“And while that might have been okay for me, it’s not okay for this child. It’s not okay for Charlie.”
“So you’re giving up on us again?”
“No, I’m refusing to accept anything less than what I deserve. I deserve to be with a man who will at least acknowledge that love is important. This child and Charlie deserve to grow up with a father who has the capacity to love them.”
He reared back, stung. “I will love our child.”
“Will you? Will you tell him or her about what you did to your brothers? Will you speak about the cousins it has? What is the legacy you’re creating for this child, V? One of love or one of hatred and revenge?”
“Don’t do this, Alessandra,” he said, and a part of Alex melted at the desperation she heard in his voice.
She was the one breaking apart and he looked equally ravaged. “So you’re ready to destroy everything you wanted? You’re giving up on Charlie too?”
“No, I’m not. I will never give up on Charlie. And I will gain custody of him because you will help me do that, V. This relationship is over between us but not in the eyes of the world. Not until I have Charlie, safe with me. You owe me this. I’m hoping you have enough honor left in your body to see that promise through at least.
“As for raising him alone, I do have a family. Leo and Massimo will support me if I need help. Charlie already has a family that will love him, through me.”
“And this child? Our child?”
“I will love our child too. Fiercely. You made me see that.
“I will take on anyone and anything in the world to protect our baby. Including you. But then, you’re not the kind of man that would separate a mother from her child, are you? I won’t lose sleep over that worry, at least.”
“You’re walking out on me and yet you still have such faith in me, bella?”
“I do. Because you’re only punishing yourself, V. I see you watch Leo and Massimo with such an ache in your eyes. You can’t understand the depth of Greta’s love for me. Your support network for close to two decades has been people who were invested in seeing you destroy the Brunettis.
“You have made an island of yourself.
“But I can’t bear to see you in pain. I can’t bear to see the loneliness in your eyes, the need for connection. I refuse to stand here and watch it eat away at you, month after month, year after year. I refuse to let the corrosive shadow of your grief and guilt consume me and two more innocent lives.
“You wanted this empire, V. Well, you got it. But you haven’t got me.”
Anger raged in his eyes, and a stillness came over him. “At least don’t lie to me that you love me, bella.”
“I do love you. With all my heart. I truly understand what it means to love someone so much that all you want is their happiness. Their well-being. But it’s not a weakness, V. Despite all the pain in my heart, I can’t call it that.”
And with that, she walked away from him, head held high. Out of his life.
Leaving him standing empty-handed on the grounds of the very empire he’d built.
* * *
Alessandra’s words haunted Vincenzo as he walked around the hallowed halls of his ancestors, with a bottle of Leonardo’s fine Scotch hanging from his fingers.
For the first time in his life he was filthy drunk, his self-control shot to hell. Apparently, there were a lot of those happening currently—these first times in his life.
He walked from room to room—he couldn’t bear to be in the bedroom he had shared with her for more than a few minutes. He walked from the vast kitchen that had rung with laughter only last week when Natalie’s younger brother had visited and Neha had screamed that the babies were playing soccer in her belly to the conservatory, where every piece of silk reminded him of his wife’s skin; to the lounge that housed the ancient piano; to the arched hallway with portraits of his ancestors hanging there, looking down upon him with, it seemed, approval.
All my life, our father constantly told me that I wasn’t good enough to belong with them. That I would never be good enough. But then it took Natalie to make me see that it was okay to not belong with those monsters.
Massimo had told him that during one of their midnight chats weeks ago, those long nights where more than once he’d found himself wandering the villa and run into his younger brother doing the same thing.
Just thinking of the brilliant tech genius as his younger brother, as the man who had Natalie’s hard-won loyalty and love, sat like a boulder in Vincenzo’s throat, jammed in there to force him to acknowledge the connection, the affection he had developed for the irreverent genius, despite himself.
What did it say that when Vincenzo looked at those same faces of Brunetti ancestors, he saw their approval? Was he truly Silvio Brunetti’s legacy then—a legacy of cruelty and hatred and destruction?
He had hated this family for so long. He had used that hatred to propel himself to incredible heights. He’d thought there would be victory once he had achieved his ambition, his revenge.
Suddenly, the consuming force of his life was gone and he felt as empty as this damned house.
He even walked to the state-of-the-art tech lab that had belonged to Massimo. The underground lab that had once been a wine cellar, Alessandra had told him with a twinkle in her eyes.
She’d been happy here and he had taken it away.
He punched in the entry password and walked around the now-empty lab. Then he made the trek to the greenhouse that Leonardo had renovated for himself.
The greenhouse, he’d learned, had once belonged to
