Page 162 of Alessio

“I always take care of everyone else,” Ginevra said, her hand leaving Alessio so she could fix the bottle on the wet bar. “I was the friend my mother didn’t have because she had been so isolated and dependent on a man who only used her for years; a caretaker for my sisters, and even when our mother was still alive, I filled in where she couldn’t. And I was willing to marry a man I didn’t know and didn’t want to protect the people I cared about. In every other aspect of my life, I still take care of other people because it’s what I do. It’s who I am. I want to say sorry for making you think I was leaving you behind, but I can’t because someone else needed me more for a bit.”

Corrado cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t have to apologize for being selfless, Ginny.”

“Except you didn’t see me that way, did you?”

“What do you mean?”

Ginevra frowned. “Selfless. You didn’t see me the way I am because I don’t have to be that with either of you—I never have to sacrifice for you or Les. You don’t ask for more than I give, and you take care of me far more often than I take care of you.”

“Debatable,” Alessio spoke up, “but I think the way you take care of us, as you say, is so ingrained in who you are, and how you fit us, that you don’t feel like you have to do it. It just is, but we notice it.”

Corrado nodded. “We do, and when it was gone, well … it went badly, didn’t it?”

Alessio glanced Corrado’s way.

A crooked smile answered him back.

Where was the lie?

“So, how do we fix that?” Corrado asked. “This, I mean, how do we make sure it doesn’t happen again? Because this is where you want to be, with us, and you are where we want you to be … so we need to make sure this is where you stay, Ginny. I love you, and I need you to stay.”

“A rule,” Ginevra said.

Alessio made a noise under his breath.

She looked to Corrado for an explanation, and he grinned when he murmured, “Those are what got us into trouble.”

Exactly.

Alessio stayed quiet.

“All right,” Ginevra said, “an understanding, then. Better?”

Alessio tipped his chin down to agree.

“We don’t shut out people we love, and we don’t shut off from them, either,” Ginevra said. “Ever.”

“Just like that?” Corrado asked. “That’s all you want from us?”

She met Corrado’s gaze, unafraid and so sure.

Alessio smiled—life was right again.

Or it was getting there.

“And we stay together,” Ginevra said quieter. “No matter what. Because I’m not me without the two of you, and I might be selfless to everyone else, but I am selfish enough with my happiness that I want to keep both of you.”

“Do you?”

“How could I not when I love you?”

Yes, Alessio thought, life was most definitely right again.

Corrado stilled at Ginevra’s statement, his gaze skipping to Alessio for a split second. Alessio hadn’t missed it, and he was quick to ask, “What?”

“I just …”

“Corrado,” Alessio murmured.