Page 114 of The Fall Affair

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Allegra is not Isabella, Matteo.”

I looked away. It didn’t stop my sister from talking.

“I saw you with her. She made you feel alive again. You were laughing. Looking at her and smiling when she didn’t even know you were looking at her. Hell, you even went to a club for her.”

I swallowed. “What if she goes back to New York? Her life is there. Her friends, her work, her—everything. Sooner or later, she’s going to realize she doesn’t want to be here. My simple life won’t be enough for her. I can’t do it again, Luce. I can’t watch someone I love leave like I’m some damn postcard they picked up on vacation.”

My sister’s face softened. “You’re right. There’s a chance you’re going to get hurt. And it might hurt more than when Isabella walked out on you. But isn’t it better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all?”

I clenched my jaw. I hated how she always said the things I didn’t want to hear. Being brutally honest was her specialty.

Luciana laid her hand on my arm. “Stop punishing Allegra for someone else’s choices. And stop punishing yourself for falling in love with da wrong woman the first time around. You were a boy when you met, fratellino. Nineteen when you got married.” She squeezed my arm. “You’ve got a second chance, and not everyone gets that. Don’t let fear talk you out of what might be the best thing to ever happen to you.”

Luciana kissed my cheek before walking away, leaving me with her words and a deep ache in my chest.

“Hey.” She turned back. “It’s our birthday next week. I hope you celebrate it with the woman you love. But if you don’t, I’ll come. You’ll aways have me.”

***

A few days later, I went outside to get something from the garage and looked over at Allegra’s house. A truck was backed into the driveway, and two guys were loading boxes into it. My heartbeat screeched to a halt. She’s leaving? Allegra is really leaving?

I stood frozen, watching. She hadn’t even come by to tell me—not that she owed me that anymore. I was the one who’d ended things. I was the one who’d said she’d want to go back to New York and her life eventually. And now here it was, proof that I’d been right.

I watched the movers carry a few more boxes out, and then Allegra appeared, pointing and giving instructions. She went right back into the house, not even looking my way, and something inside my chest cracked. I turned, whistling for Lupo before I had to see her again.

Inside, I set the wrench I’d gone out to get on the kitchen counter, no longer in the mood to fix the slow drip in the hall bathroom. Instead, I reached for the bottle of wine sitting nearby—the same reserve blend we’d shared last time she was over—and stared at it for a moment. Deciding it wouldn’t get the job done fast enough, I opened the cabinet where I kept the hard liquor and pulled out a bottle of bourbon with a thin layer of dust on it.

I didn’t bother with a glass.

The first swig burned, and I welcomed the pain. Anything was worth dulling the ache I felt behind my ribs. I wasn’t sure what hurt more—that she was moving or that I’d been right to set her free.

We wanted different things. That hadn’t changed. But Jesus, it hurt anyway.

I took the bottle with me to the living room and sat down on the couch, knocking back another long pull. I tried not to picture her driving by my house on that purple Vespa, her giant smile rivaling the width of her oversized sunglasses. But when I did, I brought the bottle to my lips again. I tried not to picture that smile in New York City, her looking out those floor-to-ceiling windows at something other than my street. And I tried like hell not to imagine her looking around as her car pulled out of the driveway for the very last time.

She would’ve left eventually. Even if I’d sped up her departure. Even if I’d asked her to stay.

That was the part I kept circling back to as I sucked back shot after shot. She was always going to go.

And fuck my life, if I didn’t fall in love with her anyway.

Chapter 39

Matteo

5 years ago

“WHAT IS DIS?” I held up a flyer.

Izzy crossed the room and snatched it from my hands. “You went in my purse?”

“I needed to move the Vespa out of da garage. I thought the keys might be in there.”

“They’re not.”

“I know that now.”