Page 256 of Modern Romance November 2024 5-8

She’d known it, but to hear it from his own mouth hurt more than she could ever have believed.

The nugget of hope her heart had held onto even when her brain had been telling it not to be so foolish shattered, and she finally crumbled.

Marcello could never allow himself to love her.

‘I know you can’t, and that’s why I have to go,’ she sobbed.

He shook his head despairingly. ‘Youdon’thave to go. We can—’

‘Ido. I don’t want to leave you, Marcello, you must know that. Working for you has been the most infuriating but fulfilling time of my entire life and if I could stay by your side as your right-hand woman for ever then I would, but Ican’t. I can’t be around you with these foolish dreams. I can’t work by your side waiting for the day you start dating again and have my heart broken all over again.’

He palmed her cheeks and caught her tears in his thumbs, then pressed his forehead to hers again. ‘I never wanted to break your heart,bella.’

‘You’re not breaking it, Marcello—I’m breaking it all by myself. You gave me every warning and I tried to listen but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I know you care for me and I know this is hurting you too, and I’m so sorry, and I’m sorry but I can’t go to Rome with you.’

The scratching in Marcello’s throat had spread to his chest. She could have been ripping at them with her nails.

The disaster he’d sensed coming when he’d recognised the attraction in her stare had detonated around him, and for the second time in his life, the solid foundations of his world were cracking around him.

‘You want to leave me now?’ he asked, still hardly believing. Not wanting to believe. Still half waiting for Victoria to break into a smile and tell him this was all one big joke.

‘I don’t want to leave you at all but I have to. Please try to understand. I will work until the end of the week to get everything in order but I can’t do Rome. I just don’t think I could bear to watch you act normally when I know the memories will be ripping you to pieces and the comfort I’ll want to give you... It’s just too much. Please understand. Please.’

The thick weight in his guts was pulling him under, a darkness in his bloodstream steadily creeping through his pores and deepening with every passing second. His nightmare a reality.

The best person in his life. He was losing her.

He was losing Victoria. And it was all his own fault. He’d sensed the danger. Not just sensed it. Known it.

He could make threats. Legal threats. Financial threats. Deploy all the weapons in his arsenal to make her stay and keep her by his side for ever.

‘I understand,’ he whispered hoarsely.

And that, for him, was the worst part. Hedidunderstand. He’d fled Rome and made Manhattan his home to escape his own pain, and because he understood it, he had no choice but to let her go.

He could never give her what she needed. What she deserved.

He should have walked away when he still had the chance.

‘I will not make you work any of your notice period. We can say goodbye to each other now.’

Her face contorted. ‘Thank you.’

The bleakness in his stare felt like a knife in Victoria’s heart, and she tightened her hold on his cheeks and pressed her lips wet with tears to his.

His hands burrowed into her hair and his lips parted as they shared a kiss of such tender passion the anguished scream from her heart that this would be their last had her clinging tightly to him and scraping her fingers through his hair, imprinting his taste and scent into her memories to see her through a lifetime.

Letting him go was a physical wrench but it had to be done. Every minute longer that she stayed only prolonged the agony.

In silence, she gathered the last of her possessions and walked to the door.

He made no effort to follow her. Neither of them needed to say it was better that way.

‘I’ll email Audrey when I get back to the apartment,’ she said quietly. She didn’t add that her resignation was already written. Only that now-smashed nugget of hope had stopped her pressing send before.

What a foolish, foolish thing to hope for.

He closed his eyes and nodded.

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