But Alessandro couldn’t think beyond what it meant to him. Couldn’t get perspective. Silence had never felt like it could tear two people apart.
Hurt twisted her smile into a mockery. “Thinking this thing between us was worthy of exploration was a colossal mistake. My age, Matteo, and now my history…you’ll find something to reject this. And that’s your prerogative. But I’ll be damned if I let you make me believe that I’m not—” Tears filled her eyes and she inhaled loudly. “I finally understand why Matteo calls you a machine. But he doesn’t know the worst, does he? It’s not that you can’t feel. It’s that you don’t want to.”
She swept out of the kitchen, holding her dress together, her spine straight, head held high.
Alessandro stayed still for a long time, his mind still reeling. Suddenly, he could see all the reasons their chemistry was more than surface level: because she understood what it meant to not have power over your own life.
But her fears and her very real struggles hadn’t stopped her from wanting to live, from wanting to taste everything life offered. From recognizing the same hunger in him, even though he was everything she called him—remote, ruthless, heartless.
Only now did he realize how much more he’d lost than Violetta fourteen years ago. Grief had robbed so much from him—friends, of family, even his brother. Laughter. Simple pleasures. The ability to connect.
It had isolated him until he had gotten used to having nothing.
Chapter Eight
MORE THAN Aweek passed before Alessandro went to visit an awake Matteo.
While his brother had been conscious for over two weeks now, he had avoided seeing him. Now his stomach tightened at the prospect of a confrontation that had been coming for months, even years.
Neither did he miss the fact that the trigger was Sam’s arrival.
It had been a week since Sam had looked at him with such anger, such hurt in her eyes. The first he could bear, the second not so much.
“Where is she?” he said, barging into the room. “Don’t pretend ignorance, Matteo. She doesn’t know anyone in this town.”
His chest tightened at the sight of his brother. Dark, sunken shadows clung to Matteo’s eyes, the ever-present pain already changing the cast of his features.
“Hello to you too, Alessandro,” Matteo said. “If you mean Angelina, she’s not here. Because you banished her.” He sighed. “Aren’t you the one always telling me to not piss off Vittorio?”
“I meant Sam, and you know it,” Alessandro countered. His words sharpened in direct reaction to how pale and worn-out Matteo looked. It seemed his usual self-possession was nowhere to be found now. “But while we’re talking about Angelina, have you finally decided to be a responsible adult and sort this mess out? Will you stop overcompensating for your supposed weaknesses as a child and act like a grown-up instead?”
“Sì, something shook loose in my brain during the accident,” his brother said, shutting Alessandro up.
Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t Matteo’s sudden somberness. Alessandro felt as if he’d kicked a dog that was already down.
“You should know that I told Angelina everything over the phone. How Sam hadn’t yet quite broken up with me when I agreed to go out with her. But that I knew it was coming. That I went out with Angelina to feel better about myself.”
“At least you can be glad there’s nothing else to break in your body. Not everyone is as forgiving as Sam.” It was a big step for his brother to admit how far down the wrong path he’d gone. Fresh anger surged through Alessandro. “Before you decided to come clean, did you think about Sam’s safety? Did you not realize Angelina would take it out on her?”
“You have no idea how sorry I am. How awful Angelina feels about her behavior toward Sam.” When Alessandro scoffed, Matteo sighed. “No, truly. She hasn’t told her cousins or friends or her dad everything I told her about Sam and me. She said it wasn’t anyone’s business.”
For once, Alessandro was surprised too.
Matteo bumped his head against the headboard. “The last thing I want is to hurt Sam more. She’s…special.”
Hearing her name on his brother’s lips made Alessandro want to smash something. Even if she wasn’t for him. “Are you still in love with her?”
“I used to think so,” Matteo answered, his voice steady. “But when I realized she didn’t feel deeply about me, that she’d already outgrown me, it made me resentful. I knew then that our relationship was more about how she made me feel about myself, rather than our feelings for each other.”
“Because of her…history?”
“Sam made me feel good in my own skin,” Matteo said, regret and something else in his eyes. “As if I were a different kind of man. Like I could be someone even without the Ricci name or the large sphere of your influence. If a fearless girl like her could love me, I was worthy. I never told her about our family wealth because I wanted a girl like her to like me for me…without complications. And her parents were too protective of her to ever let her travel, so…she never saw all of this for herself.”
As much as he hated it, Alessandro understood the sentiment. “Is that why you never told us that Sam was a woman? Because you wanted to keep her and our family separate?”
“Sì. Even when it was good, I knew it wouldn’t last, that it wouldn’t survive in the true reality of my world. And Sam hasn’t looked at me like I was her hero in a long while.”
“And Angelina?” demanded Alessandro.
