My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 534

Chapter 534

Gold and one diamond, simple and elegant like her. The small pendant caught the light immediately.

Ti amo.

I love you.

My mother used to trace those same words into my palm with her fingertip whenever I was little. Over and over until I laughed and pulled away.

This necklace was different, something permanent. Something she could leave behind. Something that would stay with me. My thumb brushed across the engraved letters, lingering there longer than necessary. /

A memory surfaced.

I was nine. Unable to explain why I never said certain things. Unable to understand why everybody else seemed capable of expressing emotions that felt trapped behind glass for me.

Vincenzo talked easily and Adriano talked more than he should but I couldn’t. My mother never cared, she never pushed, she never asked me to become somebody else.

One day she’d simply removed the necklace from around her neck, then handed it to me with just a smile and a hug.

A way of saying something without forcing me to say it back. My fingers tightened slightly around the pendant.

Then my eyes narrowed, because Vincenzo knew this necklace. Every single member of the family knew this

necklace.

Especially him.

The second he saw it around Gianna’s neck, he would understand. The corner of my mouth twitched because the realization was satisfying.

Vincenzo thought I’d finally come to my senses, thought I’d moved on, thought I’d accepted reality.

I looked down at the necklace again.

No.

I hadn’t given up, I hadn’t stopped. I hadn’t changed my mind. I’d simply waited. And waiting had officially become a terrible strategy.

The necklace disappeared into my pocket and the safe closed behind me. And for the first time in weeks, the path ahead looked simple.

Gianna Toricelli was mine.

The realization settled into my bones with a certainty that couldn’t be argued with, negotiated with, or ignored.

She was it.

The only problem was that the first person who deserved to hear that truth wasn’t standing in front of me.

It was Gianna herself.

And, thanks to my spectacular timing, she was currently somewhere between Chicago and New York, thirty

thousand feet above the northeastern United States and completely out of reach.

+15 8

THE PRESENT

ren

I stood behind the curtain with my hands buried in my pockets and watched her.

I had watched Gianna dance before.

I had watched rehearsals.

I had watched her practicing alone when she thought nobody was paying attention.

None of it looked like this.

This was the real her.

The audience saw choreography. I saw Gianna. Every hesitation, every small movement. Every piece of herself she was leaving on that stage.

The first act made my chest feel tight.

The second made me want to find whoever had ever made her feel small and personally introduce them to several concrete walls.

But it was the third act that ruined me.

Because she was alone and suddenly she wasn’t dancing anymore.

She was reaching.

I watched her extend her hand toward empty space, nobody was there. The movement lasted less than two seconds, my stomach twisted because I knew exactly what she was doing.

I saw me. I saw every conversation. Every time she had looked at me waiting for something I never gave her. Every time she had practically handed me her heart and I had stared at it like it was a problem..

A few weeks ago I would have stood here trying to calculate why my chest hurt, now I knew. Unfortunately that knowledge didn’t make it hurt less.

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