Page 50 of The Sins of Saint (The Sins of Saint 3)

“So, you and Elena were together before you married Saint’s mom?”

“We were. When Elena returned home for her sister’s wedding, she was shocked, to say the least, when she found out I was the groom.”

“You never told anyone?”

Again, he shook his head. “Elena and I agreed it was better for everyone to keep our secret. But as the years went by, it became increasingly hard for Elena to witness how much I loved my wife, and how happy we were. Especially after…” He pursed his lips. “Especially after Marcello was born. She wasn’t able to give Alfonso an heir, had three miscarriages.”

“She told me about that.”

He nursed his drink. “My guess is her jealousy got the better of her, and she lashed out by telling my wife the secret we vowed to keep.”

“And that’s what she was accusing you of the night Saint overheard you fighting.” It wasn’t a question. It was me putting all the pieces together of a family feud that had been raging for years.

“She confronted me that night, hurt because I never told her. Accused me of keeping the affair secret because I was still harboring feelings for Elena.”

“Were you?”

A waiter walked by, momentarily breaking the focus between us when my question hung ten feet above the ground between us.

“Did you still have feelings for Elena?”

“In a way, maybe.” He gulped down the last of his drink then glanced at me. “But I loved my wife. I loved her more and more each day. She became my life, and I never would have done anything to hurt her—not to mention having an affair.”

“Oh, wow.” Damn, if I wasn’t pregnant, I’d be ordering tequila right about now. “This is…it’s a lot to process.”

Both of us sat there in silence for a while, the bustle of the busy restaurant filling the strained stillness. My thoughts traveled back to my wedding night—the night Elena told me her story. How she too was caught up in an arranged marriage, but after some time, started to love her husband. I still remembered the sharp edges of her pain when she told me about the three miscarriages. But she never said a word about another man, or a love before Alfonso.

I cleared my throat and tucked my hair behind my ear, absentmindedly feeling the scar. “So, for years, you allowed your son to think his mother was dead because you had an affair? Did it ever cross your mind to tell him the truth?”

“A thousand times. But then I’d think back to the night when he found his mother. That night he didn’t run to me for comfort. He ran to Elena, and he cried and cried in her arms. She was the only solace he had left in this world, and I couldn’t take that away from him.”

“This is insane,” I muttered. “Elena knew, yet she never told him.”

“Because I asked her not to.”

“What?”

“Like I said, his mother was already taken from him. He couldn’t lose her too.”

“But he lost you. His father.”

He shrugged. “I was lost to him before his mother died. I was too hard on him, expected too much. And that God-awful night of his mother’s death, he had already labeled me a murderer before a single word was spoken.”

I couldn’t believe it. For years he allowed his son to believe something that wasn’t real. He allowed Saint to hate him, to build his life on nothing but the sole intention of ruining his father.

I narrowed my eyes. “If you were so hellbent on him believing the lie, why tell me this now? Why the sudden need to come clean?”

He glanced down at my belly then back up at me. “You are carrying my grandson or daughter, Mila. Maybe I’m not willing to lose more of my bloodline. Maybe it’s time for me to repent and right all the wrongs I’ve done.”

I shook my head. “He won’t forgive you. He won’t let you near our child.”

His jaw clenched, eyes heavy with regret. “You might be right, but I at least have to try.”

My thoughts were pulled into a hundred different directions at once. I came here in search of answers, but instead I now had more questions than ever. But the most important question of all was whether he be trusted. Could I trust Saint’s father and that what he had just told me was the truth?

“For years, your son waged a war against you. He did everything he could to make your life a living hell, and you merely allowed it, knowing all too well his hatred for you was based on lies.”

“As I said to you before, he hates me because I was able to move on. He’s still stuck in that goddamn room with his mother, unable to deal with the truth.”

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