Chapter Sixty-fiveRainMaybe it wouldn’t have hurt this much if I had known from the beginning.If someone had just sat me down when I was a child and said, “You’re not ours, but you’re still loved,” maybe the ache wouldn’t have carved so deep into my chest.Maybe if I had grown up with the truth, I would have had time to build some kind of armor around it—to accept it, to shape my identity around it, not let it shatter me in one cruel moment.But no one told me.No one thought I deserved that kind of honesty.Instead, they let me grow up in a house where love felt like something I had to earn, where every hug felt rationed, where every word of affirmation was measured and second-guessed. And I still clung to the hope that one day, if I was good enough, kind enough, successful enough—they would treat me like I mattered. Like I was really theirs.But I was never really theirs.And now that I knew, it all made a sick kind of sense.Every punishment that felt too harsh. Every birthday t
Chapter Sixty-fourRainI couldn’t move.I couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even cry.I just sat there—on the cold floor, my knees scraped, my dress crumpled—watching the two people I’d called parent and family stand before me like strangers who had just rewritten my entire existence with one cruel truth.Not my mother.Not my father.Not my family.“You’re lying,” I whispered, but even my own voice didn’t sound convinced. I wasn’t even sure I belonged here, because thinking back now, my stepmother felt justified for everything she had done to me. I wasn’t even a member of the family, I wasn’t related to them in any way.“I wish I was,” my father—no, the man I thought was my father—said quietly. His eyes were full of something I’d never seen before. Regret? Shame? Pity? I didn’t know which hurt more.“Why now?” I choked. “Why the hell would you keep this from me all my life?”“You don’t get to be angry,” my stepmother snapped. “You should be grateful he took you in.” She shr
Chapter Sixty-threeRainEvery day since that moment had felt like the best day of my life—like it could top the moment Enzo told me he loved me. But none ever did.Because that moment… that confession… it changed everything.For the first time in years, I felt loved. Truly loved. Seen. Wanted. And not in a fleeting, surface-level way, but deeply and constantly. It wasn’t just a one-time spark or a romantic high that faded with time. It was steady. It was daily. His love grew with every passing hour, and so did mine.Enzo was always by my side, as though being near me was the only thing that made sense to him. He sent me flowers at work, sometimes twice a day. Beautiful, extravagant arrangements with handwritten notes that said things like, “I love the way you melt when I touch you.” Or, “The world doesn’t deserve you, but I’ll keep trying to be the man who does.”And yesterday, while I worked on Reina’s wedding dress, perfecting the final fitting, Enzo stayed right there with me—thro
Chapter Sixty-twoRainHe loves me.Enzo said he loved me.I stood there, my lips still tingling from the kiss, my body pressed against his, my heart racing like it was trying to catch up with everything he had just said and done. I didn’t know if another day would come that could top this moment—this exact moment where the man I had silently, painfully, hopelessly loved looked me in the face and said the words I had only dreamed of hearing. The man who had trampled upon my love just hours ago and made me deal with the agonizing thought that he might never love me, just told me he did.This—this right here—was the best day of my life so far. The best moment of my entire existence.But something deep in my gut told me I might have to scratch that out soon. Because this man… this man seemed like the kind of person who would bring the entire world down, just to build me a new one from scratch—one where I was happy, seen, adored, protected.And loved.He wasn’t just passionate. He was fie
Chapter Sixty-oneEnzoShould I have said something? Should I have told her that I didn’t mean those words the way they came out? Yes, they were the thoughts racing through my head, tormenting me in silence, but I didn’t mean to say them out loud—not like that, not to her. I should’ve told her it wasn’t her that was the problem. It was me. It’s always been me.I was the one who didn’t know how to receive love anymore. The one who couldn’t even recognize the feeling without panicking. The one who had built walls so high and so thick, not even light could get in. After all the betrayals, after all the knives buried into my back by women I once trusted, how was I supposed to believe in something as fragile, as volatile, as love?And now, I had broken the only good thing I had left.I hated how Rain had gone from being so soft and happy with me—to the deafening, soul-punching silence she gave me this morning. And what gutted me the most was knowing that I caused it. That I was the reason
Chapter SixtyRain I fought the tears. I tried to hold them back, to be strong, to not let them fall—but I failed. Just like I had failed in love.The tears rolled down my cheeks, hot and heavy, breaking through every defense I had left. And with them came the shaking—my body trembling violently, as if it were trying to rid itself of the pain in my chest.My heart ached. It felt like someone was punching me in the chest over and over again, like every beat came with a blow.It had taken everything in me—every ounce of courage, every fragile bit of strength—to finally say the words out loud. To tell him how I felt. Even I had struggled with it at first, questioning myself. I didn’t know if what I felt was truly love or just gratitude. Gratitude for what he had done for me—for seeing me when no one else ever had.But after thinking long and hard, I realized this wasn’t something new. These feelings had been growing inside me for a while, slowly, quietly. Long before he gave me the fash