She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Lots of things. Going to school, leaving California, traveling…”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Life happened.” She shrugged against my chest. “Money. Responsibility. I had to work. And then I met my ex, and he said it was a stupid dream, that I should focus on something practical, and I just… I let it go.”
I felt a surge of anger at this man—this ghost who still haunts her, who made her feel small. “He was wrong.”
“I know that now.”
“What do you dream about now?”
She looked up at me, her eyes searching mine. “I don’t know. I haven’t let myself think like that in a long time.”
“Then let yourself now.”
“What about you?” she asked. “What did you dream about?”
I thought about it, about the boy I was, angry and lost, suffocating under the weight of the Falcone name. About the man I became, cold and calculating, taking what I wanted because I’d learned that nothing was given for free.
“I dreamed of getting out,” I said finally. “Of being free. Of having a life that was mine, not my family’s.”
“And now?”
I looked down at her. At the firelight dancing in her eyes. At the way she fit against me, like she was made to be here.
“Now I dream of you.”
“You already have me,” she whispered as her cheeks turned rosy.
We talked for hours after that. About her mother, who she lost too young. About her siblings, the family I wish I didn’t have. About the future—something we’ve never discussed, not really, not like this.
“I want to go back to school,” she admitted, her voice small. “I want to be a vet. I want to help animals, to make a difference, to do something that matters.”
“Then do it.”
“It’s been years, Lorenzo. I’d have to start over. Take prerequisites, apply to programs, study for exams?—”
“Then do it.” I repeated.
She looks at me, searching for a catch. “You’d be okay with that? Me being gone, studying, having a life outside of… this?”
“Zara.” I tilted her chin so that her eyes are on mine. “I want you to have a life. I want you to have dreams. I want to watch you become everything you were meant to be.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. They hung in the air, heavy and raw, and I watched her eyes go wide, watched her breath catch.
“You love me?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper.
“Con tutto il cuore. With all my heart.”
She kissed me then. Soft and desperate and full of everything she can’t say. And when she pulls back, her eyes are wet, but she’s smiling.
“I love you too,” she said.
“Again.”
