Page 61 of Italian Weddings

Nothing that whole day, or the next. Nothing for the next week. Emilia existed in the strangest void, absent from everyone she knew and loved. Until, seven days after Salvatore had calmly told her he didn’t actually love her, Skye messaged, asking if she was free for dinner with them that night.

The last thing Emilia wanted to do was see them.

Her family, who’d caused her so much grief.

Who’d betrayed her. Who’d ignored her wishes and cut her from their life.

How could she possibly go and see them? It didn’t matter that she adored Skye and Harper, nor that family had always been her guiding light, she didn’t feel she had the wherewithal to make it through a night with them.

Not now. Not after everything she’d been through.

Worst of all would be to see their gloating faces. To see their smugness, at having been right. At knowing that Salvatore was just like they’d accused him of being. To hear her brother say, “I told you so.”

Emilia made up an excuse and went back to wallowing in her shockwaves of grief, determined to push everyone away, for now at least.

It was a strategy that lasted all of three days.

Skye was nothing if not determined, and having got the bit between her teeth, she finally convinced Emilia to come over, using the most powerful tool at her disposal: her daughter Harper.

Though Harper had been a toddler when Skye and Leandro had met, the entire Valentino family had wrapped Skye into their world, adoring her as though she’d been born to them, as though loving her was part of their reason for living.

A simple text from Skye, saying how much Harper was ‘missing her auntie Emme’ had Emilia pulling herself out of bed and showering for the first time in heavens knew how long, finding something halfway decent to wear, and dragging a brush through her hair.

The whole way there, she was numb, but as her driver pulled up at the base of the apartment building in which they lived, her nerves went into overdrive.

She’d been perfectly prepared to walk away from her family.

That had been their choice, but a life with Salvatore had made it worth it.

Or rather, it had been better than the alternative—leaving him, and keeping her family.

Because Salvatore would never make her choose.

Salvatore had tried to make it work, to have both her and their families in their lives.

At least, he had in the beginning. What a waste of everyone’s time and energy, given how easily he fell back out of love with her.

Was she surprised?

She thought back to the man she’d first met, with all those preconceptions.

The man who slept around like it was a world champion sport, as though women were interchangeable and disposable.

After their first night together, she’d known how meaningless the sex had been, and she’d been okay with it.

That was who he was. It was her own stupid fault for seeing more to him than was there.

For hoping against hope that he was actually a decent guy, who could be with a woman, love her, and even spend the rest of his life with her.

She’d seen what she desperately wanted to see.

More fool her. Now she had to live with the consequences.

Out of nowhere, tears flooded her eyes and she blinked quickly, with a guttural sound of frustration.

She’d dressed like herself, because she wanted the world to see that.

Why couldn’t she hold it together, for even an hour?

She wiped beneath her eyes quickly and chewed the inside of her cheek.

A moment later, the doors to the elevator swooshed open, right into the foyer of Leandro and Skye’s apartment.

She barely had three seconds before Harper was hurtling herself across the floor to wrap her arms around Emilia’s legs.

“Emmeeeeeee!” She cried, then, still hugging her, “Auntie Emme’s here! ”

Emme crouched down and wrapped the little girl against her body, burying her face in the curve of her neck, and her sweet smelling hair, no longer trying to fight the tears. God, but she’d missed this. Family. Her darling niece.

“Emme,” Skye approached them, a dazzling smile on her face, and tears sparkling on her own eyes.

Emilia carefully detached herself from Harper before sticking her hand down for the little girl to hold.

“I’ve missed you. We both have,” she added, with no clarity about whether she referred to Leo or Harper.

Emilia’s smile was slightly more reserved, but when Skye wrapped her in another huge hug, the tears were real. “I’ve missed you, too,” she admitted.

“I’m so sorry about everything,” Skye said, gently. “Believe me, Andie and I tried to talk some sense into your brothers, but you know what they can be like.”

Emilia didn’t get a chance to respond, because a moment later, Leandro strode into the room, wearing jeans and a sweater and looking considerably less bruised in the face than the last time she’d seen him.

A bubble of affection formed in her chest, but it was held tightly in place by the hurt of his rejection.

It took seeing him, in that moment, to understand that his betrayal was not something she could easily forgive.

For the sake of her sister in law and niece she’d try, but Leandro had crossed a line she wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to walk back.

“Emme.” As if sensing her ambivalence, he hovered a little way away from them. “How are you?”

“Fine,” she lied, tone clipped, before transferring her attention back to Harper. “What’s new with you, principessa ? Got anything you want to show me in your room?”

“Great idea,” Skye enthused, clearly seeing Emilia needed a moment. “Why don’t you two go have a chat while I finish dinner.”

“I hope you didn’t go to too much trouble,” Emme said. “I really won’t stay long.”

Skye held her hand out and squeezed Emme’s. “There’s no such thing as too much trouble for you. Is there, darling?” The question was aimed at Leandro.

Emilia flicked a glance at him as he said, “We’re glad to have you.”

She ground her teeth, anger with her brother growing.

It wasn’t his fault that Salvatore had fallen out of love with her.

It wasn’t his fault that he’d been right.

But she should never have had to navigate that alone.

She should have been able to turn to her family in the midst of her heartbreak and lean on them.

Rather than feeling herself to be utterly and completely alone in the world.

Thanks to Harper, she managed to make it through the dinner.

It was easy to make conversation with a little person at the table, and they all seemed to employ the same tactic.

At Harper’s bedtime, Skye stood to take the little girl to her room, which Emilia took to be her cue to leave.

She’d gotten through dinner, but she wasn’t going to stay and be alone with her brother. She couldn’t bear it.

Every time she looked at him, she remembered the way he was with Salvatore, and wanted to explode with rage. That he could hurt the man she loved…it all felt so wrong.

“Thank you for dinner,” she said, stiffly.

“Our parents send their love,” he said, as she walked towards the door.

Her heart trembled, and she whirled around. “Please, don’t.”

He frowned reflexively. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t pass on messages for them. They have my number.”

“Emme, you know why they aren’t using it.”

She sniffed and looked sideways. “Yes, I noticed none of you contacted me for my birthday. Thank you so much for that.”

His jaw tightened as he ground his teeth. “What did you expect?”

“A little support. Unconditional love. How foolish I was.”

“All love has conditions—you know the Santoros are a hard line for us. They always have been.”

She jerked her face away, sucking in a sharp breath at hearing even Salvatore’s last name.

Her whole stomach contracted as though she’d been winded.

“So, what? You beat him up? Kick me out of the family? Take my charities away, for God’s sake?

My project in Moricosia, when you know I worked damn hard for that. ”

He closed his eyes, and she thought she saw regret in his features. But none of that mattered, anymore. The personal betrayals were the hardest of all to accept.

“He’s the only man I’ve ever loved,” she whispered. “Did you even think, for one second, what you would have done in my situation?”

He stared at her blankly.

“If Skye and Harper had been Santoros, would you have walked away from them?”

He took a step forward. “Yes. I would have walked away before it got out of hand.”

“I don’t believe you. I know how you and Skye met. I know how instantly you fell for her. I think even from that first night, you would have put your life on the line for her. That’s how love works.”

“And how did that work out for you? Salvatore turned out to be everything we said—that’s not love. You think it is, but you’re wrong. One day, you’ll meet someone who loves you back, and you’ll know we were right. Trust me, Emme. This is for the best.”

Her heart splintered apart, the grief so sudden and deep that she couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She simply shook her head and stepped into the waiting elevator. She stared out at Leandro wordlessly, with no idea if she’d ever be able to see him again. A single tear rolled down her cheek.

“Emme,” he groaned, moving forward, but she held up a hand to still him.

“Just don’t,” she whispered. “I don’t need this.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t need you.”

It didn’t even occur to her to wonder how he’d known about her breakup. She was too busy being swaddled back up in the desolation that had become a part and parcel of her very soul.

His entire family had spent more than a year watching Raf go off the rails, after the breakdown of his marriage and long term relationship. Salvatore’s cousin had been to hell and back, and he’d gone from the mild-mannered, confident guy they all knew to a train wreck.

At least, that’s what Salvatore had thought, until his own life exploded and he found himself on the same path as Raf—except, with a vengeance.

As soon as Emilia had left after that god awful fight, he’d texted Leandro with the news that they’d broken up.

It had felt important to put it into writing and have at least someone know the truth, but even more so, he’d needed to believe Emilia wouldn’t be alone.

He’d needed to think someone in her family would reach out to her, look after her when Salvatore couldn’t.

As soon as the text was sent, he started to drink.

And drink. And drink. He stayed in his apartment, until all the good liquor was gone, and then he simply ordered more in.

He didn’t work. He didn’t look at his phone.

He simply wandered around, then slept, then drank.

On repeat, for days. After about a week, he started to pull her stuff out of their room.

At first, he’d thrown it all onto the sofa and stared at it.

A messy pile of Emilia, to be dealt with.

He’d drunk then, too, and put on some metal music at full volume, so the whole penthouse seemed to reverberate.

When he was drunk, he thought about calling her.

Texting her. It was only through an amazing act of willpower that he didn’t.

Sometimes, he’d wake up and reach for his phone, heart racing, because he’d dreamed that he’d weakened and sent her a message.

And he knew that would be a mistake. It would just set them back.

Even when the thing he wanted most was to tell her he still loved her.

It was a particularly unfair byproduct of their circumstance that he couldn’t at least give her that.

But it just would have made it harder to have the clean break they needed.

After three weeks, he text messaged Leandro again, in one of those drunk, weak moments: How is she?

He didn’t hear back until the next day. She’s great. Happy to be home.

Salvatore’s gut had rolled with that. Had there been a part of him that had hoped she’d shun her family, as he continued to shun his? How stupid, when the whole reason he’d broken up with her had been to see her reunite with her parents and brothers.

After receiving Leandro’s text though, Salvatore messaged his assistant and had the jet prepared. He didn’t know why it hadn’t occurred to him sooner, but there was no need to stay here, in Manhattan, where memories of Emilia were everywhere.