“Today is what?” He finally looked up. The weight of years pressed into his face, carving lines I hadn’t noticed before. “You’re not young anymore. The world won’t be kind to someone like you. You’re not Vivienne.”
Vivienne. My sister-in-law. His brother’s widow. Tall, blonde, perfect, like she stepped straight out of a magazine. Always poised, always judging, and Marcello never corrected her.
“She’s young,” he continued, voice clinical, almost bored. “Travels for business, attends every family function. Fits the image. But you—you’ve always been behind the scenes. That’s where you belong. The household. The family. Keeping it all running.”
And behind me, the twins laughed again. Innocent, cruel, oblivious.
I closed my eyes for a moment, breathing in the sharp reality of it all. The cruise, the promise, the life that should have been mine—already belonged to someone else.
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That night, after the clamor died and the family vanished into their rooms, I went to the bedroom. From the closet, I pulled out the old red suitcase—the one he had given me in Naples before our wedding.
Before everything twisted into what it had become.