Don't answer it.
But since that would be a cowardly thing to do—
“I need you to listen to me, Nate, because I swear I'll kill you—I swear I really will if you ever do something to hurt her again.”
My fist slowly clenches as Odessa's next words paint a picture that I've imagined...but now I know for certain.
You destroyed her, Nate. You made her forget how to smile. You made her stop believing...in anything. Anyone. Even in herself. Please just go away if you're going to hurt her again. Please just go. I don't think she can ever survive if you break her heart again.
This time, it's Odessa who hangs up, and I can hear her crying as she does.
I go back to my place, sitting next to Juniper who's still pale and unconscious. And smaller than ever. And, after what Odessa said—
More fragile, too.
More tender-hearted.
That it just makes me start asking questions that terrify the hell out of me.
E adesso? What now?
Alone with my wife in her hospital room, I hear three monitors beeping at separate frequencies and the soft hush of a machine that's working overtime to inflate a cuff on Juniper's arms. And underneath all of this, I hear the sound of my wife's heart...still breaking to pieces.
It's been breaking for almost two decades, and what I do next can either put all those pieces back together...or destroy what's left of it. For good.
It was not supposed to be like this, dammit.
My chest clenches as I watch her chest rise and fall under the blanket. She's sleeping peacefully now, but will it be the same if I ask her to come back to my bed? Will she still find peace if she's back in my arms?
I have loved her since the first day I saw her—a girl seated on a stone bench, alone on a Tuesday afternoon in an Italian cemetery, and reading a book that's as morbid as her surroundings. And I loved her even more when I married her under a name that wasn't mine. And I had to remind myselfI love her, I love her, I love her—while forcing myself to go through with my plans.
Pay a woman to be in my bed. Break my bride's heart. Then walk out of her life without looking back.
Mia moglie. Ti amo.
Eighteen years, I've dreamt and worked hard for this day. But unlike all my plans to take down my enemies—nothing about my plans for getting my wife back has worked. All it's earned me are the things that I would never ever want, like the tears that have dried on my wife's cheeks and the sound of her voice breaking as she asks me if we're even married.
Why can't I ever do things right for the one and only girl I've ever loved?
I look at my wife. On a hospital bed, unconscious, because of me. And there's just no escaping the question I have to ask myself.
Can I let her go if that's what it means to love my wife?
Chapter Seven
EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO
The thing nobody warns you about working in the legal department of a hotel is the laminator.
I've been here six months, and I've already laminated, by my own count, ninety-three documents that technically didn't need to be laminated, and it's all thanks to Mr. Coates.
If you laminate it, you commit to it.
He heads our legal department, and because of that personal philosophy of his, we've been laminating everything, from vendor contracts down to grocery lists. It's tiring work at times, but honestly?
I enjoy every second of it because I love my job. I didn't expect to, honestly. I accepted it at first because I simply needed a steady paycheck and an environment where nobody asked me about my weekend. And working in a busy hotel like this? It's the exact opposite since we're all about what our guests want, and we know we're doing a good job when we blend with the wallpaper.
When I get back to my desk, laminating duties done, my phone is buzzing, and it's Mr. Coates again.