Chapter 87

Alessandro

“You do not know me, yet you judge me.”

My voice came out quieter than I intended, but steady. It’d been a while since she’d walked in here, but yet, she was still beside me, the curve of her body curled up by my side. Her breath caught, like she hadn’t expected me to speak. Maybe not after everything we’d just shared, and maybe I hadn’t planned to, not now, but the truth had been boiling under my skin for too long. The ache of it, and the memory of it.

It wasn’t an accusation, not really. It was more of a confession, a cry I had always desired to voice, and the second the words left my mouth, I could feel her shift beside me.

She didn’t move far. Just a breath of space, but I felt it in my chest like someone had taken something from me. I turned my face toward her, slowly, and I caught the way she stiffened, just slightly, the softness of before replaced by something harder, more guarded.

But she didn’t leave, and that was something.<