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“How was it?” I ask, referring to her holiday in Spain with Matteo.
“Beautiful,” she says, still looking over me with clear worry etched into the frown on her face.
“Sie–” she says, but I cut her off.
“And the flight? How was the flight? And Matteo?” I wiggle my eyebrows on the last question but it doesn’t deter her. She lifts her brows and huffs, placing her hands on her hips. Ever the schoolmarm.
“Don’t roll your eyes at me, Sienna,” she admonishes. “What’s going on?” She strokes her hands over my arms before adding, “You’ve lost so much weight.”
“I’ve just not felt myself recently, that’s all.” I try to force the sound of my voice to sound nonchalant but I can see by the look on her face she isn’t believing me. “I’m fine, Sophie. I want to hear about you, not moan about my life. It won’t be long before you’re leaving again.”
She spends every holiday and vacation in Spain, and when she is here she is so busy with the academy that we don’t get enough time together.
“He came back this time,” she says and immediately I get goosebumps all over my skin. I turn my face away, wanting to look like I don’t care but every part of me is tuned in to any tiny detail she might give me about Danielo. “He is a mess, Sienna, a bit like you.” Her voice is soft, but firm and I want to be mad that she is bringing this up but I’m exhausted.
“He has been distracted and argumentative. Milo has been tearing his hair out about it...It’s like Danielo met you and became whole, and now, without you, he doesn’t know how to function.”
I shake my head, pulling the cream from the fridge and pouring it into our coffees before pushing Sophie’s towards her. She wraps her hands around it, but doesn’t sip while I glug down great mouthfuls wanting the burn to take my mind off Danielo and what Sophie is saying.
“How can I feel like this when we only spent one night together?” I shake my head, pulling my mouth tight as emotion grips my throat for the millionth time over the last three months. “I can’t give him what he wants–what he needs, Sophie.”
She raises a brow. “Have you forgotten how fast Matteo and I fell for each other? One date organised by a mysterious match-making company and we were hooked on each other...”
I remember the weeks after her date with Matteo and how she looked like she was walking around in a daze whenever she wasn’t with him.
“It’s okay to be scared, Sienna.” She walks around the kitchen island and places her hand over mine. “But it’s not okay to run from something that’s right for you–good for you.”
I shake my head. Her words make sense but they don’t change my reality. “We’re not a good fit.”
“You’re a perfect fit,” she argues. “You’re just being stubborn because you’re worried about not being able to have kids, but if you’d just talk to him, you’d see he is okay with that.”
“Okay with it until enough time passes and he sees his brother and cousins having children… then what?” My voice has risen yet my words still come out choked.
“Then you’ll deal with it as a team. Because that’s what you’ll be.”
Danielo
The last thing I wanted to do was return to Chicago. But Milo has summoned me back. With Alisa due to give birth at any moment, he wants someone here to ensure that any threats are dealt with. It didn’t help that Diego told him I was doing nothing but moping around in Spain. I tried to explain that I just needed time to recalibrate and figure out my head, a lot has happened this year…but here I am anyway.
“Look,” Matteo said on the plane journey over, “If she has you this twisted up, you need to go and see her. Give her one more chance to say no, then you need to respect her wishes and let it go.”
My jaw still hurts from clenching it so tight. I wanted to argue that it was okay for him; he and Sophie hit it off immediately and are now inseparable. I never wanted that. Never expected that–so to feel like this has left me confused and in a kind of pain that’s indescribable.
Now I’m pacing up and down the hallway outside of her apartment holding a bunch of tulips and wondering if maybe I did lose my mind. Just as I decide to give it all up and turn to head down the stairs and out of the building, to push her from my mind and focus on my role within my family, she opens the door.
My breath whooshes out of me with such force it feels like my lungs have turned inside out.
She blinks at me a couple of times, like she isn’t sure if I’m really standing here or not. All I can do is pass the flowers from one hand to the next, crumpling the paper they’re wrapped in with my big, meaty hands.
“Hey,” she says, pulling the door closed.
“I love you,” I blurt before I even know what’s coming out of my mouth. “I’m in love with you. And I understand you don’t feel the same way, could quite probably never feel the same way, but I needed to say the words because they were eating me alive.”
Her mouth has dropped open, she closes it, then opens it again as if to say something, but no words come out.
“I know you probably don’t want to see me or have anything to do with me. But I had to say it out loud. I was driving myself and everyone around me insane.” I close the distance between us and hand her the flowers, stealing the opportunity to push a lock of brown hair behind her ear. “Nothing else matters but you.”
I drop a kiss on her forehead, then walk around her towards the staircase that will lead out of the building.
