Page 333 of Mario
The words are gentle, but they do not comfort me.
Becausethatis the problem.
He had it already. The once-in-a-lifetime thing. The kind of love people spend years hoping to find, and some never do.
He had the full table. The love of his life. The sons who still speak of her reverently. She’s stitched into the walls of a house bought years after she died
And I am terrified because I want something I don’t believe life gives twice. And I want it with him.
Even if it's too soon, even if it doesn't make any sense.
Mario is quiet for so long that I wonder if I have said too much.
Then his hand moves from beneath my chin to my cheek.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do.
His eyes are steady on mine.
“I cannot promise you the same life I had with Anna.”
My chest tightens.
“I would not insult either of you by trying.” His thumb brushes once over my cheek. “But I can promise you this. What grows here will not be less because I have loved before.”
I close my eyes because I want to believe that so badly it hurts.
“How can you know that?” I ask.
“Because it already isn’t less.”
My eyes open.
His face is closer now, serious and unguarded in a way I've never seen before.
“You walked into my building once,” he says. “Once, Victoria. That was all it took for me to rethink everything I thought I knew for the past ten years.
“I thought my life was full because I had made it useful. My sons. My brothers. The family. The businesses. The work.”
His thumb moves slowly against my cheek.
“Then you walked into my conference room, shook my hand, and held on just a moment longer. And for the first time in a decade, I wanted something that had nothing to do with duty.”
I sniffle and take a shaky breath.
“Youheld on just a moment longer,” I say.
He laughs.
“Very well. But you did not fight it.”
“I was being polite.”
“You were looking at my mouth.”
My cheeks heat despite everything. “That is an entirely different conversation.”
