28

28

Aaron's POV

I pulled back from my bedroom window and watched Isabella's car leave the estate gates, and tried to make the woman who'd kissed me goodnight, tenderness in her eyes, and the woman who'd stolen the papers from my safe twelve hours beforehand match-up, but they wouldn't.

It was almost too much cognitive dissonance to handle.

At dinner last night, Isabella had looked genuinely torn, almost remorseful. She’d posed weird questions about people wanting to hurt me, about regrets, about whether our marriage could be real. For that brief moment I’d let myself hope that she was having second thoughts about stabbing me in the back.

But this morning she had gone to see Victor, just as I'd known she would. As my watch team would report she was doing.

My phone vibrated with a call from Diablo.

"Boss, Victor's been stirring up the place this morning. Since visiting with your wife, he’s placed a minimum of six calls to family seniors and northern mob bosses.”

"Setting up the meeting?"

"Tomorrow night at the Palazzo Romano. He’s been saying he’s got unmistakable proof of your betrayal to the family.”
Tomorrow night. Victor was going faster than I’d thought I would be able to anticipate, but so was I.

"What about Isabella?"

“She was home an hour ago. Boss, she looked... upset. Like she'd been crying."

Interesting. If Isabella really was 100% supporting Victor, why would she get bent out of shape because of him?
"Keep monitoring Victor's communications. I want an invitation list for tomorrow night’s meeting.”

"Already on it. Boss, there's something else. Victor’s been spreading the word that Isabella is going to show at the meeting and testify against you.”

My jaw clenched. Victor wasn’t just preparing to bring me down - he was preparing to use Isabella as his public witness, to implicate her in my failing in front of the whole family.
"Understood. Deploy our people properly tonight, so that there is a tomorrow night."

"Boss, are you sure you want to keep letting this roll? We might be able to nullify Victor before the meeting.”

"No. Let him have his moment. Let him bring forward his ‘evidence’ for all to hear. It’ll be more satisfying to see him degrade in front of witnesses.”

After I hung up, I looked over the false documents I’d salted my safe with all day, enjoying the anticipation of the thought that Victor would have plenty of rope to hang himself. The falsified communications created an idea whose factual provision would be ruinous — but the devil was in the details, details that would one day reveal how the documents were manufactured.

I waited in the front sitting room when Isabella returned later that afternoon. Her face was pale and anxious, that of someone who had just done something she regretted very, very much.

"How was your day?" I asked, studying her face.

"Fine. Just some errands."

"You look upset."

"I'm just tired."

But she wasn't just tired. She looked like someone weighed down by something awful, someone struggling with guilt and doubt.

I hesitated a bit, thinking of calling her out on her bullshit. Informing her that I was well aware of her dates with Victor, giving her proof of what it was exactly Victor was scheming. But something stopped me — a stubborn belief that she would confess herself, that she would believe enough in me to trust me with the truth.

"Isabella, do you have anything to tell me? You seem troubled."

Her eyes filled with such a well of sadness and pain I thought for a moment she would open up to me and spill all her secrets.

"No," she said finally. "Nothing I can talk about."

“C’mon, you know you can tell me anything. Whatever it is that’s on your mind, we can tackle it together.’

"Can we?"

"Of course. We're married. We're supposed to be partners."

A smile crossed her face, but it didn’t make it to her eyes. "I know. Thank you."

I was determined that very night. If tomorrow night was going to be the end of whatever was blossoming between Isabella and me, if she truly planned to stand by that egotistical son of a bitch and watch while he attempted to ruin me, then I wanted one more night where I could pretend that we were simply a regular couple with feelings for one another.

I set up dinner in the tiny dining room, with everything she loved — flowers, wine, music that made her smile. I wanted to provide her with a perfect evening, possibly the last perfect evening we’d ever have.

“This is gorgeous,” she said when she entered the setup.

“I wanted tonight to be amazing.”

"Is there something you're celebrating?"

"Just... us. The progress we've made. That you’re beginning to think of me as more than the man your father bullied you into marrying.”

Isabella's face folded up in a grimace and she turned away.

“Hey,” I said softly, sitting down beside her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. This is just... very thoughtful."

But tears filled her eyes, and I suddenly knew that my romantic gesture was not making her happy. Because she knows what comes tomorrow night. She knew she was going to betray the man who worked so hard to make her happy.

During dinner, I observed her grappling with some inner turmoil that I couldn’t begin to decipher. She would smile at something I said, then seem guilty for smiling. She would reach out and take my hand and then withdraw it as if she didn’t deserve the solace of my touch.

“Isabella, I have something to ask you.”

"What?"

“Do you believe in us? A real future, I mean. Not pretending to be married, but actually forming a life together.”

The mere question seemed to cause her pain. She clutched her chest and tried to steady her breath.

“I hope that there’s going to be,” she said softly.

"But?"

"But I'm scared."

"Of what?”

"Of disappointing you. Of not being the kind of wife you deserve. Of... hurting you."

The last was a whisper of a murmur, but I heard it. Isabella was afraid of breaking my heart. Which means she knew her actions were going to hurt me.

“Isabella, you could never harm me in any conceivable way that would ever make me stop loving you.”

She looked up at me in tears. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because I love you. And love is about accepting someone exactly as he is, and that includes all of his mistakes.”

“What if the failure was just huge? What if it was something that stood to ruin everything between us?”

“Then we’d be able to deal with it and work through it together.

“You say that now, but what if … what if someone you loved, betrayed you? What if they did something awful, because they believed they had no choice?”

I stretched my arm across the table and held her hand. "Are you insinuating something Isabella?"

Briefly, I actually thought she was going to plead the whole thing out. I could feel her taunting, could feel the words on the edge of her mouth.

Then she shook her head. "No. I'm just... thinking hypothetically."

“Well, in theory, I guess I would want to understand why the person I loved felt they had no choice but to betray me. I wouldn’t want to just jump to conclusions about whether they are right or wrong because I'm sure that I wouldn't understand why they were doing those things.”

"And could you forgive them?"

"If they were truly sorry? If they’d been manipulated or forced into doing something against their will? Yes, I think I could."
Isabella tightened her grip on my hand, and I perceived a gleam of hope in her eyes.

“Aaron, if something goes differently… if something changes for us… I want you to know that tonight was perfect. That me being able to be here having this conversation, having this dinner, the way you made me feel — I won’t ever forget that.”

“Why are you talking as if it’s goodbye?”

"I'm not. I just... I want to thank you for putting up with me." For the way you have tried to gain my heart rather than simply my obedience.”

"Isabella..."

“And I want to let you know that it worked. You did win my heart. And whatever happens, I want you to know that.”

The confession should have been a relief but the way she said it — like a goodbye, like something she might never get the chance to tell me again — filled me with a hard dread.

"What's going to happen, Isabella? What are you afraid of?"

"Nothing. I'm just being emotional."
But we both knew it wasn’t.

After dinner, I walked her back to her room and she looked at me as she was walking into her room.

“Aaron, do you love me? Even knowing I haven’t been the easiest person to be married to?”

"Especially knowing that. You could have made this arrangement miserable for both of us, Isabella — you’ve given me hope that we could have something real.”

"I'm glad. I’m glad I could give that to you.”

She gave me a peck then, such a desperate farewell rather than goodnight. There were tears on her cheeks when she pulled away.

“Goodnight” she mumbled, escaping back into her room.

I remained in the hallway for quite some time after her door closed, trying to process what had just happened. Isabella had more or less told me that she loved me, but she had said it in the form of someone who was about to lose everything.

Victor would present his evidence to the family elders tomorrow night, certain he was about to level me with the information Isabella had stolen. Only Victor didn’t know that I had been planning for this moment for months.

The papers Isabella had handed over, in the end, would be the evidence of Victor's treachery, not mine. The testimony would prove that Victor had been conspiring with outside forces to depose the rightful family leadership. When the meeting was over, the guilty party would be Victor, not me.

But Isabella would be there to witness it. She would see the man she had dared to believe she loved revealed as a traitor and a fool. She would look back with the realization that she was manipulated out of betraying the only person who cared about her well-being.

I just prayed that when everything was over, she would be able to forgive herself – and even more, if possible, someday forgive me for letting her walk right into Victor’s snare without giving her the heads-up.

Tomorrow night would determine everything. Well, if Thomas knew what was good for him, he would order us back to New York before she could discover the full truth about Victor and decide whether to trust my word or lose everything out of guilt and shame once she learned how utterly she'd been used.
Either way, I guess it was almost over.