"From me?"
"From everyone." I looked down at my hands. "From getting too close, too fast and then losing everything when it falls apart."
Matteo was silent, studying me with those warm brown eyes.
"Bella."His voice was gentle, careful. "You know I'm not him, right?"
"I know."
"Do you?" It wasn't accusatory. Just honest. "Because sometimes it feels like you're waiting for me to hurt you."
I looked down at my hands twisted in the sheet. "I'm doing my best. To open up. To let you in. But it's hard for me. I'm not... I'm not good at this."
He nodded slowly, absorbing my words. The silence stretched between us.
"Can I ask you something?" His voice was measured now, careful in a way that made my stomach tighten.
"Yes."
"Do you still love him? Femi?"
The question hit me like cold water, shocking and inescapable.
"No." The denial came automatically, defensive. "I don't—we're on a break. It's over."
"That's not what I asked,Bella."
I opened my mouth to deny it again. To insist that whatever I'd felt for Femi was dead and buried, that Matteo had nothing to worry about.
But the words wouldn't come.
Because somewhere, in a place I'd been avoiding, I knew the truth.
Femi had been my first love. My first heartbreak. My first everything. And as much as I wanted to believe I'd moved on, there were still pieces of him lodged in my chest. Feelings I hadn't dealt with, questions I hadn't answered, and wounds that hadn’t properly healed.
Matteo read my silence with painful accuracy. I watched the understanding settle over his features. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my forehead. Soft. Sad.
"Figure it out. Whatever you're feeling for him, whatever you need to resolve—figure it out."
"Matteo—"
"I told you weeks ago that I would wait for you." He pulled back, met my eyes with heartbreaking clarity. "I meant it. I'm not going anywhere. But you need to be sure. About me. About him. About what you actually want."
"I want you."
"Part of you does." His smile was gentle but it didn't reach his eyes, didn't erase the hurt there. "But another part is still holding on to something, still tangled up in the past. And until you letgo completely—" He shook his head. "I'll be here,Bella. When you're ready, when you've figured it out, I'll be waiting."
The drive to Milan was quiet.
Matteo's driver—a kind-faced man named Paolo—made small talk at first, but eventually fell silent, perhaps sensing that I needed space. I stared out the window at the passing countryside and tried to make sense of the storm in my chest.
Matteo loved me. He'd said it twice, and I hadn't been able to say it back.
Because of Femi.
Because some part of me was still tangled up in feelings I'd never properly examined, never properly mourned. He was my first love, and first heartbreak. He was the boy who'd proposed in a Swiss garden and shattered something fundamental in me when I said no.
I'd thought I was over it. Over him. But Matteo's question had cracked open a door I'd been keeping firmly shut, and now I couldn't ignore what was behind it.
