Page 157 of Matteo

His suffering as a child has informed his world view as an adult, but how could he judge me so easily, and believe Alex so quickly?

I should have told him. I should have just come clean because now he sees me in the same way that he sees his father; someone not to be trusted. Someone who tells lies and keeps secrets.

I am not the person he thinks I am.

I try to mingle with the guests on board, sipping cocktails, eating canapes and plastering on a fake smile, but I feel increasingly restless. When people ask where Matteo is, I tell them that he had to leave urgently to see his mother.

It's enough, and it’s the truth, and no one questions me further.

I force myself to get through these last few days of Vlad's wedding celebrations, as best as I can.

“I’ve been watching you,” Vlad says, coming up beside me.

I turn slightly, schooling my expression into something neutral.

“Something’s happened, mala, and if you don’t tell me what it is, I will make it my mission to find out.”

I force a chuckle. “Nothing’s happened.”

“What is the saying you American's have? You must think I was born yesterday.”

“You were born fifteen years before me, old man.”

“Old man,” he mutters. “There is a lot of life left in me still.”

I loop my arm through his. “Yes, there is. A long, happy life, with Valentina and lots of Vladinos, or Vladettes.”

“I hope so,” he says, peering at me. He looks away quickly, but not before I catch the way his lips curl up at the edges.

“No!” I force his face towards me. “Are you serious, Vladimir. Is ... is ... Valentina …”

He puts a finger to his lips, and drops his voice. “It's early, and I didn't tell you anything.”

I gasp, my eyes misting over. I don't know why I'm feeling so emotional, but this is the best news I've heard in days. I’ve never seen Vlad this happy before.

His expression softens. “I know. It’s amazing. The best thing ever.”

For a moment, neither of us says anything. He looks out across the water, while I try to wipe away my tears.

“I was left in an orphanage when I was a baby.”

His words hit me so hard I stop breathing. He's never talked about his family.

Not once.

“I never knew my parents,” he continues quietly. “Never knew where I came from. The only thing I knew for certain was that nobody came back for me.”

A tear slips down my cheek. “Vlad ...”

He shrugs, but there's something raw in his eyes. “That's why you matter to me, mala. Your story is not so different from mine.”

The tears come faster still. I'm an emotional wreck as it is, but this breaks me. All these years, I thought I knew him. And yet I never knew this.

Vlad has always been the sort of man who commands a room without raising his voice. He is calm, confident and unshakable. The person everyone else looks to when things fall apart. He’s impossibly strong, and now I realize it’s because life hasn’t been kind to him. He'd been rejected before he even had a chance to understand what rejection meant. Abandoned before he'd spoken his first word. Yet somehow he'd built a life for himself, anyway, and along the way he’d helped others, like me.

It’s why he looked out for me so much, because he was to me a father figure, an older, protective brother. The family he never had.

We are so similar, it hurts.