"I know you will."
I leave before the guilt can choke me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ifinally find Alessia in the greenhouse after looking everywhere.
She's kneeling in the dirt with her hands working through the soil around a rosebush that's seen better days, her hair pulled back in a loose braid, the late afternoon sun coming through the glass panels above and catching the strands that have escaped.
She looks up when she hears me come in and makes a face.
"That bad?" she asks with a wince.
I close the door behind me and cross to where she's working and sit on the bench, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms around them.
"I slept with Enzo," I blurt.
Her hands go still in the dirt. She doesn't look up immediately, just stays there with her fingers buried in the soil and her head tilted slightly, like she's processing what I just said and deciding how to respond.
Then she sits back on her heels and looks at me directly.
"Okay," she says. "Tell me everything."
So I do.
I tell her about the cabin and the jacuzzi and the way he looked at me in the dark hallway with the towel. I tell her about the motel and the fog and the way he kneeled on the floor between my legs and told me he was proud of me. I tell her about the sex, not the details exactly but enough that she understands it wasn't casual, wasn't meaningless, wasn't something I can just brush off and move past.
I tell her about this morning, about the drive back, about the way he looked at me when Matteo wasn't watching, about the fact that I can still feel him everywhere and it's only been hours.
When I finish she's quiet for a moment, just looking at me with those steady eyes that see everything.
"Do you love him?" she asks.
The question lands harder than it should.
"I don't know," I say honestly. "I've wanted him for so long I'm not sure I can separate wanting from loving. But I know I can't marry Vittorio now. I know that much."
She nods slowly. "So don't."
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"Because the alliance?—"
"Fuck the alliance, Isabella." The curse sounds strange coming from her, sharp and completely without her usual measured calm. "You're not a bargaining chip. You're a person. You deserve to choose who you spend your life with."
"I'm a Romano," I say quietly. "I don't get to choose. That's how this works."
"That's how it's always worked. That doesn't mean it's how it has to work." She leans forward and her voice goes softer, more urgent. "Be brave. Fight for what you want. Your brother loves you. He'll understand. And if he doesn't understand immediately, he'll come around. But you have to be honest with him. You have to tell him the truth."
"He trusts Enzo," I say. "Completely. If I tell him what happened, if I tell him we slept together, he'll never trust himagain. And Enzo is the best thing Matteo has. I can't take that from him."
"So you're going to sacrifice yourself instead?" Alessia shakes her head. "That's not noble, Isabella. That's just martyrdom dressed up as duty."
The words sting because they're true.
"I don't know what to do," I admit, and my voice cracks slightly around the edges. "I want him. I want to be with him. But I also love my brother and I understand what this family needs and I don't know how to reconcile those things. I also have no idea what’s going on in Enzo’s head."
