My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 642

Chapter 642

Pepple continued walking through the ballroom. Someone greeted Vincenzo across the room. A priest quietly spoke with Claire. Nobody seemed to notice what was happening beside Mom’s casket.

Raphael’s eyes never left Salvatore’s, “I know what she needs. And if she needs something I can’t anticipate… she’ll tell me.”

His hand found mine. Our fingers slipped togeth

naturally, almost automatically.

Salvatore held Raphael’s gaze for several long seconds, then a quiet breath left his nose, “Not everything has to become a fight.”

“It isn’t.”

“It looks like one.”

“It only looks that way because you keep trying to stand where I’ve already made my place.”

The words were spoken so evenly that they barely sounded like a challenge.

Salvatore glanced at me. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak. I simply kept looking at Mom.

Raphael continued, “And because today’s about Hazel… I’m choosing to end this conversation before it becomes disrespectful to her.”

Something shifted in Salvatore’s face, “I care about Gianna.”

“So do I.”

“I’ve cared about her long before—”

“I know,” Raphael cut him off without a hint of impatience, “And you’ll continue to. I have no intention of

changing that but wher

Gianna stands… isn’t a decision either of us gets to make for her “intention of

I could feel Salvatore watching me, waiting for me to choose a side.

My eyes stayed on Mom, on her beautiful hands. I remembered those hands brushing my hair away from my face. Holding mine when I struggled to read, holding me after every nightmare.

Now…

They would never move again.

I slowly slipped my hand out of Raphael’s, not because I wanted to leave him, not because I agreed with Salvatore.

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