Page 47 of The Sicilian Billionaire's Neglected Wife
The third day, I make it as far as “I’m sorry” before the skies open up, as if Lynette has heaven itself on her side. The rain comes down in sheets, soaking me within seconds.
I stand there on the doorstep while she watches from the second-floor window. Not gloating. Just...sad. Like she’s looking at the ghost of another man who broke promises to another Posada woman.
By the time I give up and return to my car, I’m drenched. Tomorrow I’ll try again. And the next day. And the next.
As many days as it takes.
I try calling, but everything goes to voicemail, and texts are delivered but never read. Emails bounce back with [USER DOES NOT EXIST], and even expedited registered letters come back unopened, my name slashed through with vicious black ink.
Just silence from the wife who used to text me about everything from grocery lists to the shapes she saw in clouds. Who used to leave voicemails just to hear my voice on the outgoing message. Who said “I love you” every night for ten years while I gave her nothing back but physical pleasure and a credit card with no limit.
I miss her so damn much it feels like someone’s reached into my chest and is squeezing my heart with a fist made of broken glass.
Every breath cuts.
Every heartbeat is betrayal.
****
AWEEK PASSES, BUTthere’s just silence from her end. My phone buzzes, but I let it go to voicemail even when it’s Olivio’s name that flashes on the screen. Can’t handle my younger brother’s questions right now.
Ever since abducting my wife, my own father’s only deigned to answer one—one, dammit!—of my calls.
“At least tell me how she is.”
But instead he changes the subject like my wife is no longer a topic I have any right to discuss.
“How’s negotiations going with the Prince of Contini?”
“I’m calling about Sienah, dammit.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“What do you—”
Fuck.
There’s no point saying anything else, with my own father hanging up on me.
And I think that’s when something in me finally snaps.
****
“WELCOME HOME, DARLING.”
The voice is Sienah’s, but wrong. Too bright. Too confident. Missing that soft uncertainty that made me want to gather her close and keep her safe from everything, including myself.
She’s standing in a kitchen I don’t recognize, wearing that blue sundress I bought her in Positano but she never wore because she said it was too revealing. Except now she looks comfortable in it, radiant in it, glowing with a happiness I’ve never put on her face.
A man walks through the door. Tall, dark-haired, face blurred like a dream but his presence solid and real. He drops his briefcase and crosses to her in three strides, pulling her into the kind of kiss I’m only now realizing I never gave her. Not really. Not the coming-home-to-you-is-everything kind of kiss.*
“I love you,” she whispers against his mouth.
The words I trained her not to need.
“I love you too.” The words flow from him easily, naturally, like breathing. Like they cost nothing. Like they’re not the hardest fucking words in human language.
Her face blossoms. There’s no other word for it. She transforms into something incandescent, and I realize with crushing clarity that this is what she could have looked like every day if I hadn’t been such a coward.
