Part 3He Traded Our Marriage for Port Rights, so I Left Sicily

Sterling didn't come after me. As I walked out, I heard someone kick over a chair behind me. It hit the floor with a crash.

Phil Caruso, Sterling's right-hand man, spoke up quietly. "Don, should someone go check on the Donna?"

"Let her go."

Sterling's voice was so cold it was frightening. Even Ilona didn't dare say anything for a moment.

Someone hesitated, then spoke. "But this time, the Donna looked..."

"Where else could she go?" Sterling cut him off. "She's barely traveled outside Sicily alone in years. Give her a few days to cool off. She'll come back on her own."

I stood around the corner in the hallway, my fingers tightening around the soaked watch. I heard every word.

If you're so sure I'll come back, then I won't.

Back at the estate, I got a towel and carefully laid the photo flat on the table.

The wine had soaked through the photo paper, blurring my mother's once-clear face. I dabbed it twice with a cotton swab, but the colors spread even farther. I didn't dare touch it again.

My hand froze in midair. Without warning, tears spilled down my cheeks and splashed onto the table.

I hadn't missed my mom and dad this much in years.

If they were still alive and saw what my life had become, would they scold me?

Or would they ask no questions and just tell me to come home, the way they did when I was little?

I stared at my mother's blurred face in the photo, fighting back another wave of tears.

After a while, I closed the pocket watch, clutched it in my palm, and took a cab to the cemetery alone.

It was on the outskirts of the city.

I sat against the headstone and laid the photo, now too blurred to make out, on my knees.

The wind was cold, but I didn't move. I just sat there, staring at what was left of my mother's face.

I don't know how long I sat there before my phone rang. It was Orlando.

I answered.

"Ophelia?" His voice was urgent. "Where are you?"

"The cemetery."

He paused. "At your parents' graves?"

"Yes."

"Why weren't you on your flight?"

I froze. "What?"

"Your flight was today." Orlando's voice turned serious. "The plane took off almost an hour ago."

Only then did I check the time. I hadn't realized how late it was.

I was silent for a few seconds. "I... forgot."

The line went quiet.

When he spoke again, he seemed to sense something. "Are you... okay?"

Before I could answer, he said in a low voice, "Stay there and wait for me."

"Orlando, you don't have to."

"Don't move."

A little over 40 minutes later, a car pulled up outside the cemetery, headlights on.

Orlando came up alone. His eyes went to my bare neck, then to the watch in my hand, and his expression darkened. But he didn't ask anything. He just took off his coat and draped it over my shoulders.

"Get up."

"Where are we going?"

"The airport."

I looked up.

"But I've already missed my flight."

"Then we'll take my private jet." Orlando held out his hand to me. "If you don't want to go alone, I'll go with you."

I looked at his hand for a long time before I took it.

He was quiet on the way to the airport. The lights outside the car window flashed past one by one, and suddenly my thoughts drifted back many years.

Back then, Orlando wasn't even 20. After his father died, his relatives seized the family businesses that should have been his. He was driven out of Sicily and couldn't even afford tuition.

At the time, I was still running the winery my father had left me.

When I found out, I asked my lawyer to help settle some of his debts and covered his tuition in Canada.

After that, he'd send me a message every so often.

He told me when he got into college, when he won his first award, and when he and a friend landed their first business deal.

I watched him get back on his feet little by little. Once he didn't need my help anymore, we slowly lost touch.

Then, six months ago, he came back to Sicily as the head of a machinery company in Quebec.

That day he'd come to talk business with Sterling, and I happened to be bringing over some papers.

There was trouble at the North Port, and Sterling was in a terrible mood. I'd barely set the papers on the desk when he said without looking up, "Not now. Out."

His elbow knocked the folder off the desk, scattering papers across the floor. Before I could bend down to pick them up, Orlando was already doing it. When he looked up and saw me, he froze.

"Ophelia?"

We hadn't seen each other in years, and he was no longer the boy who'd needed my help. Now, once his private jet was in the air, he handed me a blanket.

"Get some sleep. I'll wake you when we get to Quebec."