Chapter 9 - THE LAST THING LORENZO ROMANO ASKED FORGrandfather suffered a heart attack at breakfast.
Nathan was with me when the call came.
Within minutes, we were racing toward Romano House.
I became Bella at ten years old again.
Not chairwoman.
Not mother.
Not billionaire heiress.
A terrified granddaughter.
Grandfather survived surgery.
Barely.
For two days, machines breathed beside him.
I sat by his bed.
Dante brought Sofia.
Nathan stayed when I asked and disappeared when I needed family privacy.
On the third morning, Lorenzo opened his eyes.
“Bambina.”
I nearly collapsed with relief.
“You scared me.”
“I enjoy drama.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So your mother said.”
His voice was weak.
Then he looked around.
“Where’s Mercer?”
“Dante?”
“Do you have another?”
I laughed through tears.
Dante came that afternoon.
Grandfather asked to speak with both of us.
Nathan offered to leave the hospital entirely.
I kissed him.
“Stay nearby.”
Inside Grandfather’s room, Lorenzo looked at Dante for a long time.
“You hurt my granddaughter.”
Dante nodded.
“Yes.”
“I wanted to destroy you.”
“I know.”
“I could have.”
“I know.”
Grandfather almost smiled.
“But Bella wouldn’t let me.”
Dante looked at me.
“I know that too.”
Lorenzo shifted painfully.
“Why?”
I frowned.
“Why what?”
“Why didn’t you destroy him?”
I looked at Dante.
“Because Sofia loves him.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
I thought carefully.
“Because consequences should correct what can be corrected. Revenge just keeps pain alive.”
Grandfather stared at me.
Then smiled.
“Your mother.”
Two words.
The greatest compliment he could give.
He looked at Dante.
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“What did you learn?”
Dante swallowed.
“That a man who needs a woman to be weaker before he can feel strong isn’t strong.”
Grandfather nodded.
“Good.”
Then he closed his eyes.
“I can die now.”
“No.”
His eyes reopened.
“Worth trying.”
I laughed and cried simultaneously.
He recovered.
Slowly.
The heart attack changed him.
For the first time, Lorenzo genuinely stepped away from business.
He spent afternoons with Sofia.
Learned to make pancakes.
Badly.
Started telling me stories about Mom I had never heard.
Our family became softer.
Then Nathan proposed.
No restaurant.
No photographers.
No vineyard.
We were cooking dinner at my house.
Technically, Nathan was burning dinner.
The smoke alarm went off.
Sofia was laughing.
I opened windows.
When I turned around, Nathan was kneeling on the kitchen floor.
I stared.
“Are you having a medical emergency?”
“Bella.”
“What?”
“I had a plan.”
I started laughing.
“So did dinner.”
“Please stop.”
He held out a ring.
My laughter disappeared.
Sofia gasped dramatically because Nathan had apparently trained her.
“Mommy!”
“Traitor.”
Nathan smiled.
“I know you don’t need me.”
My throat tightened.
“And I know you could build a perfectly beautiful life without me.”
Tears came.
“But I would really like to build one beside you.”
Beside.
Not ahead.
Not behind.
Beside.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
Sofia screamed louder than the smoke alarm.
Our wedding was scheduled for spring.
Small.
Family only.
Then I faced a decision I never expected.
Whether to invite Dante.
Nathan brought it up first.
“He should come.”
I stared.
“To our wedding?”
“He’s Sofia’s father.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“He’s part of your family.”
I studied him.
“You’re strange.”
“I’m secure.”
“That sounded arrogant.”
“It was.”
I laughed.
Dante accepted the invitation quietly.
Then, two weeks before the wedding, he asked to meet Nathan alone.
I found out afterward.
“What did you talk about?”
Nathan refused to tell me.
Dante refused too.
Finally Sofia betrayed them.
“Daddy told Nate Mommy cries when she gets scared.”
I froze.
Nathan looked guilty.
“What else?”
Sofia thought.
“Daddy said you pretend you don’t.”
I looked at Dante the next morning.
“You told Nathan how to take care of me?”
He shrugged.
“He asked what you need when you’re overwhelmed.”
“And?”
“I told him you don’t need solutions. You need tea, quiet, and approximately twenty minutes before you’re willing to admit you’re upset.”
I stared.
Seven years.
For all his failures, Dante had known me.
That made forgiveness easier and sadder at once.
“Thank you.”
He nodded.
Then handed me an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“A wedding gift.”
“I’m not opening it now.”
“You should.”
Inside was a legal document.
Dante had transferred his remaining interest in the old Westchester estate to a charitable trust.
The property would become a residential support center for pregnant women escaping abusive or unstable homes.
I stared at him.
“Why?”
His eyes became distant.
“Because that house became a monument to the worst version of me.”
He looked at Sofia playing nearby.
“I wanted it to become something better.”
I hugged him.
Not as a wife.
Not as a woman reconsidering.
As someone acknowledging that people can change even when change does not restore what they destroyed.
Then Dante whispered:
May you like
“I’m happy for you, Bella.”
And I knew he finally meant it.
