Chapter 13: Kneeling

Stefano crossed the study and went down on his knees in front of me.

He did it so fast that his knees cracked on the floor.

Aldo made a sound in his throat.

Dario did not move from the window.

"You're alive," Stefano said.

His hands came up toward mine, and I stepped back.

"Don't."

"You're alive. I buried a box of sand and I knelt at it every night."

"I know. I watched you."

His head came up.

"You were there?"

"At the cemetery, behind the stone angel. You asked me to breathe if I could hear you."

He put his hand over his mouth.

"And you didn't."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you didn't give me a reason to."

He took that without moving.

"I'll give you every reason," he said. "The house, the name, the seat. Tell me what you want and it's yours."

"You said that to the grave. I heard it."

"Then hear it again. I was wrong. I was wrong, Maeve, I was a fool, I was Camille's fool."

"You were nobody's fool. You watched me through a screen for three days and you picked up the roses."

"I know."

"You smiled."

"I know I did."

"Say what you did."

His jaw worked.

"I let you kneel in front of my picture," he said. "I let my mother faint on the floor. I let you drink poison."

"You didn't let me drink it."

"I didn't stop it. It's the same."

I looked down at the man who had once slid a ring onto my finger and kissed my knuckles in front of his whole Family.

I felt nothing at all, and that frightened me more than rage would have.

Two years of loving him had gone somewhere I could not find.

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