Chapter 345: He Never Looked At Me The Way You’re Describing

Isabella stared at the photograph for a long moment before she spoke.

"He never looked at me the way you’re describing," she said quietly. "Not once, not even at the beginning. I used to think it was because we were still getting to know each other. That it would come, eventually, the way you’re saying it came for you and Papa. But it never did. He was always... somewhere else. Even when he was standing right next to me."

"And then he called off the engagement," Camilla said.

"And then I watched him fall in love with someone else," Isabella said, her voice breaking. "Completely. Instantly. In a way that took him months with me and never actually arrived. I watched him look at her the way I used to imagine him looking at me in my fantasies. And it was like someone had taken everything I ever wanted and just... handed it to another woman."

Camilla reached over and took her daughter’s hand.

"That’s when Dante found you," she said. It wasn’t a question.

Isabella nodded, tears sliding silently down her cheeks now.

"I know he’s dangerous," she said. "I know what he is, Mama. I know he only started this because of his brother, because of some twisted need to take something from Dimitri the way Dimitri took Salvatore from him. I knew all of that from the beginning."

"But?" Camilla prompted gently.

"But he looked at me like I mattered," Isabella whispered. "Even if it started as revenge. Even if I was just a piece on his board. There were moments, real moments, where I could see something in his eyes that felt like wanting. Like choosing. And after years of being invisible to the man I was supposed to marry, that felt like everything."

Camilla was quiet, absorbing this.

"I’m not proud of it," Isabella continued. "I know it’s twisted. I know a man using me for revenge and then deciding he wanted to keep me isn’t the same as being loved. But it was something, Mama. And I was so hungry for something that I didn’t care what shape it came in."

"Oh, Isabella." Camilla’s voice cracked with something that sounded like grief. "You deserved better than scraps from a man using you as a weapon."

"I know that now," Isabella said. "Watching him plan Dimitri’s death, watching how far he was willing to go, watching what happened in that warehouse, I understand what he actually is. But understanding it doesn’t undo the last months, Mama. It doesn’t undo how empty I was before he found me."

They sat in silence for a while, Camilla’s thumb moving gently over Isabella’s knuckles.

"Your father wants you to fix the alliance," Camilla finally said. "To find a way back to Dimitri."

"I can’t," Isabella said. "Even if I wanted to....and Mama, I don’t think I do anymore, not really, he’s not available to be fixed. He loves her. I saw it in every report Dante brought back. It’s not a door that’s slightly open. It’s closed. Permanently."

"Then why did you cry when you said you didn’t want to marry him?" Camilla asked softly. "Down in the study. I saw your face. That wasn’t relief."

Isabella was quiet for a long moment, searching for an honest answer.

"Because some stupid part of me still wants to be the one he chooses," she finally admitted. "Even though I know it will never happen. Even though I know it’s not healthy or good for me. There’s a part of that seven-year-old girl who thought this was a fairy tale, and she still wants her prince to look at her the way princes look at princesses in the stories. I hate that part of myself. But she’s still there."

Camilla pulled her daughter into her arms, and Isabella let herself be held, let herself cry in a way she hadn’t allowed since before the kidnapping, before Dante, before any of it.

"You are allowed to grieve what you wanted," Camilla murmured into her hair. "Even when what you wanted was never going to happen. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human."

"What do I do now?" Isabella asked. "Papa wants me to fix something that can’t be fixed. And even if I could, I don’t think I’d want to anymore. Not really. Not after everything."

Camilla pulled back and studied her daughter’s face for a long moment.

"I can’t promise you I can change your father’s mind about the alliance," she said carefully. "Business and family loyalty run deep in him, deeper than what either of us might want for you. But I can try to buy you time. Time to actually heal, instead of being rushed into fixing something that was broken before you even had a say in it."

"Will he listen to you?" Isabella asked.

"Sometimes," Camilla said, with the ghost of a tired smile. "When I choose my moments carefully. And this is a moment worth choosing carefully for."

Isabella wiped her eyes, feeling something settle in her chest for the first time since she’d walked through the estate gates. Not peace, exactly. But something adjacent to it. The knowledge that at least one person in this house was actually seeing her, rather than just seeing what she represented for the family name.

"Thank you, Mama," she whispered.

"Don’t thank me yet," Camilla said. "This family is complicated, and your father is not an easy man to redirect once he’s decided on something. But you are my daughter, and I am not going to let you be sacrificed on the altar of an alliance that was never fair to you in the first place."

She reached up and brushed a strand of hair from Isabella’s face, the way she used to when Isabella was small and frightened by thunderstorms.

"Rest now," Camilla said. "Tomorrow will still be complicated. But tonight, just rest."

She stayed until Isabella’s breathing evened out, until sleep finally pulled her under for the first time in days without the edge of dread waiting on the other side of it. And when she was sure her daughter was truly asleep, Camilla rose quietly, took the old photograph from where it had fallen against the pillow, and set it gently back in the drawer.

Then she turned off the light and left the room, already thinking about how she was going to approach Lorenzo about the alliance, and already knowing it would not be an easy conversation.