Page 54 of A Son Hidden from the Sicilian

“But what if—”

“We can’t what-if ourselves out of this. There are too many. Those first days as a mother, my entire head was what-ifs. So many things could have gone wrong, but my mother gave me advice I have held on to ever since. Any person can only do their best with what they are given, and that best is cushioned by love.”

Lorenzo didn’t want it to make sense. Didn’t want to believe it was enough, but why... Why was he so bound and determined to make things harder on himself?

Rocca took her own life, so you cannot have anything for yourself?

Saverina had said that to him, and he had spent the past day trying to deny it. Desperate to ignore it. But it was true. His entire life since he’d lost his sister had been punishment. Because he’d loved her, but he hadn’t been able to save her.

If he looked back with an adult’s maturity and experience on everything that had happened when he’d barely been an adult, he knew Brianna was right. He had done all he could.

It hurt, but it was true. Love had not been enough, but that didn’t mean it was poison. Still... “I could not stand to lose you.”

Her thumb brushed back and forth across his cheek. “Loss is inevitable. But I’d rather lose knowing I’d held everything I loved close, than that I’d pushed it away and never enjoyed it.”

He had already missed time with Gio. Missed these two years with Brianna. If he had not, perhaps he could not have accepted her words. But the past two years had taught him that if he could dig under his fear, holding on was better than hiding.

“I love you, Brianna. I want to do that perfectly, so that you never hurt.”

“I wish that were possible. But loving is enough, Lorenzo. I promise you. We can love each otherandourselves. Love our son so brightly that even those hurts will be cushioned by all we’ve given him. I’ll show you. If you’ll let me.”

He covered her hand with his. He held her gaze. And he made a promise to her, and to himself. “I will. We will marry and—”

She shook her head, even though she didn’t pull her hand from his grasp or lean away from him. “I can’t marry you, Lorenzo.”

Confusion swept through him. “But—”

“Not yet. But I’ll stay. And we will work through...everything. Our pasts. Our hurts. Your trauma. We will build a foundation. And once the foundation is strong, we’ll discuss marriage again.”

Lorenzo did not argue. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps building and foundations andworking throughwere the things missing when love failed so spectacularly. He would not fail at this. Not now. For Gio. For Brianna, and also, strangest of all, for himself.

Because as his siblings had tried to get through his head earlier, as Brianna had stated this morning when she’d confessed her love to him, he deserved some of his own wants as well.

“You will at least share my bedroom, Brianna.”

She laughed. A bright, beautiful laugh like sunshine. She would always be his sun. She leaned into him, and they wrapped their arms around each other. “Naturally.”

She made it seem like love could be an answer instead of a fear. A hope instead of destruction. Maybe he was a fool to believe in it, but how could he not believe in her?

He would believe in her, and he would prove to her that he could do love as well as anyone. He would not be afraid. Not anymore.

And they would be married within the year. End of story.

EPILOGUE

THEWEDDINGWASone for the ages. With a family the size of Lorenzo’s it was hard not to be. Brianna and Lorenzo had agreed to let the press be involved in the reception, but the ceremony was to be all theirs.

Dante had tried over the course of the past year to plant more stories besmirching Lorenzo’s reputation, but the more Lorenzo didn’t care, the more it did not matter. The press got tired of trying to paint him the villain when all he ever seemed to do was work, dote on his wife and son, and refuse to ever retaliate against Dante.

Sometimes living well really was the best revenge.

And they had lived well. They had learned each other all over again. They had let their families mesh and meld and they had worked to parent Gio together. It had not always been easy, they did not always see eye to eye, but when Gio had turned two with a party full to the brim with aunts, uncles, cousins and his grandparents—just as Brianna had always wished for—Brianna had realized it was time to make things official.

Since Lorenzo proposed almost every week since that night when he’d finally confessed himself to her, she only had to wait two days, then finally surprise him with a yes.

He’d gone into wedding planning mode immediately.

Well, notimmediately.

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