Page 33

SOPHIE

I sit on the couch rifling through the threats Alessio hid from me.

Four messages. Four threats. Four chances he had to tell me.

Four opportunities he wasted, thinking he was protecting me.

My phone lights up again on the coffee table, the screen flashing a name I don’t have the energy to hate right now.

Dad.

Still, I don’t move.

I don’t answer.

The damage is already done, spreading through me like a slow, sick kind of poison.

From down the hall, the shower is running.

He's here.

Close enough to touch.

But he feels miles away.

I squeeze one of the notes in my fist until the edges dig into my palm, the sting grounding me in something that isn’t helplessness.

I need to remember he thought he was doing the right thing. Convinced himself that by lying he was protecting me somehow. Thought that ignorance was safety.

But love isn't supposed to be a cage you’re locked inside without a key.

I know what’s coming next.

I can feel it, hot and bitter.

And it makes me furious.

Furious that I let him in.

Furious that I believed in a version of him that never really existed.

Furious that even now, I’m sitting here waiting for him to prove me wrong.

But deep down, a colder part of me already knows he won’t.

A sharp knock jolts me from my spiral.

I wipe my palms against my leggings and cross the room to open the door.

My father stands there, his face grim, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his suit jacket.

Without waiting for an invitation, he steps inside.

"Enzo called me. He’s making the call."

I stare at him, dread coiling in my gut.

"What call?"

"Alessio's going back to Tuscany."

The words land like a punch to the ribs.

"What?" My voice cracks. "Why now?"

My father sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. He’s aged ten years overnight.

"The threats. His recklessness. The investors cannot know about this, Sophie. They’d pull out of the merger faster than you can blink. And Enzo’s under pressure too. This isn’t just about business anymore. It’s about damage control. About safety."

I grip the back of the couch to steady myself, the room tilting.

"He said he could protect me," I whisper.

My father’s eyes harden, his mouth pressing into a thin line.

"This isn’t up for debate. This is for your safety. Period."

I blink at him, caught off guard by the force behind the words.

A low growl threads his tone. "This isn’t just about the deal anymore. I don’t give a damn about the merger if it means putting you at risk."

For a second, I don’t know what to say.

My father, the man who has always valued strategy, leverage, winning, just made it brutally clear none of it matters more than me.

And somehow, that wrecks me even more.

Because if even he thinks Alessio leaving is the right move, then maybe it really is over.

When he leaves, the apartment feels like a ticking tomb.

Alessio steps into the living room, hair still damp from the shower, tension radiating off him like a second skin.

I stand, slow and stiff, every muscle locked tight.

He meets my eyes, and what I see there nearly breaks me. Fear, guilt, devastation.

My father looks at both of us. Reading the tension in the room, he makes his way out, walking toward the door. "We'll talk more later. It seems like you two need to sort things out."

After my father leaves, I direct my attention to Alessio.

"I don’t have a choice. I can’t put you in danger anymore. And now that you’re pregnant..." He swallows hard. "I can’t risk our baby either."

Our baby.

The words slice through me.

"You’re running again. You’re pushing me away because you’re scared." My fists close so tight the skin in my palm breaks from my nails digging hard.

"Do I get a say in any of this?"

His jaw tightens.

"If anything ever happened to you or the baby because of me..." He shakes his head, looking away. "I wouldn’t survive it."

He paces a few steps, then stops, dragging a hand through his hair.

"I thought I could keep you safe here. I thought I could handle it." His voice fractures on the words. "But I can't."

He looks back at me, every wall he’s ever built crumbling at once.

"I am scared, Sophie. I'm scared because I’m going to be a father. Because for the first time in my life, it's not just about me screwing up. It's about you. About our baby. About losing everything that really matters to me, everything I love, before I even get the chance to have it."

I cover my mouth with my hand, tears burning my eyes.

He steps closer. "I don't know if I can be the man you need, don't know if I'm enough. But I’m trying. God, I'm trying."

He rakes a shaky breath.

"And right now, this…leaving…is the only way I know how to protect you."

The words hang there between us, heavy and awful.

Tears slip down my cheeks.

There’s nothing left to fix.

Nothing left to say, even though everything inside me is screaming not to let him go.

I turn away first.

I can’t hold his gaze anymore, can’t keep standing there when everything breaks open inside me.

I walk back to my room in silence, tears blurring the walls, the floor, my own shaking hands.

I close the door softly behind me.

I don’t sob. Don’t scream.

Just... shatter to pieces.

I lay on my side of the bed, staring into nothing, the silence pressing harder with every second that passes.

***

At some point in the night, footsteps come down the hall.

I don’t move.

The door creaks open.

Alessio stands there, silhouetted by the faint glow of the hallway light, looking like he’s already halfway gone.

We don’t say a word.

He crosses the room slowly, hesitating for only a second before I rise to meet him. Staying in bed would feel like surrender.

His hands find my face. They're trembling.

Then his mouth is on mine.

There’s no anger.

No heat of an argument.

Just quiet devastation. A kiss full of grief, of love too heavy to hold, of goodbye.

He kisses me like he’s etching it into memory, like this is the last time he’ll be allowed to need me.

And I let him.

Because I need it too.

Clothes fall away piece by piece, scattered like broken promises across the floor.

His hands explore me as if he’s trying to remember everything he’ll miss. Every curve. Every breath. Every scar.

There’s reverence in the way his lips trail down my neck, over my collarbone, lingering at the swell of my breasts.

He sucks a nipple into his mouth slowly, his tongue swirling lazily before he flicks, teases, draws another gasp from me.

My body lights up, hips shifting toward him.

He kisses lower, his mouth brushing my stomach. He pauses there, lips pressed to the gentle swell where our child grows.

When he exhales, it’s shaky, barely held together.

I reach for him, needing more. Needing everything.

When he enters me, it’s slow. Deep. Stretching me inch by inch until he’s fully seated, his hips flush against mine.

He doesn't move right away. Just rests there, inside me, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard, like he’s memorizing what this feels like.

The first roll of his hips makes me gasp.

The next steals my breath.

He makes love to me with a slow, aching rhythm, every thrust more about emotion than need.

It’s intimate, brutal in its softness, each movement an apology for every word left unsaid.

The feeling of his cock sliding inside me is smooth, warm, and torturously deep.

He angles his hips just enough to graze my g-spot with each pass, the friction driving me higher while tears blur my vision.

I rake my nails down his back, holding onto him, knowing letting go will break me.

Our bodies move together in a quiet, desperate rhythm, hips grinding, chests pressed close, breath mingling.

His hand slips between us, fingers circling my clit in slow, wet strokes.

My legs tremble around his waist.

I choke on a sob as my body tightens, every muscle coiling, pleasure mixing with sorrow until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.

I come hard, biting his shoulder to hold in the scream, clenching around him as if my body refuses to let him go.

He groans, a sound pulled from deep inside, and buries himself as deep as he can go.

His thrusts stutter, lose rhythm, and then he’s coming too, spilling inside me with a shudder and a whispered curse.

His body shakes over mine, his mouth at my neck, breathing me in like this moment is oxygen.

When it’s over, he doesn't pull away.

He stays buried inside me, arms wrapped tight, his weight grounding me.

We lie like that, tangled, trembling, and silent.

His grip says everything we can’t.

That we don’t want this to end.

But it already has.

It doesn’t feel like a new beginning for the three of us.

It feels like the last page of something beautiful.

***

Morning creeps in, pale and heavy.

I sit up slowly, blinking against the gray light leaking through the curtains.

The bed beside me is empty.

I wrap the sheet around myself and slip out into the hallway.

At the end of it, I find him.

Alessio.

Standing in the living room, stuffing clothes into a duffel bag, methodical and brutal, like every zip and fold is some kind of self-inflicted punishment.

I lean against the doorframe, arms wrapped around my stomach.

Watching.

Hurting.

"You’re running. You’re still pushing me away."

He doesn’t look at me right away. Just clenches a shirt in his hands until his knuckles go white.

"I'm scared. Fucking terrified. And I'm terrified because this time, it matters. You matter."

He lifts his eyes to mine, raw and shattered.

"And maybe I am running. Maybe it’s the only thing I know how to do when I’m terrified of losing everything. And it’s killing me. Because the last place I want to be is away from you." The words sound almost torn from him.

He steps closer, slow, hesitant, as if he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he moves too fast.

"I should've told you before," he says, voice shaking. “Remember that night after your brother was promoted to senior partner at Prestige?"

"How could I forget."

"It never felt like a mistake to me. After that night, Sophie, I knew. I knew there wasn’t anyone else. Not for me."

I swallow hard, my throat burning.

"You didn’t just change my life," he whispers. "You became it."

He lingers there for a long moment, forehead resting lightly against mine, like if he just stays still enough, time might stop too.

His voice is soft in my ear. “I knew how you felt. How wrong I was for you. I never deserved you. So, I kept making mistake after mistake, hollow on the inside, except for that one little truth every cell in my body screamed to me. The fact that without you, I didn’t have a life.

I was just waiting for you to realize it too. ”

My hands fist into the fabric of his shirt without thinking, clutching him closer.

He doesn’t pull away.

"I'm coming back for you, dolcezza . As soon as this blows over. I promise."

We stand there in the hush of the morning, breathing each other in, memorizing what it feels like to fit together.

Finally, Alessio leans back, his eyes burning into mine one last time.

One last everything.

He steps away.

Each inch feels like a tear in my chest.

He crosses the room, grabs his bag.

And then the door clicks softly behind him. But it reverberates in my chest.

Tears didn’t come while he was here.

But the second that door shuts,

I break.

Because, deep down, it doesn’t feel like a temporary goodbye.

It feels final.

I curl up on the couch, gripping the edge of the blanket he used just last night. I pull it tighter against my chest, burying my face in the faint trace of him still clinging to the fabric.

My heart stutters painfully against my ribs, every breath a reminder of everything I’ve lost.

Maybe this is what I get for believing in fairy tales.

My phone buzzes on the coffee table, cutting through the heavy silence.

A reminder notification lights up the screen.

Upcoming Appointment: Ultrasound – Five Days.

I stare at it, my chest hollow.

He won’t be there.