Page 53 of A Son Hidden from the Sicilian

“Here is one thing I know about you, and I think all of your family knows too. You would have. If you’d known, if you’d had the opportunity, you would have sacrificed everything for them. Your father is to blame here.Heknew. If she told you afterhedied, he had some hold over her.”

It had never occurred to Lorenzo. Maybe he’d never let it occur to him. Blame felt so much more controllable. So much stronger.

But Brianna was right, and he could no longer deny that as much as he wished he had known, could have done something, the adult in the situation had made it impossible.

“Just because you couldn’t sacrifice instead of Rocca doesn’t mean... My love, this is a terrible story full of tragedy, but you have done everything you could in the shadow of that tragedy. Sacrificed for your siblings. Gave them everything.”

“Not Rocca.”

“No. But that is on your father. You took on the role of adult because the adults would not. But why does it mean we can’t love each other? We aren’t your parents. Our love does not need to be like your mother’s. For one, we both love each other. And you are so clearly nothing like your father.”

“But I hurt you. At the party. When I brought Natalia. When I suggested I marry someone else. In that room, you cried and said you had to go home. That is my fault. That is what love does. It hurts.”

“Yes,” she agreed. So easily.

He looked at her because she made no sense.

“I’m still standing, Lorenzo,” she said, calmly. Accepting every word as a truth when... When it wasn’t. “People hurt each other. It’s that whole human condition you seem to think you can escape. By making yourself everyone’s...boss, father, ruler, whatever. But you can’t be any of those things to me, so you have to keep me away?”

“You don’t understand.”

“No. I’ll never understand what you went through. I won’t ever pretend to. But I love you regardless. I don’t need to understand to love you.”

“I will ruin you. The way my father ruined my mother. If you’d just... If we make a plan, if we stay apart, if we treat it like business, we can make it okay.” He knew how desperate he sounded. How afraid. All those things he’d convinced himself he wasn’t. But those feelings were there in his voice. In his heart.

She shook her head. “No, Lorenzo. I can’t do that. I wasn’t there. I didn’t know your parents. I don’t know what either of them went through, what they were thinking when they did the things they did. Maybe I’d do the same thing in their position, but I am not in their position. Neither are you. We have the power to make our own choices. Some of them will be mistakes. But loving you, even when it hurt, even when you walked away, has never been a mistake. It has given us Gio.”

Gio. The boy he’d only known a handful of days, who already owned his heart. That Parisi face with blue eyes. A shyness that warmed into love so easily. His heart. His soul. Just as this woman who’d listened to all he’d said and...loved him through it. Saw him in the middle of all that hurt.

She had not walked away. She had not laid blame. She still spoke of love as if... As if his mother’s behavior was her own choice, her own feelings. As if his father’s indifference and blame weren’t stamped into Lorenzo’s bones.

As if the hurt he’d caused her was the “human condition,” to be dealt with and forgiven. Not a poison that would ruin them all.

“I know you would give Gio everything,” Brianna continued. “Just as you’ve given your siblings everything. You are not your father and never have been. You have always put the people you love first. But it must be a balance, Lorenzo. You must give yourself the space to also haveyourwants and needs met. Giving yourself over to your sacrifices and your business doesn’t make you any different than your mother if you do not take care of yourself along with it.”

This hurt.The human condition. But again, Brianna did not leave. She did not drop the accusation and withdraw. She loved him through it.

Stefano had told him only he could decide what he wanted. And it wasn’t that he didn’t know. Of course he wanted Brianna. And not just because it would keep Gio close, but because she had always been the sunshine in his dark. Ever since he’d first laid eyes on her.

But he was soafraid. Not concerned, no. Terrified. Of what love had done to his mother. Of the utter destruction wrought, not just on his parents, but on Rocca.

Destruction. That had come from two damaged people. A love that had blotted out responsibility and the love his mother should have had for her children. Because there had been none of the balance Brianna spoke of. Only a kind of selfishness.

One neither he nor Brianna possessed. No matter how scared he was, he believed Brianna. Standing here in his garden, pouring her light into him.

“I’ve never been poor,” she continued. “So I won’t trivialize how important money can be, but our son deserves a father who isn’t afraid of love. Couldn’t you at least try to give him that?”

It was a million moments coalescing. Hurtful ones and healing ones. Saverina’s voice asking him,“If I was in your position, or Brianna’s...what would you want for me?”

The same as he wanted for Gio. For Brianna. For everyone...

That’s a question only you can answer.

What did he want out of this life? The courage to give his son everything. Brianna had said that she could not sacrifice her happiness because Gio would be touched by that. She was right. Giving Gioeverythingmeant also...allowing himself balance. Love. Light.

“I fell in love with you the moment I saw you, Brianna. More every moment we spent together. Nothing has ever terrified me more.”

She reached out, cupped his cheek with her chilled hand. “You dazzled me. And underneath all that dazzle was a man I could not help but love. It never went away, Lorenzo. Even when I wanted it to. This doesn’t have to destroy us.”

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