The damp air inside the greenhouse was a warm blast against his chilled skin as he walked around, touching the parts here and there, imagining Leonardo and his very pregnant wife, Neha, in here, making plans for their children.
And now because of him, this was empty too.
Leonardo had given up ownership of this house, a real estate asset, two centuries of legacy that should have gone to his children, to Vincenzo far too easily.
He slammed the door of the greenhouse behind him and walked up the pathway back to the house. He had no idea how many times he’d made that trip recently—a sort of pilgrimage from the villa to the laboratory to the greenhouse to the conservatory, and then back around again.
Everywhere he looked he saw Alessandra laughing, crying, kissing him, teasing Massimo, hugging Leonardo.
He felt like a forlorn ghost, a cursed specter, haunting these halls, the very hallowed halls he had once wanted to belong to. He had everything he had ever wanted.
And yet he had lost the one thing he desperately needed. The one thing he couldn’t live without—Alessandra’s love, her laughter, her smiles, her kisses, her tears, her joyful presence.
He hated admitting it, but there it was.
All his life he had been alone, so he shouldn’t have minded this so much. But this loneliness was different. This was deeper, harder, felt in a place he hadn’t known existed within him. Felt by a different man. A man who should’ve stopped long ago, but hadn’t because then he’d have had to face what he’d become. How empty he was inside.
And he stood in that place of emptiness now anyway.
The sound of footsteps had him prowling into the lounge, his heart thudding so hard in his chest that its beat roared in his ears. Hope oozed out of his every pore, coating him with a layer of desperation so thick and rabid that he couldn’t shake it off. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt, almost felling him to his knees.
The moon outside painted two dark silhouettes through the open archway. He blinked as the crystal chandelier overhead burst into life, throwing dazzlingly painful light over the room. The black-and-white-checkered marble swam in front of his eyes, and he instinctively reached for the grand piano to steady himself.
He looked up then and cursed out loud.
Massimo burst out laughing. Leonardo remained serious, but there was a twitch to his mouth that Vincenzo wanted to rip off with his bare hands.
“What the hell do you two want?” he demanded, straightening.
“We came to check on you,” Massimo said. He took in Vincenzo’s disheveled state with a distinctly obvious grin. “I have to admit, Leo. I’d hoped to find him like this. This almost makes up for everything he did to us. Almost.”
Vincenzo let out another curse. “Get out! Get out of my house!”
Leonardo reached him, a sneer curling his mouth into a twist. And finally, Vincenzo could no longer deny the resemblance between himself and this man… This man who he had no doubt now would have made a spectacular older brother. A role model. A protector. “My wife is about to give birth any moment! To twins, you ungrateful bastard! And here I am in the middle of the night, checking up on you because she asked us to.”
Massimo laughed again, and both he and Leo cursed him soundly. “Our older brother, as you can tell, is quite nervous. Everything is out of his control with Neha and the babies and it’s driving him crazy. And he’s driving her crazy.” Leo growled. “Which is why she begged me to take him on this midnight run,” Massimo finished. “I left Natalie behind because if she’s here, she won’t let Leo beat some sense into you.”
Vincenzo rubbed his head, trying to figure out the puzzle of what they meant, who they were talking about. Even the threat of Leo’s fists couldn’t distract him from trying to figure it out. “Wait, who asked you to check up on me? You’re not talking about Neha, are you?”
“Your bloody wife, who else?” Leo roared. “The woman whose heart you so thoroughly broke. The woman you don’t deserve.”
“She walked out on me,” Vincenzo offered in a lame, pathetic voice. “And you’re right. I don’t deserve her. Still she gave me a chance to redeem myself. And I destroyed that chance. I…drove her away. I…killed whatever she felt for me with my own hands.”
Whatever he’d been about to say died on Massimo’s shocked lips.
His knees finally gave out, and Vincenzo slid to the floor. He buried his head in his hands. Cristo, what had he done? What was this cursed villa, the blasted company, even this world, to him, without her? He looked up, fear unlike anything he’d ever known clamping his belly tight. “I…I won everything and lost everything all in one fell swoop.”
Both men knelt on either side of him. And he felt shame and vulnerability and something else lodge in his throat, cutting off his breath. “Why are you here after I drove you out of your own home?”
“We can’t imagine what you’ve endured for so long. What it feels like to see your mother and not have her see you in return. But actions can be rectified, V,” Massimo said kindly, using the abbreviation only she used for him. “You can still prove that Alex’s faith in you was not misplaced.”
“And because we’ve each been here,” Leo added. “In this place of destruction. Standing on a pile of ashes that we created with our own actions. Not our father’s actions, Vincenzo.” It was the first time Leo had said his name. “Not Greta’s. Ours. You’re the one who’s letting the woman who loves you go.”
Vincenzo pushed himself off the floor.
“Go to her, but only if you think you can do right by her.
