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Was it enough to forgive him? Or did it stir up enough old feelings to send him back into the past to a version of himself he'd been fighting so successfully for the past few weeks?
I turned my gaze to my left, unimpressed that he was staring at the ceiling above us, lost in his own reflections.
Depending on which way you looked at it, it was both a blessing and a curse that a single question existed whose answer was the solution to my mental quandary.
My muscles protested as I carefully turned on my side to look directly at Vincenzo. His attention moved to me.
I swallowed. Maybe it was more complicated than I had initially suspected. What was on the tip of my tongue didn't want to come so easily from my lips, especially not when Enzo looked at me so inquiringly. As if he could already read the question in my eyes.
"Now that my father is dead there is no logical reason for you to continue this marriage. You could have it annulled," I said.
In the end, it was true. And his answer to it not only decided the direction we would go in but also clearly state where we stood.
Vincenzo looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. "Who put that idea in your head, woman?"
I shook my head. "No one. It's logical. There's no more compulsion for you to put up with me."
"I thought we had talked about this issue. In the vineyards, for example." He raised an eyebrow. Was he challenging me to deny it?
"But at that point, dissolving the marriage was not an option."
"It's not now either."
"But…"
"But what? I stand by what I said. I won't divorce you, and I certainly won't marry again. Or have you finally come to your senses and realized how terribly bad I am for you?"
I didn't know if he said that with a sarcastic undertone or if he meant it.
"Of course not. Nothing has changed about what I have said all this time."
"So why the stupid question?"
"Because I'm afraid you're going to tear yourself apart over the accident and how it happened."
"At least I'm learning from it," he muttered, shaking his head.
And no one had said it would be an easy learning process.
"So that's it? We got married out of duty and compulsion, and now we just decide to keep it that way because… because we just feel like it?"
Amused, he looked at me. "Looks like it."
27
Vincenzo
The sunlight reflected in the pool, painting ever-moving patterns on the tile border and on Amedea, who floated in the water on an air mattress, eyes closed and one hand hanging in the water.
I took a long moment to look at her and study her appearance.
She looked relaxed. As if she felt at ease, despite the scratches and dark spots that still marked her otherwise flawless skin. It would be a while before everything healed, and she looked like she did before the accident.
Until then, I would probably remember daily where they had come from and who was to blame. But it also showed me she was alive. That my mistake had not sent her to her death.
Quite apart from that, it continued to give me satisfaction how long Dario had taken to send Taddeo Santoro to the afterlife. Amedea knew only the official version, in which I had killed her father at the accident scene. The truth, however, was a little different.
I gritted my teeth and allowed myself to consciously admit how much she meant to mefor the first time. That she meant something to me.
