"Isabella. Tomorrow—" He stops. "If you need anything. If you want to talk about anything before—" Another pause. "I'm here. You know that, right?"
Something in my throat gets tight.
"I know."
He nods once more and leaves, and I sit in the window seat with my closed book and my racing heart, and I think about the fact that my brother just gave me an out, just offered to remove Enzo from my life, and I refused without even consulting him first.
Because the thought of not having him near me, of having someone else standing guard, of going through tomorrowwithout him is unbearable in ways I don't know how to articulate.
I stand up and start pacing again when the door opens again.
Enzo.
He steps inside and closes the door and locks it and the look on his face makes me stop moving entirely.
"You refused," he says.
"You heard that?"
"I was in the hallway. I heard all of it." He takes a step toward me. "You defended me to your brother. You told him you didn't want anyone else."
"I don't."
"Why?"
The question hangs between us and I could lie, could give him something easy and surface level, could pretend this is still just about security.
But I'm tired of lying.
"Because I can't do this without you," I say quietly. "Any of it. I can't get through tomorrow without knowing you're there. I can't—" My voice cracks. "I can't imagine my life without you in it."
He crosses the room in three strides and his hands cup my face and he's looking at me with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe.
"Then don't marry him," he says. "Don't get up tomorrow and put on that dress and walk down that aisle. Just don't do it, Isabella. Choose something different. Choose me."
"I can't?—"
"You can. You're choosing not to. There's a difference." His thumbs brush my cheekbones. "I will help with the O'Rourkes. I will make sure nothing happens to your family, to our family. I will find another way to secure the alliance, or I will burn the De Lucas to the ground if that's what it takes. But you have to choose this. You have to choose us."
Tears are running down my face before I can stop them.
"What if something goes wrong? What if people die because I was selfish?"
"What if people die anyway? What if you sacrifice yourself and it doesn't matter? What if you marry Vittorio and the O'Rourkes still come and all you've done is destroy your own happiness fornothing?" He leans his forehead against mine. "I love you. I'm in love with you. I have been for years. And I can't watch you marry someone else tomorrow. I can't do it, Isabella. I'll break."
The words hit me like something physical.
"Y-You love me?"
“Fuck it, fuck it down to Hell. Yes."
"Since when?"
"Since you were eighteen years old and told me you loved me on a porch and I was too much of a coward to say it back." His voice is rough and raw. "I loved you then and I love you now and I know for sure that I will love you for the rest of my life, whether you marry me or marry him. That doesn't change. But I'm asking you to choose the version where we get to be together. Please, Isabella."
I pull his mouth to mine and kiss him with everything I have, with four years of wanting and weeks of desperation and the knowledge that this is it, this is the moment where everything changes.
"I love you," I say against his lips. "I love you so much it scares me."
