Chapter 25
Valentina
“Nona, it’s so good to see you!” I rush across the living room floor and pull my grandmother into a hug, breathing in her familiar lavender and vanilla perfume. The late afternoon sunlight streams through the lace curtains, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the familiar surroundings.
It's so strange to think that when I left this house, I thought Max was nothing more than an over-privileged, immature man-child, and now I’m falling for the person he really is, the most wonderful man I’ve met.
What a difference a week can make.
“Valentina, my darling girl,” she says as she gives me a squeeze. “Why are you home? Is everything all right?”
“I came to see you, Nona. How's your ankle?” I sink into the familiar worn cushions of our old sofa, the springs protesting. The contrast between this humble living room, with its faded family photos and Nona's knitting basket, and the palace's gilded opulence, is starker now, more than ever.
“It was only a sprain. I'm doing very well. Hobbling a bit, of course, and that old cane of your grandfather’s has come in very handy.” She gestures at a cane with a brass handle shaped like a pheasant, leaning up against the sofa.
“A cane?” I don't like the thought of my grandmother having to use a cane to get around. But she's a lot like me. She's tough. Strong.
“Should you elevate it? Ice it? Is it swollen?” I ask as I peer down at her feet.
“Stop fussing, Valentina.”
“I'm allowed to fuss. You're my grandmother,” I protest.
“Fiddlesticks.”
“Nona,” I warn. “It’s my job to care about you.”
“I told you not to come home just for me. I'm in very good hands. Rudolf has been taking good care of me. Not that I need taking care of, of course, but a little extra help is always welcome.”
“It’s nice that Mr. Beckman has been looking in on you,” I say, and her face lights up at the mention of his name.
“He’s just splendid. Very kind.”
“And a good dancer, apparently.”
“You might think I’m an old woman, my dear, but there’s still life in me yet. I want to enjoy my autumn years.”
A dull ache blooms in my chest at the thought of a world without her in it. “Don’t talk like that.”
“Like what? I’m old. It happens. But that doesn’t mean I want to stop living.”
I smile. “You sound like Max.”
“Oh? How are things with the prince?”
“He’s good.” My cheeks begin to heat, completely giving me away.
Nona raises her brows at me. “I knew it! There was romance in San Fiorenzo!”
“Maybe,” I concede, and she claps her hands together like she’s an excited seal. “But it's very early days,” I add quickly.
“I'm so pleased you took my advice. You've spent so long closed off from the world in this house, working, working, always working. You need to live.”
“Well, if kissing a prince is living, I suppose you could say I'm doing that,” I lead.
Her eyes widen. “Oh, Val. You kissed him?” I nod, happiness threatening to burst out of me. “I told you to put yourself out there. I told you not to blame him for his father's misdeeds, and you did it. You kissed him.”
I shrug, the memory of being in Max's arms filling my chest with a warm glow.
“Tell me everything.”
So, I do. I tell her about how getting to know Max changed my opinion of him, how the staff like him, how he behaved with the teens, how he gradually opened up to me more and more, showing me that he’s a good, decent man who feels constricted by his role.
A man who loves life with a zest that’s infectious.
“That rainstorm certainly did the trick.”
“It wasn't as though it was planned, Nona.”
“Sometimes the universe has to push us off our intended path to get us where we truly belong.”
I shake my head at her, grinning. “Since when did my grandmother talk about ‘the universe’?”
“I’ve been on TikTok.”
I blink at her in disbelief. “You have?”
“I started out watching your videos. I did so enjoy the archery one. That prince of yours is very athletic.”
I’m about to protest as I did before that Max isn’t my prince when I stop myself.
Perhaps he is my prince now?
The thought sends a warm glow of sunshine through my chest.
“How did you go from watching Max shoot an arrow to learning about the ways of the universe?”
“Oh, it’s all on there, plus a lot of drivel.”
I shake my head, laughing. “You will never cease to surprise me, Nona.”
“We should always try to be surprising. Now, does Prince Max know you’re Valentina Romano?”
My chest tightens, and I find myself unconsciously touching the spot where Max's hands had rested during our last kiss. “Not yet. It's been such a close-held secret for so long. But I want to tell him. I almost did.”
She gives my hand a squeeze. “Oh, sweetheart. The complicated webs we weave. Do you love him?”
The directness of her question is like a jolt.
“I...I think I do.”
Her hand flies to her mouth.
Tears prick my eyes. “I didn't mean to fall for him. It just…happened.”
She pulls me roughly against her, patting my back. “It's okay, darling girl. We can't help who we fall in love with. You just so happened to fall in love with the country’s most eligible bachelor.”
I pull back from her to see her eyes dancing, and I can't help but let out a watery laugh. “I suppose I did.”
“Does he love you back?”
I think of the way he looks at me, the softness in his eyes. The way he kissed me, full of passion and something more. Something deep. Although he hasn't said it in so many words, it feels as though he does.
“I think he might, or at least he’s on his way to.”
“Well then, it's obvious what you have to do.”
I pull my lips into a line. “I have to tell him.”
“You must. The longer you wait, the more it will look like a deliberate deception on your part.”
Her words hit me with the force of a blow, and I suck in a breath. "But what if telling him ruins everything, Nona? What if he can never trust me again? He thinks I’m Fabiana Fontaine, an uncomplicated journalist doing a job, not the daughter of a traitor his father sent away."
“You can't build love on a foundation of lies, sweetheart.”
“But what if he looks at me the way everyone else did when Papa was accused? What if I see disappointment in his eyes instead of love?” My voice cracks. “I’m not sure I can take that.”
“What if he doesn’t?” she asks simply.
I wring my hands, spikes of anxiety prickling my body.
"Right now, when he looks at me, he sees someone worthy of his attention.
Someone he can trust. What if I tell him the truth and all of that disappears?
What if he realizes that every conversation we've had, every moment of closeness, was built on my lie?
" I sink back against the sofa, my heart heavy.
"I've never felt this way about anyone. The thought of losing him, of seeing disgust in his eyes? It terrifies me."
She lifts her chin, levelling me with her gaze. “You forget who you are. You are Valentina Romano, daughter of Arabella and Vittorio Romano, a once great lord of this country with a lineage that reaches back to the Middle Ages.”
“Exactly! A man who destroyed everything when he embezzled money from royal charities," I spit, the old bitterness rising like bile in my throat.
"Do you know what it was like, Nona? Watching the neighbors whisper when I walked by?
Having friends' parents suddenly decide I wasn't welcome in their homes anymore?
I was twelve years old, just a kid, and suddenly I was the daughter of a traitor. "
My throat burns as I stand up abruptly, pacing across the room. "And now I'm supposed to tell Max, the son of the man who banished my father, that I've been lying to him this entire time? That every moment we've shared has been built on a deception."
"Your father has always maintained his innocence," Nona says quietly. "And I believed him then, just as I believe him now.”
Nona’s beliefs come more from familial loyalty than anything based on cold, hard facts.
"He maintained his innocence and then ran away," I say, not capable of keeping the bitterness down. "He’s never tried to come back to clear his name, Nona. What kind of innocent man just gives up?"
"He didn't give up, sweetheart. He was protecting you—"
"By abandoning me?"
The words come out sharper than I intended.
“He did what he had to do,” she says quietly.
"Nona, I was twelve. He left me to deal with the whispers, the shame. If he was really innocent, he should have stayed and fought."
Nona's face softens with understanding. "You're angry with him."
My shoulders slump. "I love him because he's my father, but I also resent him.”
“Regardless of what happened back then with your dad, you’re not responsible for his choices. As you said, you were a child." She rises to her feet, reaching for grandfather's cane.
My hands shake as I reach to steady her, but she gently pushes me away.
"This family has spent all these years in shame,” she says, her voice steady. “Isn't it time to stop hiding?"
"You make it sound so simple."
"Simple? No, darling. Of course, it’s not simple.
But it’s necessary if you want any kind of future, for yourself and for this man.
" She gestures around our once grand living room with its peeling wallpaper and furniture that’s progressively falling apart.
"Look at what fear has given us. Look at what hiding has cost us. "
I look around the room at the sunken sofa, the tattered chairs, the frayed rugs.
Every cent I've earned has gone into maintaining this house and it still looks like it's one step away from becoming Miss Havisham’s house, old and decrepit, a house where hope once lived. A house where I’ve hidden away for years.
“Valentina, whatever has come before, if you want a future with him, you need to tell him the truth. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to explain why you waited.”
Of course she's right, and we both know it.
"I know," I whisper. "I have to tell him. Tomorrow, I'll ask him to go somewhere private. I'll tell him everything. I’ll tell who I am, why I hid it, all of it. And I’ll tell him how I feel about him as well." I press my lips together, the thought of losing Max like a physical pain in my ribs.
Nona reaches over to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "Your grandfather used to say that love worth having is love that survives the truth. If this prince of yours truly cares for you, he'll find a way to forgive you."
"What if he doesn't?” I ask, my voice cracking.
She presses a kiss on my forehead. "Then he was never worthy of my beautiful, clever granddaughter's heart."