He thought I was finally learning. I was finally leaving. Chapter 08
He still didn’t understand.
Even after everything, he truly believed that if the offer was large enough, I was supposed to accept it gratefully.
“That’s enough, Adriano,” I said, cutting him off. “We’re done. I don’t want your money, your apologies, or
your plans. The only thing I want from you is the divorce paperwork with your signature on it.”
Pain flashed across his face so openly that, once, it might have shaken me.
It didn’t now.
He could not understand why, after he had come to me in person, after removing Viviana and offering me
everything he thought mattered, I was still standing there unmoved.
“Serafina, I never wanted this to end,” he said. “You’re my wife.”
His voice dropped, almost pleading.
“What do you want me to do?”
By then I was too tired for patience.
“Adriano, you are always so certain that people should be grateful just because you decided to notice
them. If you shelter someone, they owe you loyalty. If you get tired of them, they’re supposed to disappear quietly and call it fate.”
He stood very still.
“You thought that because I came from less than you did, because I married into your name, I could only survive by holding onto you. Taking care of me fed your pride. Letting Viviana humiliate me fed your control. And all this time, you expected me to orbit around you like that was the natural order of things.”
My voice sharpened.
“It wasn’t. And I’m done pretending it was.”
He looked as though I had struck him.
Then he caught my wrist, not hard, but desperately.
“Can’t you give me one chance?” he asked. “You can’t decide a marriage is over like this and leave me no way to make it right.”
I pulled my hand free.
“You had chances, Adriano. Again and again. Every time, you decided it was easier not to believe me, and let someone else hurt me in your place.”
I already knew how stubborn he was. I knew leaving him would not end with one conversation.
What I hadn’t expected was for him to show up again the next morning smiling like a man with a plan.
Just after sunrise, a Morelli truck rolled into the yard loaded with fresh supplies. Adriano stepped out in clean casual clothes, looking rested, composed, and almost charming again, as though the night before had only been a setback.
He ignored the stares from the team and came straight toward me.
“I spoke to your father,” he said. “Vesper’s investigation is underfunded, so I fixed it. My office already wired enough to cover the full operation.”
My expression didn’t change.
“You tried,” I said. “He sent it back before noon.”
For the first time that morning, Adriano’s confidence wavered.
“My father doesn’t take money from men who think every problem can be solved by owning a larger
share of it.”
Before I could continue, he held out a slim glass bottle packed in ice.
The liquid inside was pale gold.
“Serafina, I know I handled yesterday badly,” he said. “So let me start again.”
He lifted the bottle a little higher, watching my face with open hope.
“It’s bergamot tonic from the old Calabrian estate. You used to wake up before dawn to make this, even in
winter. I remember you liked the scent. Drink some.”
Then, more softly, “Give me a chance to do this right. All the things I should have given you before-I’ll
give you now.”
For a second I just looked at the bottle, and the sheer absurdity of it nearly made me laugh.
I could never understand how a man could take love for granted when he had it, then suddenly become devoted the moment it was gone.
And even now, he still thought I liked bergamot.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I don’t like it.”
He blinked. “What?”
“I used to make it because Viviana liked it.”
His expression changed, but I kept going.
Nave you forgotten You asked me to prepare it for weeks because she said the eitia calmed her nerves after late nights in the office 1 thought it was for you at first”
I could still remember the morning I found out I had gone to your office to drop off the bottle myself and saw you through the glass, handing it to her while she laughed and said that if I made it before sunrise, it
Astent better.
That was when I finally understood who I had been waking up in the cold for, and who was really
receiving all the care I thought I was giving to my husband.