Chapter 15 - What Love Was Never Supposed to Be
Nico kept the letter unopened for two days.
Arthur discovered it on his kitchen counter.
“You’re afraid of paper now?”
“Leave.”
Arthur picked up his coffee.
“You’ve faced prosecutors with less anxiety.”
“I said leave.”
“You want me to open it?”
Nico’s glare answered.
Arthur sat instead.
Eventually Nico opened the envelope.
The letter was short.
Elena had learned Carlo was dead years earlier but had never contacted Nico because she believed too much time had passed.
Then she saw news coverage of the investigations.
She saw photographs.
Read stories about him dismantling the old organization.
And finally gathered enough courage to write.
I do not expect forgiveness. I only want you to know I tried to come back.
Nico read that sentence repeatedly.
Then he called me.
We met at the lake.
Cold wind pushed across the water.
He handed me the letter without explanation.
I read it.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you want to meet her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then don’t decide today.”
Nico looked frustrated.
“I hate when therapists say that.”
“I’m not your therapist.”
“You’re equally annoying.”
I smiled.
Then became serious.
“You don’t owe her reconciliation.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t owe your father loyalty.”
“I know.”
“And if you see her, you don’t have to decide what it means immediately.”
He stared toward the water.
“Why did she wait eighteen years?”
“Ask her.”
“What if I hate the answer?”
“Then at least you’ll hate the truth instead of a story someone else wrote for you.”
He looked at me.
“You’ve become unbearably wise.”
“I charge less than Dr. Greene.”
Nico eventually agreed to meet Elena.
He asked me to come.
I said no.
He looked hurt.
“This belongs to you,” I explained. “Not us.”
So Arthur accompanied him to a quiet restaurant in Phoenix.
Elena was sixty-two.
Gray in her dark hair.
Hands trembling when Nico entered.
He stopped ten feet away.
For years he had imagined this woman as someone who abandoned him.
Then as someone his father trapped.
Reality was more complicated.
She looked human.
Older.
Terrified.
“Nicolas.”
Nobody called him that.
His eyes burned.
“Hello.”
They spoke for three hours.
She apologized.
Explained.
Cried.
Nico did too, although he denied this when Arthur later mentioned it.
Elena had tried repeatedly to gain custody.
Carlo used money and influence to bury her.
Eventually threats—not physical, but financial and legal—made her believe contacting Nico would hurt him.
She remarried years later.
Built a quiet life.
Carried guilt through all of it.
“Why didn’t you come after he died?” Nico asked.
“Because I saw what you had become.”
The answer hurt.
She continued.
“You looked like him.”
Nico looked down.
“And I was afraid.”
The son Carlo taught to fear abandonment had become someone his own mother feared approaching.
That truth followed Nico back to Chicago.
He arrived at my apartment after midnight.
I opened the door.
One look at his face and I stepped aside.
He sat on the sofa.
I waited.
Finally he said, “She was afraid of me.”
I sat nearby.
“She didn’t know you.”
“She knew enough.”
“Nico.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“My father spent his life making everyone around him smaller.”
His voice cracked.
“I did it too.”
I reached for his hand.
“You did.”
He nodded.
No argument.
“But you stopped.”
“After you left.”
“Yes.”
“Why couldn’t I stop before?”
“Because I stayed.”
He stared.
I continued carefully.
“I don’t mean that leaving was your fault or mine.”
I took a breath.
“But every time you crossed a line and I adjusted around it, we both learned the wrong lesson.”
His eyes dropped.
“I learned you’d stay.”
“And I learned staying proved I loved you.”
Silence.
“That wasn’t love,” I said.
“What was it?”
“Fear mixed with devotion.”
Nico nodded slowly.
“What is love, then?”
I smiled sadly.
“I think we’re still learning.”
He stayed until dawn.
Not in my bed.
On the sofa.
We talked.
Really talked.
About his father.
His mother.
Our first date.
The first time I realized his life was dangerous.
The first lie I told myself.
At five in the morning, Nico said, “I used to think providing for you was love.”
“It can be.”
“But I used it instead of listening.”
“Yes.”
“I thought protecting you was love.”
“It can be.”
“But I used it to control where you went.”
“Yes.”
“I thought needing you was weakness.”
I squeezed his hand.
“And now?”
“Now I think pretending not to need anyone was the weakness.”
I smiled.
“That sounds expensive.”
“Therapy again.”
When morning arrived, Nico prepared to leave.
At the door, I stopped him.
“Do you want breakfast?”
He looked surprised.
“Yes.”
We walked to a diner.
Not the same one I had visited the morning after leaving.
But similar.
Vinyl booths.
Bad coffee.
Toast too dry.
We sat opposite each other.
Nico took one sip.
“This coffee is criminal.”
“You’re qualified to identify that.”
He stared at me.
Then laughed.
Loudly.
People looked.
I laughed too.
There, in a cheap diner at sunrise, without guards or diamonds or penthouse windows, I felt closer to Nico than I had during most of the three years we lived together.
When the check came, he reached automatically.
I grabbed it.
“My turn.”
“Norah.”
“I have a salary.”
“I know.”
“I’m paying.”
“This is eight dollars.”
“Then you’ll survive.”
He let me.
Outside, we stood on the sidewalk.
“Nico?”
“Yes?”
“I want to try.”
He stopped breathing.
“Try what?”
“Us.”
His face changed.
I held up a hand.
“Slowly.”
“Yes.”
“Separate homes.”
“Yes.”
“Therapy.”
“Yes.”
“Dating.”
“Yes.”
“No assumptions.”
“Yes.”
“If something feels wrong, we say it.”
“Yes.”
I smiled.
“You’re agreeing very quickly.”
“I waited a year.”
Fair.
He touched my cheek.
“Can I kiss you?”
The old Nico never would have asked.
“Yes.”
He kissed me.
Softly.
When we separated, I rested my forehead against his.
For the first time, choosing him did not feel like surrender.
It felt exactly like what it was supposed to be.
A choice.
Neither of us knew another choice was waiting.
Because later that morning, Nico’s attorney called.
A legitimate investment group wanted to buy the remaining Moretti companies.
Every major asset.
Every business.
Everything tying Nico to the empire Carlo had created.
The price was enormous.
Accepting would mean walking away from most of his old power permanently.
Nico had spent his entire life becoming a king.
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Now he had to decide whether he could live without a kingdom.
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