Chapter 36 Cutting Conversations

Chapter 36 Cutting Conversations

Giulia walked down the stairs already feeling the weight of the night on her shoulders, even with the sky still glowing orange through the glass. The smell of food reached her before the sight of the table, but nothing about it resembled a honeymoon dinner. It felt more like a boardroom meeting on the verge of war.

The table on the veranda was set for two, candles lit, wine already open, plates still steaming. Too beautiful to match the things that were about to come out of their mouths. Vicenzo was already seated at the head, sleeves rolled up, no tie, his face shadowed by the low light. He lifted his eyes as she approached.

“I thought you’d lock yourself in your room,” he commented, like it was casual conversation.

“I thought so too,” she replied, pulling out the chair across from him. “But you’re persistent with this obsession for the truth. Didn’t want to disappoint you.”

He watched her sit, the way she adjusted the shorts against her thigh, the stretch of her neck as she pulled her hair into a higher bun. There was something about that simplicity that bothered him more than any expensive dress.

“I usually get what I want,” he said, pouring wine for both of them, the dark liquid filling the glasses with a sound that matched the conversation coming. “The truth is rarely an exception.”

“The truth usually has multiple versions,” she said, picking up the glass before he finished pouring, swirling the wine, studying the color. “You just choose the one that hurts less. Or the one that lets you keep being the villain of your own story.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. Not a smile. Recognition that she had hit something he wouldn’t admit out loud.

“Eat,” he said simply, nodding toward the plate. “You’ll need the energy. I don’t go easy.”

Giulia stabbed a piece of meat, chewed without really tasting it, her stomach tighter with anxiety than hunger. Still, eating gave her hands and mouth something to do that wasn’t shaking or spilling truths she wasn’t ready to release.

For a few minutes, the only sounds were cutlery and the sea below. The silence between them was dense, but not empty. It was the silence of people loading ammunition.

She broke it.

“Do you remember the last thing Luca said to you?” she asked, without looking up from her plate.

Vicenzo set his fork down carefully, as if any sudden movement might splatter past blood across the table.

“I do,” he answered. “He said, ‘You’re going to hate her at first sight.’”

Giulia slowly lifted her eyes, surprised.

“That’s what he said?”

“It is.” He picked up his glass, took a sip, the wine going down like water. “I told him he was too in love to see clearly. He laughed. Said, ‘By the time you realize I’m right, it’ll already be too late for you.’”

She swallowed hard. The sentence seemed to cross time and land right there, between them.

“And was it?” she asked, her tone mixing irony with a stupid trace of hope. “Too late?”

He stared at the wine for a second, like it deserved his attention. Then he looked up.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he said, too honest.

Giulia let out a low laugh, because the alternative was digging her fingers into her own eyes to keep from crying.

“Good to know my sentence comes with an open deadline,” she murmured, lifting the glass. She took a bigger sip than she should have, letting it burn down her throat. “Speaking of sentences, let’s get to it. What exactly are you trying to pull out of me tonight?”

“It’s not just about what happened to Luca,” Vicenzo leaned back, one arm over the chair, the glass in his other hand. “It’s about why you’re capable of accepting to live with a man who thinks you killed his best friend.”

She set the glass down harder than she meant to. The wine nearly spilled.

“You really want to talk about capability?” Her eyes turned colder. “You’re a man who managed to turn grief into a contract. Congratulations, that’s real talent.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw, but he didn’t back down.

“We deal with pain using the weapons we have,” he said. “I don’t know how to live without control. You don’t know how to live without guilt. Fine. Everyone has their addiction.”

She took another sip, even bigger this time.

“Guilt?” she repeated, resting her elbow on the table, the glass dangling from her fingers. “Guilt is the only thing keeping me standing. If I let that go, what’s left? Accepting I can be happy after Luca died? Sorry, I’m not that good at forgiving myself.”

He leaned forward, forearm on the table, closing the distance.

“Happiness isn’t a reward for good behavior,” he said, his tone sounding older than his years. “If it were, neither of us would even deserve this dinner.”

“It’s not about deserving,” she tightened her grip on the glass. “It’s about respect. Loving someone else after him would be spitting on everything we had.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“Love,” he repeated. “Interesting word choice.”

She blinked.

“It’s a normal word,” she shrugged, trying to sound casual. “People use it. You used it too when you talked about your parents, remember?”

“I used it in the past,” he corrected. “And I learned my lesson. Love is the weapon the world uses to get close enough to your skin to know where to drive the knife. After that, I learned to lock the door.”

“Really?” she tilted her head, a strand of hair slipping from her bun. “Because for someone who locked the door, you insist a lot on keeping me inside the house.”

He tightened his grip on the glass, the crystal almost creaking.

“I keep you here because you’re useful,” he said flatly. “Don’t confuse necessity with feeling.”

Giulia let out a short, hollow laugh.

“Yeah. Of course.” She drank again, emptying half the glass. “You bought me like someone buys a failing asset: use it until it’s useless, then discard it.”

His hand shot out fast, grabbing her wrist before the glass reached her lips.

“You’ve had enough,” he said, his tone somewhere between order and warning.

She froze for a second, feeling the heat of his hand on her skin. Then she pulled away, irritated, freeing herself, though she couldn’t hide the shiver.

“Take your hand off me, Vicenzo.”

He didn’t just let go—he extended his fingers and took the glass from her in a smooth, calculated movement. It slipped from her fingers into his without spilling a drop.

“I don’t have a problem dealing with your sharp tongue,” he said, slowly rotating the glass. “But drunk, you get sentimental. And I didn’t come here to listen to emotional breakdowns.”

Heat rose to her face.

“Are you afraid I’ll say too much when I drink?” she challenged, crossing her arms. “Or are you afraid you’ll say too much when you see someone bleeding in front of you?”

He inhaled, closed his eyes for a second like he was counting to ten.

“I deal better with blood than with tears,” he admitted. “Blood, I know where it comes from. Tears, I don’t.”

Giulia leaned forward, elbows on the table, her face closer to his. The wine, the salt in the air, and the scent of his cologne mixed in a way that affected her more than it should have.

“You’re avoiding saying ‘love’ out loud, Vicenzo,” she accused with a crooked smile. “Like the word itself might curse you.”

“Love is a luxury I can’t afford,” he replied quietly. “I’ve seen what that word does. My parents believed in it and ended up dead on their own floor. Luca believed in it and ended up in a morgue. What do you want me to do? Open my arms and say ‘come on, destroy what’s left’?”

She blinked, her chest tightening. She had expected sarcasm, not a wound spoken out loud.

“So that’s it,” she said more softly. “You turn everything into a contract so you can pretend you’re in control.”

He gave a half-smile.

“A contract I can tear up,” he said. “Love, I can’t. It sticks to the corners of your soul even after you think you’ve cleaned everything out.”

Giulia looked away, grabbed her fork again just to have something in her hands, cutting into the food without any intention of eating.

“You think I don’t know that?” she asked, staring at the utensil. “I lost Luca, Vicenzo. I didn’t lose a distraction. I lost the man who taught me how to breathe without looking over my shoulder. And now, every time I feel anything remotely like that, it feels like I’m betraying him.”

She looked up, defiant.

“So don’t ask me to be light. Don’t ask me not to feel guilty. That’s who I am. I carry the weight of things. And yes, to me, loving someone else after him is betrayal. Even if he’ll never know. Even if it kills me slowly.”

The words lingered between them. Vicenzo stayed silent for a moment, studying every tiny tremor in her face. His glass hung forgotten in the air.

“And yet…” he set it down slowly. “You’re here. On the island of the man you think wants to destroy you. Sleeping in his bed. Drinking wine with him. Closing your eyes when he touches you.”

She swallowed hard. Every recent moment flashed through her mind: the jet, the dream, his body, her own betraying reactions, the desire she kept trying to rationalize.

“That’s not love,” she said firmly. “That’s attraction. Anger. Trauma. Flesh asking for anesthesia. Don’t romanticize my hell.”

“You really think you can separate those things that well?” he tilted his head, studying her. “Your body knows the difference, Giulia. Mine does too.”

She laughed, a little desperate this time.

“Your body has no moral ground to speak from,” she shot back. “It reacts to anything that breathes and challenges you.”

He leaned in further, closing the distance. The air between them felt charged.

“Really?” his voice dropped. “You think I put a ring on your finger, brought you to my island, put you in my bed just because you challenge me?”

Her eyes narrowed, her heart jumping stupidly.

“You brought me because you needed a villain to fit Luca’s death,” she fired back. “And because the world applauds men who say they turned pain into power. It sounds nice to say you’ve got me on my knees while pretending it’s just revenge.”

He took a deep breath.

“Giulia…” he said, in a tone she hadn’t heard from him before. Not an order. Not sarcasm. Something in between. “You really don’t see it?”

“See what?” she snapped, clinging to provocation like armor. “That you’re falling for the woman you think killed your best friend and it makes you sick?”

He went completely still. It was the first time anyone had said it that directly to his face. The silence that followed was almost tangible.

She noticed. And didn’t back down.

“Because that’s what’s tearing you apart,” she continued. “If I’m guilty, you’re an idiot for feeling anything. If I’m innocent, you’re a monster for everything you’ve done to me. Either way, you lose.”

His fingers tightened against the table. In another context, he might have laughed. Now, he just drew in air with effort.

“You talk like you’re not in the same mess,” he said firmly. “If you love me, you betray Luca. If you don’t, you betray yourself. And you stay trapped in this contract you chose. In the end, you lose too.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again. The truth in that hurt because it was real.

She grabbed the glass automatically. Before she could drink, his hand moved again, fast, gripping the base.

“Enough,” he said. Not harsh, but final. “You’re drinking like wine is going to erase his face. Or mine.”

She held onto the glass too, their fingers meeting over the crystal. For a second, neither of them let go.

“Give it back,” she said quietly.

“No.”

She pulled harder. He held firm. The glass became a line of war between them, the contact of their fingers burning more than the alcohol ever could.

Her gaze dropped to his fingers over hers, then lifted to his face. He did the same. Their hands didn’t want to let go. Their bodies wanted to move closer. Their minds screamed to pull back.

The air changed. Anger, pain, guilt… all tangled with a desire that refused to die—instead, it grew stronger in that kind of chaos.

Giulia felt the clear impulse to lean in, to close the distance, to shut him up with her mouth, to turn that cutting conversation into something else. He felt it too. It showed in the way his eyes dropped to her lips, returned to her eyes, hesitated halfway.

She let go of the glass suddenly, like she’d been shocked. Her hand withdrew to her lap. He was left holding it alone, the abrupt gesture breaking whatever was building.

“You’re right about one thing,” she said, leaning back, arms crossed like she needed to hold herself together. “We’re in the same mess. And that’s exactly why it would be even more stupid to mix it with… whatever the hell this thing is that keeps pulling us together.”

He rotated the glass in his hand, looking out toward the sea for a second, taking a breath like he needed the horizon to remember who he was.

“Don’t worry,” he said finally, his voice colder again. “I’m not interested in turning this into romance. I’m not the hero, Giulia. And you’re not the heroine. We’re just the kind of people who destroy each other better together than apart.”

She bit the inside of her lip, hiding how much that hurt—and how much it made sense.

“Great,” she said. “Then it’s settled. No love, no happy ending, no self-deception. Just truth. No matter how ugly.”

He nodded once.

“Just truth.”

They fell silent again, each swallowing their own version of what they had just admitted and denied at the same time. Dinner continued mechanically, bites without taste, glasses half-finished.

When they were done, he pushed his chair back and stood first.

“Tomorrow I want you to tell me everything you remember differently,” he said, professional, like scheduling a meeting. “If those flashes are coming back, the island is working. Use it.”

She looked up, tired but steady.

“And you?” she asked. “What are you going to remember here?”

He held the back of the chair for a second, fingers tightening against the wood. Then gave that crooked half-smile she was starting to recognize as armor.

“Me?” he shrugged. “I’ll remember why loving someone is always the worst idea.”

He turned and walked toward the living room, his silhouette fading into the shadows of the house.

Giulia stayed alone at the table, the plates still warm, the candle almost burned out. She ran her fingers over the spot where his hand had touched hers earlier, feeling a stupid shiver climb her arm.

“Betrayal or not…” she murmured, to no one. “I’m already fucked either way.”

She grabbed his glass, now abandoned, and drank the rest of the wine in one go.

The taste lingered in her mouth—bitter and sweet. Just like that dinner. Just like him. Just like the kind of truth that was coming, sharp and unavoidable, and that neither of them would be able to escape for much longer.