Chapter 2

After lying awake in a hotel until dawn, I took a car back to the hillside estate where I'd lived for five years.

When I pushed the door open, I almost thought the driver had brought me to the wrong place.

The marble wall that used to be bare was covered in photos, each showing Luca and Sofia when they were young.

The Luca in those pictures smiled. He bent to kiss her forehead. He let her wrap her arms around his neck from behind.

Over those five years, I'd begged him again and again for just one picture of us in the entryway.

He'd scowled and lectured me. "Aria, know your place. Nobody here gets to stand beside me."

Sofia had been back for one night, and the wall that had stood bare for five years was hers.

I heard footsteps behind me. Luca came down the stairs in a silk robe, and his eyes followed mine to the photos.

"Sofia likes things lively. She had them hung last night."

When he talked about her, the tension left his face, and a fond smile touched his lips.

"She saw the matching lighters and cufflinks you bought and got a little upset."

"Where are my things?"

"The storage room."

The second I pushed the storage room door open, I saw what "a little upset" looked like.

My tailored clothes and red dresses had been cut to rags and thrown on the floor.

The vanity had been knocked over, my jewelry was scattered everywhere, and a bottle of the tuberose perfume Luca gave me every birthday lay in shards.

Only then did I understand. He'd given me the same perfume every year only because Sofia liked it.

Shards of the black coffee cups Luca and I had made in Florence lay at my feet.

I'd burned myself on the hot kiln rack that day. He'd held my hand and scolded me for ages, then put ointment on it himself.

I'd written about that day in my journal and reread the entry over and over.

The leather journal, soaked in red wine, was pinned under the broken pottery. I crouched down and pulled it out. The pages had already stuck together.

Three hundred pages filled with every reason I'd found to stay over those five years.

The first time I went with Luca to a negotiation and took a bullet for him.

The first time I dug a bullet out of him on a stormy night and he bit my shoulder so hard it bled.

The first time he brought me a hair clip from overseas and I hid in the bathroom for half an hour because I was so happy.

The final entry was from my birthday last month.

That night, Luca spent ten minutes with me in his office, then got a call from Sofia and rushed out.

I'd still taken a picture of the empty wine glass on his desk and written in my journal, "He didn't forget this year."

So he'd rushed off just to hear Sofia's voice, while I'd been over the moon about ten minutes.

"Have you seen enough?"

Luca was leaning in the doorway, already impatient.

"Sofia has a temper. If you take these things away, she won't touch them again."

"She smashed my things, and you want me to clean them up?"

"A few clothes and some cups. How much could they be worth?"

As soon as he said that, I gathered up the journal, the shards, and the broken gifts and dumped them all in the trash.

Luca stepped forward fast and caught my wrist.

"Who said you could throw those out?"

His grip hurt. I lifted my head and met his eyes.

"You're right. Things that aren't worth anything should be thrown out once they're broken."

Including the relationship I'd treasured for five years.

Luca's face darkened, and his grip tightened.

"Aria, what are you trying to prove to me?"

His phone rang and cut him off.

Sofia whined sweetly on the other end. "Luca, it's pouring outside. Will you come get me?"

Luca let go of me at once, grabbed his car keys, and headed out.

"Stay inside. I'm coming."

Only when he got to the door did he remember me.

"Call yourself a car. Text me when you get to the condo."

The rain was so heavy that no driver would come up the mountain road to pick me up.

The wheel of my suitcase caught in a crack between the stones, my foot slipped, and I went down in the mud.

A rock sliced my palm, and my knee started bleeding.

Headlights flared behind me. Luca's armored Rolls-Royce sped past along the edge of the road and splashed me with muddy water.

In the passenger seat, Sofia was wrapped in Luca's jacket, turning to smile at him.

The man behind the wheel was looking at her with a tenderness I had never once been given.

The car disappeared up ahead.

I gritted my teeth, pushed myself up, grabbed my one suitcase, and started down the mountain in the opposite direction.