Bianca is quiet for a long moment, her hands twisted in her lap.
When she speaks, her voice is small and lost.
“I don’t know how to separate the lie from the love,” she admits. “I don’t know how to be angry about one without rejecting the other.”
The honesty in her words seems to break something in Matteo.
His careful composure cracks completely, and tears start flowing down his face.
“I was twenty years old,” he says, his voice raw with pain. “My father had just…he’d just destroyed an innocent girl. I was told to fix it. To do something that I didn’t really want to do. Sophia was a stranger to me. I barely knew her, let alone wanted to marry her. Giuseppe kept telling me that as the heir to the DeLuca family, I needed to step up. As if this was allmyfault. So I did my duty. I married Sophia to legitimize you?—”
Bianca winces and I sit on my hands, resisting the urge to wrap her in my arms.
Matteo notices Bianca’s flinch and he sighs, looking weary. “Please understand that I was twenty years old, Bianca, and Giuseppe’s word was law. I had every intention of being a good husband and financially caring for Sophia’s baby—my…my half-sister.”
He abruptly stands up and walks to his window, his eyes far away, lost in his memories. “And then you were born, Bianca. You were born and you were perfect and innocent. I fell in love the moment I saw you all tiny and wrinkled and red.” He smiles faintly at the memory. “And I thought—” His voice breaks completely and Bianca stifles a sob.
“I thought, ‘This child deserves a father who loves her. This child deserves to grow up feeling wanted and cherished, not like she’s the result of something terrible.’” He wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “So I chose to be that father. Every day for nineteen years, I chose to be your dad.” He turns to face her, his eyes bright. “You’ve never been Giuseppe’s daughter. You’ve always beenmine.”
I watch Bianca’s face as she processes this, seeing the war between her hurt and her understanding.
“But you never gave me the choice,” she says softly, wiping her face with the tissue I discreetly pass her. “You decided what I could handle, when I could handle it, how much truth I deserved to know.”
“Because I was terrified of losing you,” Matteo admits brokenly. “Because I knew that learning the truth might change how you saw yourself, how you saw me, how you saw our family. And I couldn’t bear the thought of you looking at me with anything other than love.”
The room falls silent except for the sound of both of them crying.
I find myself moved by the raw emotion, by watching two people who love each other desperately trying to find their way back to each other through the wreckage of broken trust.
“He chose to be your father when no one else would,” I say quietly, echoing words I used earlier. “Giuseppe certainly wasn’t going to step up. Matteo made the choice to love you and raise you as his own. That choice matters more than anything.”
Bianca looks at me then back at Matteo. “But the foundation of that choice was built on deception.”
“Theexplanationwas deceptive,” I correct gently. “Thechoiceitself was genuine. Thelovewas genuine. The nineteen years of protection and guidance and sacrifice—all of that wasreal.”
Matteo nods and straightens in his chair, seeming to gather his courage. “I should have told you when you turned eighteen,” he says. “Or when you found out you weren’t my biological daughter. I kept waiting for the right moment, and that waiting became a habit of avoidance.” He spreads his hands out on his desk. “And for that, I’m sorry.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Bianca asks, biting her lip as if she’s not sure she wants to know the answer.
Matteo considers the question seriously. “Honestly? Probably not. Because every year that passed made the truth harder to reveal. And because I convinced myself that protecting you from that knowledge was more important than your right to know.”
Bianca scowls. “That should have beenmychoice to make.”
“You’re right. It should have been.” Matteo looks directly at Bianca. “I failed you in that regard. I prioritized my own fear of losing you over your autonomy. That was wrong.”
The great Matteo DeLuca admitting he’s wrong.
I never thought I would ever see the day.
And from the look on Bianca’s face, neither did she.
“I need you to understand something,” she says carefully. “I can’t just go back to how things were before. I can’t pretend this revelation didn’t change everything about how I see myself and my place in this family.”
“I don’t expect you to,” Matteo replies quickly. “I just hope we can find a way forward that doesn’t require us to be enemies.”
“I don’twantto be your enemy,” Bianca says, fresh tears starting to flow. “But I also don’t know how to be your daughter anymore. Not the way I was before.”
The pain in both their voices is almost unbearable.
