Page 50 of Christmas Vows with the Devil

I can’t breathe. “I was protecting him.”

“Protecting him?” Dante’s laugh is sharp, bitter. He steps closer, towering over me, his presence suffocating. “That’s what this is? You call this protection?”

Tears well up in my eyes, but I blink them away. I refuse to cry. Not now. Not in front of him.

“Yes,” I whisper. “I promised myself I would keep him safe from this life…and that included you.”

Dante flinches, like I’ve slapped him. His eyes flash with anger, but underneath it, I see something else. Hurt. Pain. Heartbreak.

“Why should I believe you?”

I swallow hard. “I didn’t just keep him from you, Dante. My own family hadn’t even met him until this week.”

“No,” he bites out. “Why should I believe he’s mine?”

I stare, the sudden hurt creating tidal waves of confusion in my chest. He doesn’t believe me.

“I…I don’t know,” I manage. “Why would I lie?”

“Seems like impeccable timing,” he muses. He’s pacing the room now, his brain working in overdrive. “I thought it was odd the Vitales would invite me to their Christmas bullshit party. Then I show up and you’re here…after six goddamn years, telling me I have a kid.”

I’m stunned. He really thinks this is some ploy? Some tactic to…I don’t know, trap him? Trick him?

“What are you talking about?” My voice rises an octave in frustration. “I had no motive to draw you here!”

And just like that, I’m thrown back in time to that horrible day six years ago. He didn’t trust me back then, and it doesn’t look like much has changed.

He’s staring at me, emotions flitting across his face. I recognize everything from anger to suspicion and pain in his eyes.

“He’s yours,” I tell him firmly. “I didn’t know what kind of man you’d become. I didn’t know if you’d want him, or me…after what happened.”

He steps back, running a hand through his hair, frustration radiating off him. “You didn’t even give me a chance.”

I can’t answer that. He’s right. I didn’t. But I had my reasons, and as much as I want to explain them, the words feel hollow in the face of his anger.

“I thought I was doing what was best,” I say, my voice shaking.

Dante’s eyes harden again, his expression shutting down. The warmth I’ve seen in him over the past days is gone, replaced by something colder. “This isn’t about what’s best. This is about power. You and your family, using him as a pawn.”

I gasp. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” He steps forward again, his face inches from mine. “You kept him from me. You kept my son from me all these years. And now, you come out of the woodwork and expect me to believe this isn’t some kind of game? Some power move?”

I shake my head, my heart breaking. “Dante, no. I swear…”

He turns away from me, his hands clenched at his sides. “I don’t believe you.”

The words cut through me like a knife, sharper than anything I could’ve imagined. I stand frozen, unable to move, unable to breathe. My chest aches with the weight of everything I’ve lost. I knew this moment would come, but it feels so much worse than I ever anticipated.

Dante walks to the door and pauses with his back to me. “Once a Vitale, always a Vitale.”

And then he’s gone, leaving me standing in the middle of the room, my entire world collapsing around me.

***

The Christmas Eve celebration is in full swing, but I can’t focus. I haven’t been able to shake off the coldness in Dante’s voice, the way he looked at me like I was the enemy—again. I had thought, hoped, that we’d moved past that.

The ballroom is glittering with twinkling lights, the hum of music and laughter filling the air, but it all feels empty. I look around the room, filled with friends and family in their finest outfits. Champagne floats by on shiny silver trays, carried by waiters in formal wear.

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