Page 128 of Alessio

For herself—just her.

After knowing what they could do … what had been done to her … After everything, Ginevra still found that need deep in her bones that she wanted to be with Corrado and Alessio more than she had wanted anything in her life.

Ginevra was not who she assumed she was before them. And she would never be the same after, either.

That terrified her.

And changed nothing.

“Ginny.”

Turning on the bench seat in front of the window, Ginevra found a very familiar face in the living room’s entryway room. Chris smiled, but the sight didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“How’re you doing?” Chris asked.

Ginevra shrugged under the oversized sweater that Marcus found for her. “I’m not sure.”

Chris cleared his throat. “Hmm. Corrado called—Les, too.”

She swallowed the ache in her throat. It only became even more painful with every beat of her heart, making it impossible to ignore. Somehow, she talked through it. “I just … need a bit of time.”

To keep thinking, and to realize, this was the life she wanted. To get over herself, in a way.

After the time she had spent with either one, or both men in the past months, they should at least give her a day to herself.

“Let them explain,” Chris said.

Ginevra’s brow furrowed. “What is there to explain?”

She understood perfectly well what happened. The mess in her heart and soul needed dealt with now, and they couldn’t help with that. This was on her.

Right?

Chris’s features went stony, leaving Ginevra confused. “I will let them know, then.”

“A lot was taken from me,” Ginevra tried to explain, “and I’ve shoved it aside while I was here … so it’s catching up in different ways.”

This was one.

Chris nodded. “I understand.”

It didn’t sound like he did, though.

Then, he asked, “Anything else you want me to tell them? I’m about to meet up with them at the mansion in a couple of hours, so I can pass it along face to face.”

All over again, she considered the conversation with Cara in the restaurant. How she told her, in so many words, to always make the best of this life.

She didn’t have to make the best of anything.

Not when she had Corrado and Alessio.

“Ginevra?” Chris asked again. “Anything?”

“Yeah. Tell them I lo—”

Marcus stepped into the entryway beside his brother, making her words stop short as he held out a phone with a small smile. “Someone would like to speak to you from New York, Ginevra.”

Her gaze darted to Chris, but he stepped back to let Marcus offer the phone still outstretched for her to take. She did but didn’t look down at the screen right away to see if she might recognize the number.