Page 67 of Italian’s Christmas Acquisition

“I think it is.”

Maybe this was what she had sensed, this fight. This unrest between them. Maybe this was the disquiet that she felt.

She hated it. And yet, she didn’t quite know what to do about it.

She wondered if it had to happen. If they had to have this discussion.

What about you? Are you ever going to tell him? You’re demanding information from him, and yet you’re keeping plenty to yourself.

But he was so important. She couldn’t mess it up.

He was integral. If she took a risk, then she might lose everything. She had accepted this change, and she couldn’t endure another one. She couldn’t lose him.

Because she had chosen him. And chosen this life with him.

And what if all it ever is to him is an arrangement. What if it’s only sex? And you fall deeper and deeper into love with him, and you have a child, and then that child leaves, and then he leaves you. What if he has affairs?

She had to know.

She had to know.

Her heart was thundering so hard it made her sick.

“I do not wish for you to be away from me,” he said. “I want to keep you.” His words were feral and fierce, and they tugged at her soul.

It felt so big. So impossibly big.

And she had just wanted to be a simple girl who lived on top of the mountain. She hadn’t asked to fall in love with a man that was bigger than any mountain she had ever seen.

She hadn’t asked to live an extraordinary life. She had wanted safe. She had wanted ordinary.

No, you didn’t. You never did. Or you would’ve never left. You would never have touched him. He was an invitation to risk the entire time. Because you’re not going to live like your mother.

No. She wasn’t. She had been worried that love would be an endless series of compromises, but she had a feeling it was only if you didn’t speak the truth to the one that you loved.

That meant she had to.

She had to.

“I love you, Rocco.”

He looked at her, something like granite in his dark gaze.

“You...?”

“I love you. I realized it a while ago. But I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want to disrupt what we have. But I... I love you.”

“I don’t know how to give you that,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think you do. I think you can, I think...”

“You don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know... I don’t love you, Noelle. I fantasize about putting you in a room and locking you in there. Keeping you. Because I am like my mother, I suppose. In all the ways that matter.

“I need to control everything and everyone around me. I need... That’s why I can’t let you out of my sight. I can’t bear it. I brought you to Italy to make you happy. Because I want you to stay with me.”

“I’m happy with you,” she said slowly. “I promise you that I am. I am happy with you, Rocco, but I also need to have other things in my life. You cannot be everything to me. That is far too dangerous of a proposition for me.”

“You are the only thing that I have,” he said.

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