And I fucking betrayed him over and over again.
That’s when the confession comes. “I fucked up, Lydia. I fucked up so badly.”
“Because you fell in love with him?”
“No.” I shake my head sharply. “It’s about what I did to him, and to his?—”
I stop before I say too much. The specifics are still too dangerous. And I’ve hurt enough people already.
“His what?” Lydia prompts gently. “What did you do, Bella?”
“I betrayed him.” The words come out hollow. “In the worst possible way. And he doesn’t know.”
“So tell him,” she says. “From the way you’re talking about it, he’s just as head over heels for you as you are for him. And if he loves you like you love him, then he won’tcareabout the betrayal.”
“That’s because you don’t know what I did.”
“You keep saying that without telling me what you did!” Lydia huffs.
“I nearly got his son killed!” The words finally force their way out of my mouth.
And there it is.
The admission of what I am.
Lydia’s eyes soften with grief. “Bella?—”
“Don’t try and absolve me.” The tears are coming now, hot and unwelcome and impossible to stop. “I’m not someone who deserves that.”
But instead of judging, Lydia just pulls me close against her, and I let myself be held. Let myself cry into her shoulder the way I haven’t cried since the night Luca died. She doesn’t ask for specifics or try to fix it. She just holds me while I fall apart, which is exactly what I need and also exactly what I don’t deserve.
When the tears finally slow, she pulls back to look at me. “What are you going to do?”
The answer rises from somewhere deep in my chest, certain and terrifying and inevitable:
“He’s going to come pick me up for a date tomorrow night. That’s when I’m going to tell him the truth.”
Lydia’s eyes widen. “Bella, you can’t!”
“I have to.” I wipe my face with the back of my hand, pulling myself together with the last scraps of dignity I have left. “Because it’s better that he hears it from me than to hear it from someone else.”
“And what if he doesn’t forgive you?”
“Then at least it’ll be honest,” I say. “And he’ll finally know who and what I really am.”
46
SLAVA
The penthouse feelsdifferent with Alessandro in it.
He stands in the foyer with his small hand in mine, head tilted back to take in the soaring ceilings and the floor-to-ceiling windows that frame Manhattan like it exists just for him, and his eyes go wide.
"Papa," he breathes. "It's sobig."
"It is." I crouch down to his level, brushing a strand of dark hair from his forehead. "This is home now. Your new home."
The words feel strange in my mouth. I've spent six years making sure he wasnowherenear this place. Choosing to keep him at the chateau with the ghost of Gia and tucked away in secrecy.
