Page 113 of Sin & Secrets

He gives both of us a pointed look, and slowly, we return to our seats.

“It seems we have the opportunity to discuss a solution that works for us all, to prioritize the protection of the Guild’s next heir.”

Rocco glowers. “Don’t listen to him, Cas. He has no intention of helping you.”

Giuliano merely rolls his eyes before addressing me.

“I may be many things, Miss Bellini, but I know how to learn from my mistakes. I now see I was unwise to separate your family. Your father’s longing clearly outweighed his rationale, considering he dragged you out of hiding against your knowledge.”

“You bastard.”

“I am not talking to you.”

“Let him finish, Rocco,” I snap.

Giuliano smirks a little.

“I’m prepared to make a different offer. Now that my son is here and is aware of the entirety of the situation,” Giuliano reaches to take my hand, “I will allow the three of you to leave forever if you can convince Rocco to relinquish the Guild to me.”

My heart stops beating.

My traitorous brain immediately fills my head with images of the three of us. A perfectly happy and normal family, somewhere far away from this city. Our child playing in the yard. The child has my dark hair and his father’s inquisitive gray eyes.

But it’s an illusion, a complete fantasy. The job always comes first.

“She doesn’t want me,” Rocco hisses.

“Then you can co-parent. Or whatever it is they do these days,” Giuliano counters. “I’m sure Miss Bellini can see the sense in keeping a father figure around.”

There’s no way Rocco would agree to something like that. Not with everything that is at stake. I smile bitterly at the very thought.

“You think too much of me. I would never be able to convince him.”

Giuliano’s Cheshire Cat smile stuns me. “On the contrary, I think you think too little of yourself. Isn’t that right, Rocco?”

We both turn to look at him. He’s running his hands together like a man teetering at the edge of his own doom. But that resolve in his eyes, the power it holds…

“I’ll do it.”

The lump in my throat threatens to choke me.

He would do it, too.

He would give up everything he had built, those five years of excruciating negotiations, to sit on the periphery of our child’s life, to watch from the sidelines at my beck and call, only being able to see him at weekends or on alternate weeks.

Never to cross the boundary without my permission, never to insert himself in our lives unless needed.

Never to speak to anyone from the Guild again. To turn his back on Teo and Donatella, and Martino. To let go of his income, his wealth, his cars.

He would give every aspect of his life to me and our son.

But who am I to ask that of him?

“I can’t accept.”

There’s a beat where all Rocco can do is stare at me in disbelief.

“Why not?”

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