Dante POV:
"Why would she threaten you?" I asked Isabella, my voice level. "That's not her style."
Isabella's face crumpled. "Because she's jealous, Dante! You chose me."
The door to her apartment swung open and Marco walked in, his expression carved from stone. He glanced from me to a crying Isabella and scoffed.
"Still playing the victim?" he said to her, contempt lacing every word. He turned his cold eyes on me. "You should have been at the hospital. With your dying, pregnant wife."
The words didn't register at first. They were just sounds, disconnected from meaning.
Dying. Pregnant. Wife.
The air was stolen from my lungs. It felt like I'd been punched in the gut, the force of it knocking me back a step. Pregnant. Seraphina was pregnant.
A wave of guilt so suffocating it made my stomach turn crashed over me. Thank God she wasn't here. Thank God she couldn't see the look on my face.
Thoughts of Seraphina consumed me for the rest of the day. My friends tried to cheer me up, dragging me out for a drink, but their voices were a dull buzz in the background, meaningless.
All I could see was her face from the day of the fire, the quiet hope shining in her eyes.
That night, back at Isabella's, she tried to seduce me. Her hands moved over my chest, her lips found my neck. It was a familiar dance, one that used to set my blood on fire.
Tonight, I felt nothing. A hollow emptiness where the heat used to be.
My mind was somewhere else entirely. I was remembering the shy way Seraphina would touch my arm, the way her cheeks would flush when I caught her looking at me. A faint, genuine smile touched my lips at the memory.
Isabella saw it. "What are you smiling about?" she asked, her voice sharp, cutting through the haze.
The smile vanished. I felt nothing for the woman in my arms but a numb, weary sense of obligation. The passion was gone, burned out, leaving only ash.
Later, after she'd fallen asleep, the landline at my house rang, forwarded to my cell. My heart slammed against my ribs. It had to be Seraphina.
I answered, my voice thick with a desperate hope.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Santos?" It was Maria, the housekeeper. Her voice was hesitant. "I'm just calling to confirm... you told me to have Mrs. Santos prepare a celebratory dinner for your return. Are you still expecting that?"
She was back.
She was home.
A wave of intense, dizzying relief slammed into me, so powerful it almost brought me to my knees. She was home.
The relief was immediately followed by a deep, gut-wrenching regret for everything I had done, everything I had said. But she was home.
I could fix this.
I had to.
