The single word lands like a slap.
I laugh, sharp and shaking. “That’s all you have to say?”
His gaze drags over me, unreadable. “What would you like me to say, Elizabeth?”
My mouth falls open.
“Are you serious?” I lean forward against the seat belt cutting across my lap. “You stormed into a church with armed men. You threatened Teresa. You dragged me off in front of everyone. You humiliated Dante. You humiliated me. And now you want to know what I’d like you to say?”
His jaw tics once, but that’s the only sign I’ve gotten under his skin.
“Start with you’re sorry.” Silence. Of course. I shake my head, fury making my eyes burn. “You know what? Don’t bother. I don’t want anything from you.”
“That’s a lie.”
The words are quiet but certain. It infuriates me.
“You don’t know what I want.”
“I know you were about to marry him.”
“And whose fault is that?” I fire back. “You married someone else, Lorenzo.”
That one lands. I see it in the hard flicker of his eyes. In the way his fingers curl once against the armrest before flattening again.
Good.
“You don’t get to disappear into another life, play husband to another woman, and then act like I’m the one who betrayed you.” My voice breaks, but I keep going. “You lost the right to come after me the second you made vows to someone else.”
“That marriage means nothing.”
“It means everything,” I snap. “You said vows. You put yourname on another woman. You don’t get to decide it means nothing just because you’ve suddenly changed your mind.”
The engines deepen beneath us, the plane beginning to taxi. The movement presses me back into the seat, but it doesn’t touch the fury burning through me.
Lorenzo watches me in silence for a long moment. “Did you love him?”
I stare at him. The audacity of the question almost steals my breath.
“What?”
“Did you love him,” he repeats, colder now, “or were you just going to let him put a ring on your finger and take my place because it was convenient?”
My laugh is ugly this time. “Your place?”
His eyes flash.
“You don’t have a place,” I hiss. “You gave it away.”
For the first time, something real shows on his face. Something dark enough to make the air in the cabin feel thinner.
The plane turns, the city lights streaking past the window.
I should shut up and conserve whatever strength I have left. But I can still see Teresa with a gun at her side. I can still hear the shot cracking through the church. I can still feel the way he ripped the ring off my finger like he had the right.
So I lean into the pain and make it uglier.
“Yes,” I say. “I was going to marry him.”
