"Even if it meant sacrificing your own life?"
"To me, it wasn't a sacrifice. It was a choice." I meet his eyes. "Sofia stayed home and lived the life Papa wanted because she thought she had to. Our mother fled and took mewhen I was eight to save me from that same life. I’m stronger than Sofia. I’ve traveled the world and learned how to take care of myself. I’m better equipped to handle whatever this world throws at me."
"You’re stronger?" He moves closer, and I realize how his enemies must feel when they’re on this end of his fury. "Is that what you call lying to me for weeks? Strength?"
"I call it survival."
"Whose? Yours or hers?"
"Both."
He's standing directly in front of me now, close enough that I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. He’s intentionally trying to intimidate me, but I refuse to cower in front of him now.
"Tell me about the switch. How did you pull it off?"
"It wasn't complicated. We're identical twins. I cut my hair to match hers, practiced her mannerisms, studied everything about her life. The morning of the wedding, she left in my clothes and I put on her wedding dress. You never paid attention to her during the long engagement so fooling you was the easiest thing of all."
"And your father?"
"He knew nothing about it until the dinner party. He figured it out and confronted me. You overheard part of our conversation." I pause. "He's been panicking ever since, trying to find Sofia and figure out how to fix what we've done. He wanted to find her and demand she switch back. As if that was even a remote possibility."
“And you didn’t want her doing that?”
“Of course not! I wanted her to live her life.”
“I did a thorough background check on Sofia before the engagement, then again recently when I begin to be suspicious of you. Why didn’t you show up as her twin?”
I shrug. “When my mother ran and took me, we both ceased to exist in Papa’s eyes. He sealed records of me as if I was never there at all. Sofia and I were split up at the age of eight and it was years later in our teens that we figured out a way to reconnect. He never knew we were in contact.”
“And your father?”
“I’m dead to him as Gabriella which is fine with me.”
"I can’t help wondering what else you've been lying about." He reaches out and touches my hair, the gesture almost gentle despite the anger in his voice. "Was any of it real? The way you responded to me, the things you said?"
"Yes. All of it was real."
"How can you expect me to believe that? How can I believe anything you say?"
"Because I'm telling you the truth now. Finally." I stand up, forcing him to step back. "Everything else was Sofia's life, Sofia's identity. But what happened between us—the way I felt when you touched me, the way I reacted to you—that was only me. And that was as real as anything I’ve ever felt in my life."
"Are you saying you fell for a man you were deceiving?"
"I fell for a man I married to protect my sister. Do you want to know the irony? Sofia was terrified of you, convinced you were a monster who would hurt her. And you've been nothing but kind to me. Patient, generous, protective. If she had stayed, if she had given you a chance..."
"She would’ve been miserable with me, with my life." Luca finishes. "Because she's not you."
"No. She's not me."
He moves to the bar cart and pours another whiskey, this time offering me one. I accept it gratefully, my hands shaking slightly as I take the glass.
"What is her plan now?" he asks.
"Hopefully, to stay safe and free to live a life on her terms."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the best answer I can give you." I take a sip of whiskey, letting it burn away some of the fear in my throat. "Any consequences for our actions are on me, not her. I came up with the idea. I pushed her to do it. I take full responsibility for everything."
