Semua Bab Our 99 Breakups Before the Real One: Bab 1 - Bab 7

Chiara's POVAlessio and I rarely ever rowed for more than five days. Either he'd come around on his own, or I'd find a way to give him an opening.Even something as small as his passing me a glass of water at dinner was enough for me to take it as his apology.So when I found a coffee sitting on my school desk the next morning, I took it as his way of saying sorry and didn't think twice about it as I drank the whole thing.That was until I heard Vittoria and a group of girls giggling outside the restroom stall. Vittoria nudged one of them forward, who held out a few sanitary pads toward me."Toilet paper runs out eventually. These work just as well in a pinch," she said. "Three should be enough to get you through until you're home, though I'm not sure they'll do much about the smell."Only then did it hit me that Vittoria and her friends had spiked that coffee with laxatives.All day, I kept running back and forth to the restroom.By afternoon, I was slumped over my desk, my k

Alessio's POVI stared at Salvatore in disbelief, convinced I'd heard Salvatore wrong."She left Velmora a month ago?" I asked.I snatched the key from his hand and pushed open Chiara's door. The room was empty, dust drifting through the air.Her desk still looked exactly as she'd left it, with the family handbook still lying open across the surface. But there was hardly a trace left to show she had ever lived here.Salvatore hovered behind me, watching my every move with cautious eyes."I knew you two were on bad terms, but I assumed you'd made up by now. I only found out she was leaving right before it happened," he explained. "I didn't want to touch anything in here, and Don Moretti said to leave it as is. The servants haven't cleaned this room since she left. If you'd like to use it, I can have someone come tidy up."Out in the corridor, scattered rose petals lay ruined on the floorboards.I assumed Chiara was still angry with me, and I knew that the last time I covered

Alessio's POVI tried using the family's intelligence network to dig up Chiara's whereabouts, but it seemed as if she'd anticipated exactly that and scrubbed every trace of herself long ago.I even sought out the best craftsman in Velmora and asked him to restore the pocketwatch, but he shook his head and turned me down."Alessio, there's nothing to be done to a broken watch. It can't be fixed."As I stared at the bullet hole, a sudden realization dawned on me. Some things, once broken, could never go back to the way they were.I started losing my temper at the drop of a hat, and I avoided Vittoria like the plague.She tried everything to get close to me again, including buying me gifts, and at one point even crying to me, claiming she was pregnant.I merely shot her a stone-cold look and told her to get a paternity test.She went pale and never brought it up again.Two months later, Vincenzo sent us both to the Westrov branch to negotiate with a new partner. I nearly turned i