Page 127 of Your Fault

I took a deep breath, trying to find the right words, but then, someone interrupted us. It was Sophia, and her face was filled with worry.

“Nicholas, I think you should go see your parents.”

We pulled away from each other, each looking at her before glancing back at the door.

“I’ll go,” I said, wanting to keep things calm.

Nicholas grabbed my arm. “No,” he said resolutely.

“Nicholas, she doesn’t matter to me. There’s no reason for you to confront her.”

He looked like he was about to lose it.

I turned to Sophia. “Don’t let him go near that door.”

Before Nick could react, I took off across the room.

As soon as I approached the door, I could hear the shouting. For a moment, I was unsure whether to enter, but when I remembered my mother’s face, how tense she’d seemed… I knew she needed me. Nick’s mother could be a monster.

I carefully opened the door, and the three of them—William, Anabel, and my mother—turned to look at me, all of them red in the face from arguing. Anabel was next to the window andclearly enjoying herself. William looked faint. And my mother…my mother was sitting on a sofa as if she wished to vanish and never reappear again.

“Oh, lovely! Come on, Noah, I think you should hear what I have to say.”

Hearing this, my mother’s attitude changed, and she got up to stand between the two of us. “Don’t you dare involve my daughter in this! Don’t you dare!”

William came over and tried to put his arm over her shoulders, but then, something I’d thought would be impossible occurred: my mother shook him off violently and slapped him across the face. I froze. Everything happened so quickly that I couldn’t hear the door opening behind me. But I did feel a pair of hands on my shoulders.

“Don’t you touch me again!” My mother turned her back to William and walked toward me. “Noah, we need to go, now.”

Nicholas walked around in front of me and stood between us. “What the hell is going on here?”

Now it was Anabel’s turn to speak up. She walked away from the window, clearly happy with the scene she was causing and the sight of my mother smacking the only man she’d ever loved. “What’s going on is I’ve come to claim what’s mine.”

William laughed bitterly, quickly getting a hold of himself, looking more furious than I’d ever seen him.

“All you want is fucking money. You’re getting a divorce from that imbecile you call a husband, and so here you come telling lies to try and ruin something you could never do anything about: the fact I love that woman more than you could ever imagine.”

My mother turned around, tears pouring from her eyes, and stood still, her fingers trembling, her eyes focused on her husband.

“Every day I ask myself how you could deceive me for years with a little girl who only wanted one thing: for someone to save her from a hell she went looking for herself.”

My breath was racing. What was she getting at?

She went on: “Now you like to pretend you’re the best father in the world, and you throw it in my face that I left Nicholas behind, but you gave me no option! You traded us for her, and you had the balls to try and throw me out on the street.”

William burst out laughing. “I tried to divorce you long before I met Raffaella. Nicholas wasn’t even six years old then. I told you I didn’t love you anymore, I told you I’d take care of your every need, but you wouldn’t accept that. You wanted to perpetuate that farce of a marriage and go on living under my roof, and I agreed for the sake of our son.”

Nicholas was listening to each of his parents’ words, almost as if his life depended on it. It seemed he was hearing the answers he’d never had, as if he were finally understanding why everything had turned out the way it had and why he’d had to grow up without a mother.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, looking at my mother, not understanding a thing. Pulling away from Nick, I looked at William. At the drop of a hat, I’d found myself wrapped up in something I hadn’t even imagined could exist: two families bound together in unimaginable ways and with terrible consequences.

“You and Raffaella have known each other for years?” Nick asked, not seeming to believe it.

Anabel turned and looked at him with surprise. Then she looked at me. “You didn’t give him the letter, did you?”

My heart was pounding. Nick looked me in the eyes. The poor thing had no idea.

I shook my head, but the words caught in my throat. “I…”

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