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I saw you in the news, and it killed me to see you...like that. I still don't understand why I can't be with you, but please. Please just talk to me. Please let me help you. Please.

Cesare deleted her message and blocked her fucking number from ever contacting him again.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He squeezed his eyes shut, but it was no use, and he ended up remembering what he didn't want to remember: his mother behind bars, having admitted to a crime she didn't commit, and all in the name of love.

Cesare remembered her crying every time he came to visit, and she would realize that his father hadn't come with him.

He remembered crying himself back at home, but doing his best not to make any noise while he listened to his father rage at his mother on the phone.

'How many times do I have to fucking tell you? We're over, goddammit. It's never going to work between us, so stop fucking using our son to get to me. I didn't ask you to love me, and I didn't fucking ask you to throw your life for me either. You did that all to yourself, and you can't fucking guilt-trip me into wasting mine. It's over between us, Claudia. So fucking deal with it.'

Three months later, his mother had done as his father asked. She had dealt with it by killing herself, and now it was the past poised to happen all over again, with her son behind bars, and Penelope, the bride promised to him—-

FUCK.

Why couldn't she just fucking leave him alone like his father had left his mother? Why did she have to convince herself that things could still work out between them? Why, dammit—-why was shemaking it so hard for him to forget her, even though he knew they were just fucking doomed like his own parents?

Sooner or later, Penelope would start to tire and get bored of being with a man who had nowhere to go—-and no fucking way would Cesare wait for that to happen.

He had it right the first time, dammit.

Emotions destroyed marriages, and that was why, when his grandmother was suddenly cleared to visit him on the fifth day of his confinement—-

"I've been able to cut a deal." And it was one that could cost her soul and his. "We break the betrothal agreement with the Sorrentos," Potenziana said tightly, "and you get out free."

"But you want me to say no...don't you?"

"I want her for you, but I will never choose anyone else over my own flesh and blood. So this has to be your choice. Do we take the deal?"

"Yes."

Chapter Thirteen

Penelope

IS IT TODAY, GOD?

My life has been trapped in some kind of limbo since Cesare was arrested for my grandmother's death, and with everything in this world no longer making any sense—-

I've found myself simply going through the motions of living: breathing, eating, and sleeping, while those words play endlessly in the back of my mind.

Is it today, God?

It's an umbrella question that covers all the other questions that have been plaguing both my mind and heart like a disease.

Is it today, God?

Because one other thing I learned from my life hitting rock-bottom again and again?

He always has a plan, and He never reveals it too early or too early. There's always a plan, and you find out all about it in the right time.

IS IT TODAY, GOD?

I'm standing at the center of the chapel, Pilar's casket behind me, and relatives on each side. People have been coming up tous for over an hour to offer their condolences and introduce themselves...together with the sons they're hoping would be my groom.

Everyone is acting like I'm already free to marry someone else, now that the man Pilar herself had chosen to be my groom ends up a suspect in her own murder.