My body shakes like I'm going through withdrawal. And maybe I am. The absence of his touch feels like missing a vital organ. My hands won't stop trembling. Even my breath comes wrong without his presence filling the room.
Grabbing my battered suitcase, I stumble out and along the service corridor, up the stairs, where I can finally breathe.
The rooftop observatory feels smaller tonight, the stars blurred through tears I can't stop. The night air cuts through the Stella McCartney dress. The telescope stands between me and the city lights, this perfect gift that represents everything beautiful and terrible about us. He gave me the stars but made sure I could only see them from his roof, through his gift, under his protection.
I run my fingers along the brass, remembering how he learned Perseus's story, how his hands covered mine as we traced Cassiopeia, how he made me come against this very telescope while the stars watched.
"I'm addicted to my own cage," I whisper to the stars, the truth burning worse than the lies ever did.
My pussy throbs with emptiness, my body recognizing what my mind fights. That I'm biologically addicted to him now, that every cell has been rewritten to crave his touch. The thought makes me wet with shame and need in equal measure.
I pack the telescope carefully, leaving the bulky stand behind. Whatever I become next, I'll keep this piece of us.
Sofia's voice cuts through the darkness like a blade, her silhouette appearing in the rooftop doorway. She looks different. Harder, colder, the sweetness she wears like armor completely absent. Tonight her hair is scraped back into a severe knot, her eyes rimmed in kohl and glittering with intent. She looks like she’s been poured into her black dress and then left to chill in the freezer, every curve honed to a lethal edge.
"You've picked the perfect night to run," she says, voice flat.
She steps forward, stilettos punctuating each syllable with a click that echoes off the glass and stone. Her perfume precedes her—a sharp, resinous thing with no hint of sweetness. Shedoesn't stop until she's close enough to see that my hands are shaking.
For one hot, idiotic second I think maybe she’s here to help me, or at least warn me, or tell me it's not as hopeless as it seems. Maybe she’s going to tuck me in her car and drive me out of the city.
But Sofia's smile is cold as January. “Shall I carry your suitcase for you, cara?” She glances at the battered roller bag at my feet, the one that’s never belonged in a place like this. “Or shall we just throw it off the roof?”
I want to say something clever, something that will put her back in her place, but all I can think of is how her mascara has never once smudged and how mine is probably leaking down my cheeks like tar.
"How did you know I was—"
She cuts me off with a flick of her finger. “Frances Hewson is joining us for dinner.” She says it like she’s announcing the arrival of a shipment of caviar, or a new piece of art for the foyer. “Alessandro will be otherwise occupied. You’re free to go.” Her eyes rake over me with clinical disdain. “Unless you’d prefer to stay and watch him trade one wife for another?”
A sound bubbles up from my throat, but it isn’t a word. I try again:
“You’re lying.”
It comes out uncertain, a child’s protest.
Sofia leans in, her breath hot and vodka-laced against my ear. “Darling, do you think you’re the first woman to fall for him? He’s had a thousand wives. You’re just the one who thought the paperwork mattered.” She straightens, brushing invisible dust from her sleeve. “She landed at JFK an hour ago. There’s already a place setting for her at the table. You should have packed lighter.”
The world tilts. I grip the telescope stand to stay upright, the brass hot against my palms.
Alessandro married me thinking I was Frances Hewson. When he discovered the truth, when the lie burned off in the heat of his obsession, he didn’t rage or abandon me. He just stared down the ugly thing I am and said, “I love you anyway.”
Those words should have healed me. They didn’t. They were a knife, carving away the last soft flesh, leaving only scar and bone where a girl used to be. I told myself it didn’t matter that I was a fraud, that the body he worshipped and the mind he tried to break belonged to a girl who never existed. I let myself believe it was enough to be loved by a man like him, to be necessary even if I was never real.
But now, the real Frances Hewson is here. The true heiress, the lost girl who was always supposed to be his. Tonight, she’ll be in the dining room, her back straight, her hair neat, every part of her designed to be devoured and paraded in front of the world. I imagine Alessandro folding a linen napkin for her, pouring wine with those steady hands that always smell like gun oil and expensive soap. I imagine her voice, crisp and bright, bouncing off the marble and glass.
What happens to me now? What purpose is there for a counterfeit when the original is back in circulation? The thought should make me want to vomit, but all it does is hollow me out further. I want to hate Frances, but I can’t. She was stolen, just like me, just like Tommy. She never asked for this life, and she’s probably more lost than I am.
I could run. The thought comes so easily, so naturally, it feels like muscle memory. I could take the telescope, the suitcase, and disappear before sunrise. There are always cities where a girl like me can start over, where no one cares who you used to be.
But I know I won’t. The urge to flee is old, but it’s not as strong as the new urge: to stay, to see this through, to face theconsequences like a woman instead of a scared little nothing. I owe it to Alessandro, even if he’s about to choose someone better. I owe it to the family.
Mostly, I owe it to Alex. I owe him a reckoning, however ugly and pointless.
I can’t run from this. Can’t run from my own lies, can’t leave without looking Marco, Valentina, Dante, Ana, Nico in the face and telling them I’m sorry. Even Luca and Faith. I can see their faces now, each one a different flavor of disappointment: Marco’s stoic judgment, Valentina’s quiet dismissal, Dante’s open confusion, Ana’s brittle disgust, Nico’s silent, wounded stare. Faith, at least, would look at me with pity, but Luca would stop her from showing it.
I want to tell them I did it for Tommy, for myself, for survival, but none of those reasons would matter. It wouldn’t matter that I loved them, that I loved him, that I tried so hard to deserve any of this.
I want to scream, or break something, or throw myself off the roof and see if I bounce. But instead I just stand here, breathing in the humid air, feeling my body break into smaller and smaller pieces until I’m nothing but twitch and ache. I don’t think there’s enough left of me for anyone to love, even a man like Alessandro.
