Chapter 7
My mother’s handwriting blurred immediately.
My dearest Amelia,
If you are reading this, then life did not give me enough years to explain everything myself.
I need you to know first that nothing contained in this box is meant to choose your future for you.
Love that demands a particular future is not love. It is fear wearing a respectable coat.
I stopped.
My father looked away.
I continued.
Elena and I created this trust because we believed our children might someday do something wiser with what our families built than the adults around them had managed to do. You owe Niko nothing. He owes you nothing.
If you become friends, let it be freely.
If you become strangers, let it be peacefully.
And if others tell you that family loyalty requires surrendering your judgment, remember that loyalty without choice becomes obligation, and obligation is a poor foundation for love.
My hands shook.
There was more.
One final paragraph.
There is another reason I placed these papers beyond Arthur’s reach. Your father is a good man when fear is not making decisions for him. If he ever forgets that, remind him that protecting someone is not the same as controlling what they are allowed to know.
I lowered the letter.
My father’s eyes were wet.
“She knew me very well,” he said softly.
For a long time, none of us spoke.
Then Niko picked up the letter addressed to him.
He did not open it.
“Not here,” he said.
I understood.
Some truths needed privacy.
When we returned to the penthouse that evening, Sofia was waiting.
Niko told her everything.
She listened without interrupting, her face growing more serious with each detail.
When he finished, she looked at me.
“So the marriage never had to happen.”
“No,” I said.
Sofia looked at her brother.
“And now?”
That question had been following us all afternoon.
Now.
We were legally married.
The reason for the marriage had vanished.
My father had promised to cooperate with our attorneys if we wanted an annulment.
There was nothing preventing us from ending it.
Niko looked at me.
“Amelia decides what she wants.”
Sofia’s eyebrows rose.
“So do you.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re making her go first.”
He frowned.
“That isn’t what I’m doing.”
“It sounds suspiciously like what you’re doing.”
I almost smiled.
Niko glanced at me.
“We don’t have to decide tonight.”
“No,” I agreed.
Sofia wisely disappeared into the kitchen.
For several seconds, the room was silent.
Then I asked, “Are you going to read your letter?”
Niko looked down at the envelope.
“Eventually.”
“Are you afraid of it?”
His expression changed.
“Yes.”
The answer was so simple that it surprised me.
“What do you think it says?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s usually the problem with unopened letters.”
He gave me a look.
“Thank you, counselor.”
“I’m not a lawyer yet.”
“You argue like one.”
I sat on the edge of the sofa.
“Why didn’t your mother ever tell you about mine?”
“She might have intended to.”
He turned the envelope over in his hands.
“She died when I was nineteen. There were plenty of conversations we thought we had time for.”
I knew that feeling too well.
“Read it,” I said.
He looked at me.
“You don’t have to tell me what it says.”
He nodded.
Then he opened the envelope.
I tried not to watch his face.
I failed.
At first, nothing changed.
Then something in the letter made him inhale sharply.
He sat down across from me.
Minutes passed.
When he finished, he remained very still.
“What is it?” I asked.
Niko looked toward the windows.
“My mother knew about the amendment.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Not the forged document itself. The idea.”
He handed me the final page.
May you like
His mother had apparently written to mine years earlier, worried that Vittorio had begun speaking of eventually joining the families through marriage.
My mother’s reply was included.
