“What, do you two compare notes or something?” he asked, finishing his drink and setting his glass down. “I’m hungry.” He went into the kitchen, leaving us alone.

“Izzy? What the hell is going on?”

She plopped her bag down on the coffee table and rubbed her eyes with her hands. She looked defeated in that moment, and I saw through the tough facade she put on more and more.

“Luke’s out of surgery,” she said, heading to where Dominic had left his glass, filling it with the same whiskey and drinking it down. “He’s going to make it.”

She stood quietly a moment before her body slumped, and she broke into sobs. I went to her and embraced her, the crutches tucked awkwardly under my arms. I held her so tight that she finally surrendered herself, letting herself go, weeping, hugging me back.

“I thought…I thought…God, if he died?” She sucked in a loud breath and wiped her eyes, leaning back. “I prayed, Lucia. I haven’t prayed in five years.” She shook her head. “I love him. I love him, and all I’ve done is hurt him.”

“Luke?” I was so confused.

She nodded, and we walked over to the sofa and sat down.

“He was adopted,” she started, as if that was what I was concerned about. “We’re not blood relatives.”

“I know, Izzy. God, I know. It’s okay. I don’t care. It’s fine.”

“I owe you an explanation. Multiple, probably.”

I nodded.

“Five years ago, more than that, actually, I met Dominic. It was accidental, nothing planned. I was seventeen. It was a party in the woods, and I didn’t know who he was. Same for him. He didn’t know me, and we didn’t exchange last names. It was just Dominic and Isabella. That’s all. We hit it off, and things got heated over the next few weeks. Months.”

“You still didn’t know who he was?” I didn’t believe that.

“By then we knew. Hell, by our third date, we knew. But there was something there. I don’t know what it was, maybe even the whole Romeo and Juliette with warring families and the romance of it all, the sneaking around, meeting in the woods, sitting under the stars. Just us. Together.”

“You fell in love with Dominic Benedetti?”

She nodded her head. “He wasn’t like this, not then. We were each other’s firsts. First love, first…”

“Then you got pregnant.”

“Yes. It was right around when things were coming to a head between the families. Dominic was going to tell his father. I told Papa.”

“That’s why he was so mad.”

She nodded sadly. “I was pregnant with the enemy’s child. Never mind that I was barely an adult and unmarried.”

“He disowned you because it was Dominic’s?”