Chapter 2

(Amelia's POV)

The snow had started in earnest now, fat flakes sticking to the penthouse windows. I looked at the three cardboard boxes containing my life. Four years, distilled into this pathetic collection.

The door opened just as I was struggling with the largest box. Lorenzo stood there, a dusting of snow on the shoulders of his black coat. The cold air from the hallway hit me, a shocking contrast to the penthouse's controlled climate.

His eyes, that stormy grey I used to try to read like tea leaves, did their usual quick inventory: me, the box, my face. There was no surprise in them. Just assessment.

"Found a place?" he asked. His voice was neutral, the same tone he used when reviewing reports.

I tightened my grip on the cardboard. "My old apartment. The landlord agreed to a one-month lease."

His brow furrowed slightly. Just a faint line between his eyebrows. "One month? Why?"

The question was casual, almost disinterested. He was already moving past me, taking the box from my arms as if it weighed nothing. "I'll drive you."

"I can call a car," I said, too quickly.

"The snow's coming down hard. It's late." His tone left no room for argument. He hit the button for the private elevator to the underground garage. "If something happened to you, Sofia would be upset."

"Sofia would be upset." Not him. Never him. The clarification was a fresh, sharp sting under my ribs.

The garage was silent, tomb-like. His black Maybach sat gleaming under the harsh lights. We'd been reckless in this car more times than I could count - in the back seat after meetings, pressed against the tinted windows in a moment of frantic need. But as I slid into the passenger seat, the interior felt alien.

The familiar scent of his cologne - something dark and expensive - was gone, erased by a cloying, sweet perfume that smelled like candied flowers. Hanging from the rearview mirror were a pair of ridiculous fuzzy dice. The severe black leather seats were now covered with fluffy white seat covers. A half-eaten bag of pastel macarons sat in the cup holder I usually used for my coffee.

I stared, my mind struggling to reconcile this confectionery nightmare with the Don who could order a man's kneecaps shattered without raising his voice.

He noticed my gaze as the engine purred to life. "Isabella likes things to be... cheerful," he said, as if that explained the saccharine invasion.

I turned to look out the window at the blurring white world. "You finally have her back, Mr. Valenti," I said softly, the words feeling like ground glass in my throat. "I'm happy for you."

He seemed taken aback. His hands, resting on the steering wheel, tightened momentarily, his knuckles paling. He said nothing, and the silence that stretched between us was thick and heavy.

We were halfway to my neighborhood, the wipers struggling against the accumulating snow, when his phone connected through the car's speakers. Isabella's voice, light and melodic as a wind chime, filled the space.

"Lorenzo, darling! The snow is so beautiful! Come back, I want to build a snowman with you! Right now!"

I saw his posture change instantly. A subtle relaxation, a readiness to please that I rarely saw in him. "I'm just dropping Amelia off, 'cuore mio'. I'll be there soon."

"But I want to do it now," she whined, the sound both grating and practiced. "Don't make me wait. You know how I hate waiting."

He glanced at me, a flicker of something that might have been irritation or guilt in his eyes. I knew what he was thinking. The dutiful Don, torn between his responsibility to safely dispose of his former mistress and his desire to cater to his returned queen's whims.

I couldn't stand it. I couldn't be the inconvenient object in his path for a second longer.

Before he could speak, I pulled the handle and pushed the heavy door open. The freezing wind whipped into the warm cabin, a violent intrusion.

"Mr. Valenti, I'll take a taxi the rest of the way."

He didn't argue. He didn't say, "Don't be ridiculous," or "It's no trouble." He simply grunted, "Fine." He pulled the car over to the curb, the tires crunching on the packed snow. He got out, his coat flapping in the wind, and retrieved my box from the trunk, setting it carefully on the snowy sidewalk beside me.

My hands, numb from the cold and the tension, slipped. The box tumbled, its contents scattering like fallen leaves across the pristine white snow.

The sight made my heart stutter to a halt.

There, exposed under the harsh yellow glow of the streetlight, was the pathetic archive of my devotion. A single, spent cartridge from his first shooting lesson with me. A dried flower from a bouquet he'd once, absentmindedly, handed to me. A small, silly trinket from a street vendor he'd bought for me on a whim years ago. Little trinkets, stupid, foolish mementos of a love that was never supposed to be.

My face flamed with a humiliation so profound it felt like a physical brand. I dropped to my knees, the snow instantly soaking through my trousers, my fingers fumbling, scrambling to gather the scattered pieces of my foolish heart before he could see too much.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, my head down, unable to look at him.

He stood perfectly still, his tall frame casting a long, dark shadow across my disgrace. I felt his gaze on me, on the pitiful display of my seven-year secret. He didn't say a word. He didn't bend down to help. He just watched, a silent monument to my shame.

Then, without a sound, he turned, got back into the ridiculous, fluffy white car, and drove away. The red taillights vanished into the swirling white curtain, leaving me alone in the freezing, silent emptiness.

I knelt there for a long time, the cold seeping into my very marrow. No taxi came. The storm had swallowed the city whole. Finally, my fingers blue and stiff, I reassembled the sodden box and began to walk.

I had only taken a few painful steps when a motorcycle, a ghost in the storm, skidded on a patch of black ice and slammed into me from behind.

The impact was sudden and brutal. I cried out as I fell, the box flying from my grasp once more. A searing, white-hot pain shot up my leg. I looked down, dazed, to see a long, deep gash on my calf, blood already welling and dripping onto the snow, a vivid, shocking red against the pure, indifferent white.

The rider, a panicked silhouette, righted his motorcycle and sped off into the night without a backward glance.

I lay there for a moment, gasping, the cold and the pain a dizzying combination. Clenching my jaw, I retrieved my battered, snow-damp box and began the long, limping walk home.

It took me hours. Hours of dragging my injured leg through the unyielding snow, each step a fresh jolt of fire.

When I finally stumbled through the door of my small, sparse apartment, I collapsed just inside. I lay on the cold floor before I could muster the strength to tend to myself. The process of cleaning and bandaging the wound was a blur of pain and exhaustion.

Afterward, shivering and spent, I checked my phone. A single message from Lorenzo, sent not long after he'd left me kneeling on the curb.

"You're a good woman, Amelia. I'm not the man who deserves you."

I stared at the words, each one a tiny, precise hammer blow to my chest. He had seen my heart, spilled raw and bleeding at his feet, and his only response was this seemingly considerate, yet ultimately dismissive, advice.

As the first grey, miserable light of dawn filtered through my dusty window, I went downstairs to the empty, snow-covered lot behind my building. I found a rusty metal trash can, its sides icy to the touch.

One by one, I piled in the waterlogged, bloody contents of my box. The mementos, the dried flower, the cartridge. I lit a match.

The flame caught, hesitant at first, then leaped to life, hungry and bright. It consumed my pathetic archive, the heat a fleeting counterpoint to the deep, permanent cold that had settled inside me.

I watched, my face numb, as the seven years of fierce, unwavering, secret love I had carried for Lorenzo Valenti turned to ash and smoke, the embers dying in the relentless, indifferent snow.