The garden was quiet under the late afternoon sun.Eleven months had passed since Valentina left the villa without a goodbye.Eleven months since Luca had chosen his daughter over the woman he loved.Eleven months of slow, painful, imperfect healing.Sofia sat on the stone bench beneath the old oak tree, a book open in her lap that she wasn’t really reading. The roses were in full bloom again the same ones Valentina had once tended with care. The air smelled sweet and familiar, but the memories attached to this place were still complicated.She no longer had daily panic attacks when she entered the kitchen. That was progress. But some nights, when the house was too quiet, the sound of shattering glass still echoed in her mind. She still saw her father and her former best friend tangled together on the counter. She still felt the betrayal like a fresh wound.Healing wasn’t linear. It was messy. It came in waves. Some days she could sit across from her father at breakfast and almost fe
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