“This marriage is over.” Her eyes shine with unshed tears but her voice is clear and controlled. “I want a divorce.”
My heart cracks open. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” Her jaw sets, her fingers now clenched into fists that rest in her lap. “I need to get back to my family now so I can figure out how to fix what your father destroyed.”
“Let me help you,” I say, desperation creeping into my voice. I reach for her, and when she pulls away, it’s like a kick to the chest. “You don’t have to do this alone. I made a horrible mistakeby lying to you, and I will regret it for my entire fucking life. But don’t leave me. Don’t do this. Please. Give me another chance to show you how much I love you, how much I need you.”
“No.” Ice glazes over her dark eyes. “I don’t want your help. I don’t want anything from you. It’s over.”
She pushes open the door and steps onto the sidewalk. Without another look back, she walks toward a restaurant across the street and ducks inside.
Numbness weaves through my insides, the ache ofwhat ifslicing into my heart like a jagged blade.
So many fuckingifs.
But none of them matter. Not anymore.
CHAPTER 33
ADRIANA
It feelslike a lifetime has passed even though it’s only been three days.
Three days of ignoring Lochlan’s calls. Three days of deleting his voicemails. Three days of watching his texts pile up on my phone, each one more desperate than the last.
Please let me explain.
I know you’re angry. You have every right to be.
Just give me five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.
I love you, Adriana. That was never a lie.
I delete them all.
The emails are longer. There are paragraphs of explanation, of apologies, of promises he has no right to make. I delete those, too.
But he’s relentless, I’ll give him that. He switches tactics and starts sending handwritten letters, delivered through Jayne because DiMicheli security has orders to turn him away fromany building where I might be. Jayne brings them to me, watching as they stack up on my desk.
“Are you going to read them?” she asks.
I glare at the pile. “Just looking at them makes my heart ache. I can’t imagine what reading them would do.”
“Maybe it might help heal you,” she says with a shrug. “Give you some closure.”
But I don’t want closure. I’m fucking angry. At him, yes. But mostly at myself. And reading all of those letters will only make me angrier.
My head falls into my hands. I believed him. I let myself fall in love with him.
Stupid. So goddamn stupid.
The worst part is, I still love him. Even now, knowing what I do, some pathetic part of me wants to believe it was real. That the way he looked at me, the way he touched me, the way he said my name… that couldn’t all have been an act.
But I can’t trust my own judgment anymore. I trusted Vincenzo, too, and look where that got me.
So I let out a shuddering sigh and click on a client email because I don’t have the luxury of falling to pieces over a man. I have an empire to run.
Word about the warehouse war spread to the capos pretty quickly. They know about Vincenzo and Riccardo, too. But now, a few days afterward, they need to hear from me. In between trying to save my company, struggling with heartbreak, and visiting my dad, I needed some time to gather my thoughts and figure out a strategy for how to handle the fallout.
