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“Honey, what is it?” Mom asked. “You’ve missed him before and not been this sad.”

I pulled my hand from hers and leaned back. The Russian hovered at the edge of my thoughts, but I refused to mention him. The moment I did, Mom would start asking questions I wasn’t ready to answer, questions I wasn’t even sure I knew how to answer.

“I spoke to someone,” I said. “Or rather, he spoke to me.”

“Who?”

“One of Maxim’s men.”

Mom straightened. “Did he threaten you?”

“No. He...”

“He what, sweetheart? What did he do?”

“He didn’t do anything. He told me that Henry had already gone home.”

“Then why are you this upset?”

Because he knew my name. Because he understood why I was sitting on that bench without making me explain it. Because when I told him I would leave, he didn’t threaten me or order me away. He sat beside me and spoke softly enough that some terrified part of me believed him when he said he wasn’t there to hurt me. Because when I started shaking, his arms around me felt safe before I had any reason to trust them. Because his kindness didn’t feel like a bargain I had already lost.

“I felt something,” I whispered.

The confession changed the room. Spoken aloud, it sounded larger than it was, as if I had admitted to desire instead of the smallest return of sensation grief had not managed to kill.

“What do you mean?” Mom asked softly.

Mom studied me while I stood and crossed to the window. My arms wrapped around my stomach as though I could physically contain whatever had shifted inside me. It wasn’t pain exactly. Pain I understood. Grief had taught me every version of it.

This was different.

That was what terrified me.

The Russian had touched my hand, and my body had reacted before my mind could remind it that there was no room for another man. For one terrible second, I had felt safe against someone who wasn’t Salvatore. I had felt something warm and alive move through a part of me I thought had died with my husband.

“Maddie, it’s okay to fall in love again,” she said carefully. “He wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

I shook my head without turning around. “He was my everything. He was my life. No one can take his place.”

Salvatore had a way of finding me no matter where I stood. I could be at the kitchen sink with my hands buried in soapy water, and he would come up behind me, wrap his arms around my waist, and press his face into the curve of my neck.

“There you are,” he would murmur, as if he had searched longer than the few minutes since breakfast.

“I’ve been here the whole time.”

“Not close enough.” His mouth would brush my skin. “You’re never close enough.”

There would never be another love like that because there would never be another Salvatore. He had not simply occupied my heart. He had changed its language until every beat still answered in his voice.

“Of course no one can take his place,” Mom said. “That isn’t what I meant. Salvatore has been gone for four years, honey. He would want you to be happy.”

“It’s not enough.” My voice broke. “It will never be enough.”

The words came from somewhere deeper than grief. Salvatore had not simply been a man I loved. He had been the first person who made me feel safe enough to become myself. He had given me a home, a son, and a life I had never believed I was allowed to have.

Wanting anything after him felt greedy.

Worse, it felt disloyal.