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And it broke her. Destroyed her. That this man had been through so much. That he had been so badly treated. “I survived despite him,” he said. “And when his health failed, I removed him from this house, I sent him away. I put him in a facility, and I never saw him again. There were no bedside declarations. No deathbed rants. I let him die alone. And I hope... I hope that in that moment, when hell opened up to greet him, he was as scared as I was when I was a child. As alone. As cut off from everything he cared about. His money didn’t cushion him. Not in the end. And the only reason I even put him in a medical facility was so that he could live in such a reduced state.” He looked at her. “Do you think me cruel?”
“Yes,” she said, answering honestly. “But I don’t blame you for it.”
“It is interesting, isn’t it. I tried very hard not to let him decide who I was. But the thing that I feel the most... The thing that I feel the most connected to is that rage that he left for me. And the cruelty. Sometimes that concerns me.”
“It doesn’t concern me.”
“Have you ever wanted revenge on your mother?”
“No. She’s too sad. She never had any power. She never had any power, so she rebelled continuously against the world around her. Against her own choices. Revenge would accomplish nothing, she was an eternal victim, and it would simply give her more things to justify herself.”
“You are kinder than I am.”
“I don’t think I am. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if the opportunity presented itself.”
They looked at each other, and she felt... Burdened. By all these things between them.
But she cared for him. Deeply.
And she felt less... Justified in being upset about returning to the home on the Amalfi Coast. Because he lived in the place where he had nearly been beaten to death, and he managed to deal with it. She recognized now that whatever Krav had done, it hadn’t been out of cruelty.
He was just trying to survive.
He had made a bad choice in a bid for that survival.
A hurtful one.
But everything between them was fraud, and they were not going to make it through all of this without hurting each other. They would probably do it again.
It was just... It was just how things were.
There was something in the acceptance of that that made her feel calm. She couldn’t explain it.
They landed at the villa, and her heart went tight.
Yes, she really had been hurt badly here.
But now there was a nursery.
And it was beautiful.
It reminded her of the bedroom that he had done for her at the estate. The bedroom she didn’t sleep in anymore, because she slept with him.
“This is beautiful.”
“It was important to me to have this place for her.”
“You’ve changed,” she said to him, putting her hand on his face.
“Have I?” And there was a thread of desperation behind those words, and they broke her.
“Yes,” she said.
It was strange to walk around this place, this place she hadn’t been for nearly a year. And where she had been... New and hopeful in her connection with him, but not deep either.
They hadn’t known each other. She couldn’t get him to share things about himself.
And now it was different. They were different. But there were barriers still.
