Chapter 2

I hadn’t expected Santino to show up so soon after Lucia left.

I was exhausted enough to fall asleep for a while, and when I woke, I heard his voice coming from the living room. For a few seconds, I thought I had imagined it.

Seven years ago, Santino had truly hated me.

After he found out I had betrayed him, he waited outside my house for three straight days just to ask me why.

I told him I didn’t love him anymore.

He stood in the hallway and stared at me for a long time before driving his fist through the glass panel beside him. Blood covered his knuckles, but he never touched me.

After that, whenever he saw me nearby, he would turn around and leave. He stopped going to the café we had loved since we were teenagers, and if anyone mentioned my name in front of him, his expression would turn cold.

“Don’t talk about Elena around me.”

Even on the day he left New York for Sicily, when I went to the airport in the pouring rain just to see him one last time, he only threw the matching ring we had bought together at my feet and smashed the phone that held every photograph of us.

Then he walked away without looking back, leaving me standing there soaked through in the rain.

So I had never imagined that seven years later, he would come to my house willingly.

My bedroom door was not fully closed, and it did not take long for me to understand why he was there.

Santino stood in the living room with Sofia Bellini beside him.

He was holding her hand tightly, as though that alone proved whatever had once existed between us was over.

“Mrs. Russo, is this because of what happened seven years ago? Is that why you don’t want Elena helping us with the wedding?”

My mother said nothing.

Santino continued in the same calm voice.

“I moved on a long time ago. Elena and I grew up together. Just because we couldn’t stay together doesn’t mean we have to spend the rest of our lives as strangers.”

He sounded so composed that it was hard to believe he had once spent three nights outside my door because of me.

Sofia quickly joined in.

“Santino told me everything about what happened between them.”

She smiled.

“Elena did fall for someone else back then, but they were young. When a relationship ends, you can’t blame only one person.”

Then she added lightly, “Honestly, I should probably thank Elena. If she hadn’t left Santino, I might never have had the chance to meet him.”

My mother’s expression darkened.

Sofia either failed to notice or chose not to.

“Asking Elena to help was actually my idea. Santino has spent years in Sicily, and I barely know New York. We still need to confirm details with the church, the Moretti jeweler has designs ready for the rings, and we have to visit the hotel for the reception.”

She paused, then smiled at my mother again.

“We can’t leave everything to the older generation. Our taste might be a little different.”

Seven years ago, when I first learned I had cancer, my greatest wish had been for Santino to forget me.

I wanted him to stop hating me. I wanted him to stop waiting.

Now, through a half-closed door, I finally heard him say that he had moved on.

He could even tell the woman he planned to marry about my betrayal without hesitation.

I should have been relieved. Seven years earlier, that was exactly what I had wanted for him, to forget me and move on.

Instead, something in my chest slowly began to ache.

My mother finally lost her patience.

She knew the affair had never happened, and she knew exactly what those seven years had cost me.

“Enough.”

The living room fell silent.

She stared at Santino, her eyes already red with anger.

“You really are exactly like your mother.”

Santino’s voice turned colder.

“Mrs. Russo, what is that supposed to mean?”

Panic hit me immediately.

If my mother kept talking, there was no chance the truth about seven years ago would stay buried.

I pushed myself upright against the bed.

“Mom.”

The voices outside stopped.

I held the edge of the mattress and waited until I could breathe properly again.

“Come in for a second. Help me into the wheelchair. I’ll talk to Santino myself.”