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How long does it take an average person to lose their mind? Because I feel like I’m halfway to losing mine.

The villa feels colder without him in it. Even larger...lonelier.

Bianca checks in when she can, voice soft and careful like she’s trying not to rattle a ghost. But it’s not enough. I’m going stir crazy, pacing the same floors, rereading the same messages, jumping every time a car passes the gate.

Ares said I’d be safe here, but he didn’t say I’d feel abandoned. Where the hell is he? Why hasn’t he called? Fuck, what if something has happened to him?

I shove open the glass door that leads out to the garden, the sharp scent of Sicilian lemons riding the breeze.

Sunlight brushes my skin, warm and golden, but it does nothing to chase the chill crawling down my spine.

I wrap my arms around myself and start walking, hoping the fresh air might do what the silence can’t quiet my thoughts.

Each step crunches lightly over gravel, the soles of my shoes tracing a path I don’t remember choosing. I round the fountain and follow the path toward the olive grove, where sunlight filters through the trees in thin, dappled ribbons.

Then I hear it. A soft flick. A flame. I turn.

Matteo leans against the railing, cigarette between his fingers, eyes fixed on the horizon like it holds answers he’ll never get. He doesn’t flinch when I step closer. Just takes a slow drag and exhales.

“You always sneak up on people, Fossette?” he says, voice low and uneven, like he’s trying to sound casual but can’t quite pull it off.

I fold my arms across my chest, keeping my voice flat. “No, but if you’re trying to hide, you’re doing a very shit job of it.”

His lips twitch, almost a smirk, but not quite. It doesn’t reach his eyes. He turns his gaze to the olive cove, the wind catching the ends of his shirt. “Nah, not hiding. It’s quieter out here. Easier to pretend everything’s fine… even when it’s not.”

I don’t reply. I don’t want to play this game with him. Not today.

“You know,” he starts, still not looking at me, “he’d kill me if he knew how often I think about you.”

My chest tightens. “Then stop.”

“Tried,” he says with a hollow laugh. “Didn’t take.”

The silence stretches thin between us. I should leave. Go back inside. But my feet stay frozen. Matteo finally turns his head toward me, and the look in his eyes, God, it hurts. He’s not teasing. Not being cocky or cruel. He looks… tired and maybe a little broken.

“He’ll ruin you,” he murmurs. “Men like him… they don’t get to keep what they love. They bury it. Or bleed it out.” He swallows hard, voice raw now. “And the worst part is, they don’t even have a choice.”

My heart aches, but my spine stays straight. “Then I’ll be the first thing he doesn’t break.”

Matteo’s jaw flexes, his voice drops further.

“It’s admirable that you think love’s enough.

” He looks past me, back toward the olive trees.

“In the end, he’ll marry Giana. One way or another.

Just like my Dad married my mum. Just like all of them do.

Doesn’t matter how they feel, Jordyn. Duty always wins. ”

The air turns thin, like I’ve all of a sudden forgotten how to breathe.

His golden gaze returns to mine, soft but relentless. “You’ll spend everything you have trying to be the exception… and this world will swallow you whole for it.”

I shake my head. “You don’t know him.”

“I don’t know my own uncle?” he scoffs. “Believe me, I do. Perhaps, not as personally as you do,” he says. “But I know this family. And love ?” He drops the cigarette and crushes it under his boot. “Love never stood a chance.”

I expect him to walk away, but he doesn’t, not immediately.

Instead, he just stands there, quiet in a way that makes the air between us feel too thick, like silence itself might buckle under the weight of whatever’s about to be said. His gaze flicks to me, not with anger but with something heavier. Something worn down and waiting.

“I need to ask you something,” Matteo says finally, his voice low and edged with fatigue. The kind that doesn't come from lack of sleep, but from holding onto something too long. “And I want the truth, Jordyn. I need you to be honest with me.”

I nod once, slow, barely more than a movement. My arms stay crossed, like that might hold the rest of me together. “Okay.”

He turns fully toward me now, and there’s nothing guarded in the way he looks at me, just raw confusion and a trace of disbelief. “Why did you let me kiss me that day at the BBQ?”

The question catches me off-guard. Not because I didn’t expect it, because I did, but because hearing it aloud makes it feel more real. More damaging. The answer doesn’t come, not right away and he doesn’t wait for it.

“I liked you, a lot, and you knew that.” he goes on, his voice fraying at the edges.

“I thought we were becoming something. I wasn’t imagining that.

And then out of nowhere—” He gestures with one hand, frustrated more with himself than with me.

“I blink, and I’m watching my uncle kiss you like you’ve always belonged to him.

Like none of it, none of what happened between us, meant a damn thing. ”

“Matteo—” I start, guilt swelling like a storm tide inside me.

“Don’t,” he says, cutting me off with a soft edge that still lands sharp.

“Just tell me. Did you even like me? Or was I some temporary fling to fill the silence until he finally noticed you?” He looks me in the eye, and this time, there’s no bitterness, just something quiet and broken.

“Was I just something to entertain you while you waited for him to make his move?”

I shake my head, throat thick, chest twisting too tightly for air to move through clean. “No. Matteo, it wasn’t like that.”

Matteo’s expression doesn’t change. If anything, he looks even more exhausted now.

“Then what was it?” His voice cracks, the fracture so small but impossible to miss.

“Because you gave me your first kiss, Jordyn. And I know how much that meant to you… and it meant a lot to me, too. It wasn’t some meaningless kiss, not to me. ”

I glance down, eyes fixed on the stone beneath our feet, on the way my arms are clenched around myself like I might splinter if I let go.

The truth wells up, sharp and blistering, that it wasn’t him.

It wasn’t Matteo who kissed me first. It was Ares.

Ares, with his brutal hands and unreadable eyes, the man I was never supposed to want.

He tilted my whole axis with one look and left me trying to convince myself I was still in control.

I almost say it. The words sit on my tongue, ready to fall. But looking at Matteo now, his shoulders drawn tight, the ache carved into his face, I can’t give him that. Not when he’s already struggling to stay upright in the aftermath of it all.

So, I give him the nearest truth I can manage.

“Matty, of course you weren’t just some to pass time.

The time I shared with you were very special to me.

But I was grieving and confused,” I say softly.

“After losing my parents, everything around me was falling apart. And you were the only thing at that moment that felt steady. Like maybe I could feel normal again if I let myself feel something for you… it might make the darkness I was in easier to ignore.”

Matteo exhales slowly, the sound more of a release than a response. Bitterness simmers at the edges of it, but it doesn’t take over.

I shift slightly, my arms still crossed, but the words slip out before I can stop them, quiet and unpolished, because it’s the only way they’ll come out.

“Ares came into my life at a time I didn’t even know I needed saving.

” My voice dips, softening as the memories tighten in my chest. “He’s rough.

Distant. Impossible, sometimes. But whenever I felt like I was slipping, whenever everything else cracked beneath my feet, he was there.

Always. He caught me when no one else saw me falling. ”

I glance down at the stone beneath our feet, my thumb drifting over the bracelet like I’m trying to tether myself to something solid. “I never thought I’d feel this way about someone like him. But even with all his shadows and silence… he’s the one who pulled me out when everything else went dark.”

I don’t say it to excuse anything. Or to hurt him. But I see the flicker in Matteo’s eyes, the way he absorbs every word like it’s both a wound and a truth he already knew, deep down.

“Guess I never stood a chance.”

My throat tightens, the words scraping on the way out.

“Matteo… you’re a good guy. And you deserve someone who will love you completely and give you every bit of their heart.

” His gaze meets mine again, and this time, it lingers.

Something final settles in his hazel eyes.

A quiet acceptance, maybe. Or the beginning of one, I’m hoping.

He doesn’t say anything right away. Just looks at me like he’s carving something in his mind that he knows he won’t be allowed to keep. The wind moves between us, cool against my skin, but it doesn’t cut through the heaviness.

Then he speaks, quiet but steady. No venom. Just a final truth he feels she needs to hear.

“I hope he’s worth it, Fosette.” Matteo says. “Because loving someone like him... it’ll cost you more than you think.” His eyes linger a moment longer, and there’s something in them, regret, maybe. Or just the last flicker of something that used to be hope.

Then he turns, steps back into the shadows of the house, and doesn’t look back.

And I stay there, rooted to the spot, staring into the dark stretch of olive groves below, carrying the weight of everything unsaid, and the quiet warning that now echoes louder than the silence he left behind.