SOPHIE & THE DUKE 🔞

CHAPTER 23

SOPHIE

There's an old saying that the hardest part of having memories isn't the pain they bring, but the loneliness they leave behind. That's the best way to describe how I've been feeling these days since Arianna showed up at the hospital. My thoughts were a mess and I couldn't even think about hating Gio. I just couldn't. I was powerless, I confessed to myself. I was powerless against a man who could dismiss my existence in an instant, a man who might never love me.

I was restless in bed, unable to sleep as I remembered the day Gio took me to his sister's grave. His words echoed in my mind.

"Sophie, I hate love. Have you seen what it does to people? It tears them apart. I'd rather stay single forever than fall in love. Honestly, I don't think I can love anyone."

The realization struck me like a thunderbolt. Gio would never harbor any affection for me, so why was I still here? Was I nothing more than a diversion, a plaything to him?

"Ugh," I muttered, tears rolling down my face.

I had never been important to anyone. My biological parents left me on the streets. My adoptive family had subjected me to horrifying mistreatment, save for my adoptive father, whose love for me matched that for his own flesh and blood. But he was gone.

Gio was away on a business trip, and I hardly left my room, for reasons I couldn't explain. Maybe I was trying to get over a love that was never mine.

I got up from my bed and went to my closet to get my favorite thing in the world; the blanket I was found in when I was abandoned. It was a purple blanket with yellow flowers on it and it always smelled like Jasmine, like...

Like someone I knew, like Rosa. She always seemed familiar to me, but I brushed it off. Maybe it was because I never had a mother's love. Rosa cared for me, and it made me feel loved.

I climbed back into bed, clutching my blanket as I remembered my conversation with Gio.

"I'm sorry about your sister, Gio. I believe she's at peace and in a better place now," I had tried to comfort him.

He looked at me coldly and said, "Peace? No, there's no peace for her. She's probably being tormented in her grave, knowing that the man she died for now lives with his wife and two children. What's the point, Sophie? Love is a cruel game that leaves us vulnerable to pain. Someone always gets hurt, and I refuse to become its next victim."

It was clear Gio was immune to love. Pain had made him this way. I sobbed as I as I reconciled with the harsh truth— Gio would never love me. And he was right, love was a cruel game and in this game I was the one who ended up hurt. In that moment of despair, I decided to be brave for once in my life. I would leave the villa, leave Italy, leave Giovanni, and never look back.