making it impossible for you to walk down that aisle to him. That's the deal."
"You can try."
His eyes go dark. "You think I can't?"
"I think you'll give it everything you have and it won't matter because at the end of the day I love my family more than I love myself."
Something flickers across his face when I say the word love but he doesn't comment on it, just takes another step toward me until we're very close.
"Last chance," he says quietly. "Walk out that door right now and we pretend this conversation never happened. Stay and I'm going to make you regret every word you just said."
I don't walk out.
His hand comes up and grips my jaw, firm and possessive, tilting my face exactly where he wants it.
"You're making a mistake," he says against my mouth.
"Probably."
He kisses me hard and angry, his teeth catching my bottom lip, his other hand fisting in my hair, and I kiss him back with everything I have because this might be all we get and I'm going to take every second of it.
He walks me backward until my legs hit the bed and I sit and then he's on his knees between my legs, his hands already working at the button of my jeans.
"Enzo—"
"Don't talk." His voice is rough and commanding. "You've said enough tonight."
He pulls my jeans and underwear down in one movement and pushes my legs apart and his hand slides between them with no preamble, no gentleness, just immediate devastating precision.
I gasp and my hands fly to his shoulders.
"You think you can marry him?" His fingers move inside me, curling hard. "You think you can let him touch you like this?"
"Enzo, please—"
"Answer me."
"No." The word comes out broken. "No, I don't think I can."
"Then why are you doing it?"
"Because I have to—oh god—"
His thumb finds my clit and the pressure is just shy of too much, edging right up against the line between pleasure and pain.
"You don't have to do anything." His other hand grips my thigh, holding me open. "You're choosing this. Own it."
I'm already close, already spiraling up faster than should be possible, and he knows it because he slows down immediately, pulling me back from the edge.
"Enzo—"
"Not yet." His fingers keep moving but slower now, deliberate, keeping me right on the edge without letting me fall over. "You want to come, you're going to have to admit this is a mistake."
"It's not—"
He stops completely.
I make a sound of frustration and his mouth curves into something that's not quite a smile.
"Try again."
"I hate you."
"I know." He starts moving again, building me back up. "Say it anyway."
He works me higher and higher, bringing me to the edge over and over and pulling back at the last second, and I'm shaking with it, crying with it, begging incoherently.
"Please, Enzo, please, I need—"
"Tell me this is a mistake."
"It's a mistake." The words tumble out, desperate and honest. "It's a mistake, marrying him is a mistake, please—"
"Good girl." His fingers move faster and his thumb presses down hard and I shatter with a cry that he swallows with his mouth, my whole body locking around his hand, the orgasm ripping through me so hard I see white.
I collapse back on the bed, boneless and wrecked, and when I can finally see again, he's standing over me with an expression I've never seen before.
"Get out," he says quietly.
I blink up at him. "W-What?"
"I said get out. Get dressed and go back to your room before I do something we'll both regret."
I sit up slowly, my hands shaking, and pull my clothes back on, and the whole time he just stands there watching me with that same controlled fury.
When I'm dressed, I walk to the door and stop with my hand on the knob.
"Enzo—"
"Goodnight, Princess."
I leave.
The door closes behind me with a soft click, and I stand in the hallway trying to catch my breath and failing completely.
Inside the room, I hear something hit the wall hard.
I go back to my room and close my door and slide down it until I'm sitting on the floor with my knees pulled up and my face pressed against them.
I made the right choice.
I have to keep believing I made the right choice.