Page 59 of Italian Weddings

After more than a week of leaving messages and making calls to Leandro, Salvatore arrived at the Valentino man’s office, recognizing he had no other choice.

While he’d happily go the rest of his life without seeing Leandro again, this wasn’t about him.

It was about Emilia, and what he would do to give her everything she deserved.

He needed to know he’d tried everything—even this.

“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Valentino is busy.”

Salvatore ground his teeth, reminding himself that the diminutive receptionist wasn’t to blame. “I’m sure he can make time.”

“I’m sorry, sir?—,”

“Let me put it this way,” he interrupted. “I’m going into his office. If that’s a problem, call security.”

He strode across the marbled floor without pausing to see her reaction, and then, at the double timber doors that led to Leandro’s office, he simply barged in.

And bam. Double whammy. Not only was Leandro in situ , but his brother Maximillian as well, the bastard who’d taken Acto from under their noses.

He stared at both of them, rage and hatred bubbling beneath his belly.

But amazingly, it wasn’t rage about Acto.

Nor was it anger about the Moricosia deal.

Every single shred of fury he felt towards them was on behalf of Emilia, the love of his life.

The only love in his life. The woman he would run through the fires of hell for, if she required it of him. Hell, even if she didn’t.

And so, there he stood, staring down these two men who undeniably hated him, knowing he was just about to go through the most important moments of his life.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Max had been sitting, reclined, in a chair by the window, but he jack-knifed out of it as Salvatore burst through the doors, staring the other man down as Leandro strode towards him.

“I’m not here for round two,” Salvatore said, holding up his hands towards Leandro.

“Then what the hell are you doing here?” Max was now striding towards him, repeating his question with more outrage. “Haven’t we made it clear? You’re not welcome.”

“Oh, you’ve made it patently clear,” Salvatore said, dropping his hands and putting them on his hips, holding their gazes as though his blood wasn’t boiling with anger.

He didn’t give a shit that these men hated him.

It was mutual. But the fact they could so easily cut Emilia out of their lives, as though she meant nothing, made him question their sanity, intelligence and loyalty.

It made him want to turn around and storm the hell out of there.

But he’d come for Emilia, and he’d see it through.

He’d do whatever it took, if there was even the slightest chance that he could make this better. Even just a little.

Because as certain as he was that he loved her, he knew that their happiness would never be complete like this. His first instinct had been right.

While they loved each other, and he didn’t doubt it, he couldn’t keep doing this to her. He wouldn’t be the reason she lost her family.

“I came to talk,” he said, his voice deep and gruff. “I came to talk about the woman we all love—who you’re destroying with this stupid estrangement.”

Max flinched and Leandro had the decency to look close to ashamed.

“Don’t you dare,” Leandro recovered quickly though. “Don’t you dare come here and act as though you have any right to even speak her name. What gives you the goddamn right?”

“I love her,” he growled. “Don’t you get that? I love her, and she loves me. We’re in love. She is everything I’ve ever wanted in my life.”

“You are the one destroying her, not us,” Max said.

“How do you figure?”

“You knew ,” Leandro spat. “I told you what would happen. I knew how they’d react. Family means the world to us, and you are destroying that. Do you have any idea what this is doing to our parents?”

“So help me fix it,” Salvatore said.

“There is no fixing it. Not for as long as you are in her life.”

“Jesus,” Salvatore groaned. “Do you hear yourselves? You are pushing away your sister, allowing your parents to do the same to their daughter, over a vendetta from generations ago. Yes, things happened in the past. Yes, our families have always hated one another. But we can change that. We have to.”

“You’re a fantasist. That hatred doesn’t exist in a void,” Max growled. “To us, you may as well be the devil incarnate. We cannot have you in our lives. If that means cutting out Emilia, then it is as it has to be.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

“You think you’re the only one living with this?

The only one suffering through it? You think we don’t miss her?

She is our best friend. We loved her first, and we will love her always.

When all this bullshit is over and she comes home, inevitably ruined by you and your family, we will be there to pick up the pieces.

How can you possibly ask us for more than that? ”

The reality they painted was so bleak, so unbearably bleak, that Salvatore stumbled back a step. “That’s not going to happen.”

“No? Then what is? What’s the end result of this? Do you think you’re going to end up living happily ever after?”

A whole future formed in his mind in the blink of an eye. He saw his life, long and expansive before him, and he saw his life without Emilia in it. He couldn’t imagine it. He couldn’t bear it.

“Yes. I think she and I have made it abundantly clear that’s what we want.”

“And is that what you’ve got?” Max demanded. “Are either of you truly happy, knowing what you’ve done to us? And presumably to your family?”

Salvatore absorbed that like a body blow, because it was so very accurate. Of course their happiness was marred by the awful truth of this betrayal. “I love her,” he said, simply. “I cannot end it.”

“Even when you know what we do?”

“And what’s that?”

“Emilia could be happy with any number of men. In staying with her, you’re making it impossible for us to be in her life. Are you okay with that?”

His gut churned. How often had he thought that? How often had he grappled with the reality of what their relationship was doing to their loved ones.

“If you love her, you have to walk away. It’s that simple.”

Salvatore shook his head. “Why can you not give this—us—a chance? You don’t know me. You don’t know what we’re like as a couple. Spend time with us—see that you’re wrong. I’m begging you.”

And if either Max or Leandro knew what it took for a man like Salvatore to arrive, cap in hand, and beg, they would have understood that it was absolutely everything they needed to know about his devotion to their sister.

For he was not a man to debase himself and beg; he was not a man to plead.

But for Emilia, there was no end to what he’d do.

“It’s impossible,” Max said, but his eyes showed, briefly sympathy.

“You have to understand,” Leandro said, with the same expression on his features—a look, for a moment, of compassion.

“This is never going to happen. You can stay with her, but one day, she’s going to wake up and resent you for it.

She’s going to wake up and want to come home; and you’ll never be able to give her that. ”

Salvatore’s gut churned with a nauseating sense of loss—and the certainty that they were right. The worst thing was, he’d known it all along. He hadn’t been ready to walk away from Emilia—he probably never would be. But that didn’t negate the necessity of it.

“I love her,” he said, because he needed them to understand that.

To know what they were asking of him. And then, staring into their eyes as if his life depended on their comprehension—which, in a way it did, “Please, promise me you’ll take care of her.

Don’t punish her for any of this. She doesn’t deserve it. ”

Max closed his eyes.

But panic gripped Salvatore. “I need to know she’ll be okay. If I’m not in her life, I need to know she’s safe, that no harm will come to her.”

“We would never hurt our sister,” Leandro contradicted.

But that wasn’t what Salvatore meant. The deep, dark fear that had dogged him for so long clawed its way around him, now.

If he was going to break up with Emilia, he couldn’t worry that her life would fall apart.

Because of him. Panic surged through his chest, even when he accepted that putting her through this temporary pain would ultimately be right for her.

Because she’d meet someone else, they were right.

And then, she’d be happier, and have her family.

“Swear on your lives,” he growled, “that she’ll be okay. That you’ll take care of her.”

They stared at each other, all three of them, for several beats, and Max nodded once, before extending his hand.

Salvatore regarded it, long and hard, knowing that to take it was to make a deal with the devil.

Worse, it was to sign the death warrant on his relationship with Emilia. He could hardly bear it.

Only the deepest love in the world would demand it of him.

He held out his hand, to take Max’s, and he shook, firmly, with determination.

It was a promise—and he felt it, deep in his gut.

For her sake, he had to set Emilia free.

He just wished he’d had the courage to do it sooner, before she’d gone through all this hardship.

Before he’d lost his heart and soul to her.