CHAPTER 38
Caroline
I haven’t been home for three days.
Instead, I took a room at the Rosewood and turned it into a temporary command center, working from there for the past two days - quiet, contained, controlled - and evenings spent emptying my mind into the rhythm of a punching bag with my trainer.
A place where nothing could ambush me, even my own thoughts.
This morning, I finally returned to the office, signing off on the major spend for our expansion. Months of preparation distilled into a handful of decisive signatures. The groundwork is done. Execution time has come.
And now I’m on my way home.
My phone, dark and silent moments after I walked out of Edoardo’s house, is turned back on, alive again, humming with the world I pressed pause on.
I’m going to see him. Tonight, or this weekend. And this time, I’m ready.
I walk into my room and see a duffel bag by the chair. For a moment I just stand there, then it sinks in - Edoardo has been staying here, waiting for me.
Tonight, then.
I take a long, scalding shower, letting the heat loosen the tightness in my shoulders. I dry off slowly, grounding myself in the ordinary. I eat a quick bite of whatever the kitchen sends up, barely tasting it.
Then I wrap myself in a blanket and settle against the headboard, half sitting, half lying, the room quiet around me as I wait for Edoardo.
***
Edoardo
I haven’t eaten. I haven’t slept properly for days.
The last three weeks were already brutal, keeping my distance because I knew Caroline needed space. I could feel it - something wasn’t wrong exactly, but it wasn’t right either. A quiet shift, like a hairline crack you can’t see but you know is there because you feel it in your bones.
But the last three days… language barely contains what that has been. Fury. Panic. Terror. A raw, animal fear I didn’t know lived inside me. I have never felt anything like it.
I still can’t believe the stunt my parents and Isabella pulled.
Caroline had texted me that she was back in London, at her parents’ place, and would swing by to say hi.
I left the office instantly, heart pounding with anticipation, with that deep, aching relief that I was about to hold my girlfriend in my arms - only to push open my bedroom door and find Isabella there.
Isabella. In my room. Wearing a bathrobe over my old T-shirt.
And Caroline, my Caroline, was gone.
“Our house,” my parents said, as if that explained anything, as if those two words could extinguish the rage blazing behind my eyes.
I packed a bag and left. No plan, just motion. I went to Caroline’s house, but she didn’t come back that night. I searched everywhere I could think of, chasing the outline of her, but she never appeared.
That evening, after the calls and messages sent in a panic, she texted back: “If you didn’t cheat on me, then ok. We’ll talk in a few days.” Simple. Calm. Devastating.
She hasn’t been home since. I rang her parents’ bell, she wasn’t there either. Her mother invited me in, pressed a cup of tea into my hands, her kindness almost unbearable. She didn’t ask what happened, but she looked at me as if she already knew the shape of the storm.
“My Cara needs some time. If you are the right one for her, she will find her way back.”
What the hell did that even mean? I didn’t want poetry, I wanted to know where my girlfriend is. I wanted to talk to her, to steady her, to steady myself. I needed to. I couldn’t just wait while she processed something that blindsided both of us.
I called Celina. She told me Caroline was safe. That helped, a little.
“Give her space,” Celina said.
Space. Time. Everyone close to her said the fucking same thing.
But I have given her space and time. I stayed away, didn’t fly across the ocean to New York for two weeks because I sensed she needed breathing room.
The first week, I was excited for her to come back.
The second, I tried to be patient, to understand.
By the third, my patience was fraying — and then she returned midweek and everything detonated into the worst possible version of events.
Fuck my life.
How am I supposed to give space and time when I’m unraveling? When I’m shaking like something caught in a storm? I’ve never been this nervous, this powerless.
I’m still furious with my parents. Elena flew in from Milan the next morning to mediate because I cut every call and walked out.
But Isabella… I can’t believe she let herself be used like that - a pawn in whatever twisted plan they thought would fix things.
Showing up in my room, trying to win me back with sex, with nostalgia, with the illusion of comfort we once had.
I misjudged her. The Isabella I once loved was smarter than that.
I pick up the phone to call my assistant for some more coffee. I could use a whole fucking bottle of hard liquor now, let it burn through whatever is still clinging to the ugliness of this.
I slowly sip my coffee instead, forcing my breathing to follow the rhythm.
And Caroline - what is happening inside that brilliant, guarded mind? What shifted after I met her parents as her boyfriend? What changed? What did I miss?
My thoughts loop endlessly: what, what, what.
Because I can’t form a fucking single answer until I understand those questions. I don’t know how to think, how to act, how to breathe around the unknown.
And it’s killing me, knowing she’s somewhere here in London while I lie in her bed, her scent still wrapping around me, the sheets cold, her side empty.
I drag a hand over my face and pinch the bridge of my nose, pressing hard as if I could squeeze the chaos out of my skull.
God, I need to see Caroline. Just to see her. Even if it’s only for a moment. A glimpse, a breath, proof that she’s still within reach.
Fuck. This hurts.
Is this where the doubts start seeping in? Quiet at first, then everywhere. Is this where “enough” lives? That invisible line you never know you’ve crossed until you’re already standing on the wrong side of it? Have I given enough, done enough, poured enough of myself into her, into us?
And has Caroline? Has she carried me in her mind the way I carry her in mine?
Or have I been standing just a step to the side all along, mistaking closeness for commitment, proximity for a not fully acknowledged love?
Have I ever been more than a serious date, a boyfriend in name, convenient in timing but not inevitable?
Just weeks ago, calling her my girlfriend felt solid and certain. Almost effortless, like something that had quietly clicked into place without either of us forcing it.
Now I don’t know what we are.
I push myself up and walk to the liquor cabinet, the one reserved for clients, for measured pours and controlled conversations. I reach for the whiskey and fill a glass.
The weight of it settles into my palm, grounding, undeniable. Ridiculous that something so small - a fucking glass, the burn of amber liquid - can tether me when everything else feels like it’s drifting. And I hate that it works, hate the smallness of the relief, hate how pathetic it makes me feel.
Why does it have to be this complicated?
I take a gulp and let the liquid burn slowly.
I sit for a long time, thinking, debating with myself in my own thoughts. When I strip everything else away, including my parents, her silence, the history, and the Isabella chaos, it comes down to something brutally simple: it’s just me and Caroline.
Two people who need to sit across from each other, push open the doors we keep half-closed, and finally say the things we keep circling. Truth, unsoftened, spoken out loud.
Simple. Terrifyingly simple.
But will she talk? Or will she retreat behind those quiet walls of hers?
Is Caroline ready to talk about us? That’s the question that sits heavier than anything else. That’s why her mother and Celina keep telling me to give her time.
She isn’t ready. Caroline isn’t ready to talk about us yet.
And if she isn’t, what the hell am I supposed to do?