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He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was no use, and he ended up remembering what he didn't want to remember: his mother behind bars, having admitted to a crime she didn't commit, and all in the name of love.
Cesare remembered her crying every time he came to visit, and she would realize that his father hadn't come with him.
He remembered crying himself back at home, but doing his best not to make any noise while he listened to his father rage at his mother on the phone.
'How many times do I have to fucking tell you? We're over, goddammit. It's never going to work between us, so stop fucking using our son to get to me. I didn't ask you to love me, and I didn't fucking ask you to throw your life for me either. You did that all to yourself, and you can't fucking guilt-trip me into wasting mine. It's over between us, Claudia. So fucking deal with it.'
Three months later, his mother had done as his father asked. She had dealt with it by killing herself, and now it was the past poised to happen all over again, with her son behind bars, and Penelope, the bride promised to him—-
FUCK.
Why couldn't she just fucking leave him alone like his father had left his mother? Why did she have to convince herself that things could still work out between them? Why, dammit—-why was she making it so hard for him to forget her, even though he knew they were just fucking doomed like his own parents?
Sooner or later, Penelope would start to tire and get bored of being with a man who had nowhere to go—-and no fucking way would Cesare wait for that to happen.
He had it right the first time, dammit.
Emotions destroyed marriages, and that was why, when his grandmother was suddenly cleared to visit him on the fifth day of his confinement—-
"I've been able to cut a deal." And it was one that could cost her soul and his. "We break the betrothal agreement with the Sorrentos," Potenziana said tightly, "and you get out free."
"But you want me to say no...don't you?"
"I want her for you, but I will never choose anyone else over my own flesh and blood. So this has to be your choice. Do we take the deal?"
"Yes."
Chapter Thirteen
Penelope
IS IT TODAY, GOD?
My life has been trapped in some kind of limbo since Cesare was arrested for my grandmother's death, and with everything in this world no longer making any sense—-
I've found myself simply going through the motions of living: breathing, eating, and sleeping, while those words play endlessly in the back of my mind.
