Therapy sessions with specialists flown in from Milan. Experimental treatments that cost more than most men earned in a lifetime. Comfort food prepared by my own hands in the massive kitchen while the cook watched in bewilderment. I dragged him to shows and performances, anything to crack that frozen exterior. I laughed until my sides ached at a comedy club downtown, tears streaming down my face.
He sat beside me, rigid and silent as a tombstone.
It wasn't until the night he proposed that he seemed to summon every ounce of willpower he possessed—just to force two words past his lips.
"Marry me."
The joy I felt then was equal to the devastation I felt now.
Of course I couldn't cure Nico's mutism. I was never the cure. I was the bandage slapped over a wound that belonged to someone else.
Bitterness pooled in my chest like poison, followed by a creeping dread that wrapped around my throat: his cure had returned. Massima Gallo had crawled back from her European exile, and she had come to reclaim what she believed was hers.
So where did that leave me?