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Outside, the sea moves in the dark beyond the glass doors. Dante looks at me with a softness that feels like it might break me open.
“You need to see Tristan,” he says.
My entire body locks.
“No.”
“You do.”
“I do not.”
“You are saying his name without saying it.” His voice remains gentle, but there is certainty beneath the surface. “You are carrying him everywhere with you. You carry him in the paintings. In the way you go quiet sometimes. In the way you try to turn tenderness into something you can outrun.”
“I do not want him,” I lie.
Dante’s eyes close for half a second.
When he opens them, his expression is calm, but something wounded moves beneath it.
“I know you want to believe that.”
I can barely breathe.
“I have known from the beginning,” he says. “I knew before we came here. I knew every time you looked at the sea as if you were searching for someone on the horizon. I knew every time you woke from a dream and held me tighter, but called for no one.”
“Stop.”
“I am not saying this to hurt you.”
“It is hurting me.”
“I know.” His voice breaks slightly on the last word, and that is worse than anything else. Dante is always composed. Dante does not break. “But pretending will hurt us more.”
My jaw tightens. “I don’t need him.”
“I didn’t say you need him.” Dante’s voice remains calm. “I said you need closure.”
I look at him again.
“You left without answers, Maksim. You left while you were angry, heartbroken, confused. You never got to say everything you needed to say. You never got to ask him why. You never got to decide for yourself whether that chapter was truly over.” He pauses, studying me carefully. “You simply ran until the distance became large enough that you could breathe.”
I shake my head, my eyes begging him to stop.
“And it worked for a while,” he continues. “Maybe you needed it. Maybe you needed these months more than you will ever understand. But healing is not always about forgetting what happened. Sometimes healing means being able to look at the thing that broke you and finally decide what it means to you.”
A ragged sob catches in my throat. I reach up, gripping his face, desperate to anchor myself to his warmth. “Dante, don’t do this. You’ve been so good to me. I want to stay.”
Dante looks at me, and his expression fractures into pure, unadulterated heartbreak.
“I could give you this villa, Maksim,” he whispers, the truth spilling out heavy and absolute. “I could give you every beach in the Mediterranean. I could spend the rest of my life buying you canvases, holding you through the dark, and giving you every piece of my heart. But you will never fall in love with me.”
A tear finally spills down my temple, hot and scalding against my face. Dante catches it with the pad of his thumb, his touch infinite in its care.
“I have known it from the first time you told me about him two years ago when we first met,” he says with a sad, resigned smile that tears straight through my soul. “I know where your heart is. It belongs to Tristan. It has belonged to him through every sunset, every dinner, and every bed we shared. I cannot win a war against someone who is already living in your chest.”
He leans down, resting his forehead against mine, his breath mingling with my broken gasps.
“Go home, Maksim,” he whispers against my skin. “Face your ghost. Find your peace. And if you ever come back to me, let it be because you are whole, and because you choose me freely.”
