“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. Thethought 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.
