Nero - Page 175

I stopped paying attention to what happened online shortly after arriving in Pienza. I isolated myself in what the small town had to offer because I was terrified of falling back into my teenage habits—tracking Nero’s life through the internet.

If Nero hadn’t shown me the dozens of news sites covering our story and Instagram accounts spreading it almost like a fairy tale, I never would have known.

As my mother and I walk through what once was the path to our home, former neighbors approach us, hugging us and welcoming us back with spoken words to match the written ones we already saw.

Everyone is kind, and most truly apologize. They all rush to update us on the latest gossip on the island, and I feel like shaking them by the shoulders and asking if they learned nothing from all of this. But I don’t.

I politely close the conversations, and my mother and I continue on—only to be stopped again moments later by the next person. It takes a long time for us to finally reach our old house, and even then, I’m not prepared for what I find.

From the outside, the house is exactly as I left it. Nothing has changed. The walls are still perfectly white, the fences intact—but that’s not the most striking part.

There’s a carpet of pomegranate seeds covering the sidewalk, and several stone arrangements—the same ones tradition tells us to leave on our neighbors’ thresholds at New Year’s. And hanging from our front door is a macramé—not made of fabric, but ofvassilopitacoins.

My mother’s sobs are loud, and I wrap my arms around her. The banners were for me—but this, this is for her. She loved this island with her whole heart. She was part of this community for far longer than I was, and because of that, she suffered far more when it turned against us.

People know that. Because despite everything, they know us.

The traditions fulfilled abundantly at our door—representing every year we lost here—make my mother’s shoulders shake as she cries. I hold her tight.

“We’re home, Mom. Home.”

CHAPTER 73

NERO ZANTHOS

I run my fingertips over the paper in my hand, and its meaning settles one of the final missing pieces of my heart into place. I registered my son. My name is on his birth certificate. I blink, holding back the tears so they won’t fall.

I pull Nina into my arms and kiss her forehead. She lifts her face, offering me her lips. Kael doesn’t quite understand why we’re so happy, but he claps anyway, excited by the brand-new news that his parents were back together.

It took two weeks for us to do things the way Nina suggested—slowly, step by step—but we got here. We’re here. And I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy before.

“Let’s celebrate at home,” I declare, and the smile on my Little Fae’s face fades until it disappears.

“I don’t want to go to the house where your parents lived,” she says, completely misunderstanding me. “I know they don’t live there anymore, but still, I don’t want to go back to thatplace, Nero. Switzerland is close compared to how far away I want even the memory of your parents’ existence to be from us.” She emphasizes it, making me laugh, because Lysandra and Konstantino really did move to Switzerland.

After the truth spread across the island, Lysandra couldn’t bear the fate she had once condemned Nina to: becoming a pariah. She packed her bags and boarded a plane to the farthest place she could think of. Konstantino followed, as always.

“They’re not my parents, Little Fae. Neither of them,” I remind her.

“Sorry,” she says, and I shake my head, telling her there’s no need.

“And that’s not where I was saying we’re going,” I explain.

“Then where?” she asks, and the only answer I give her is a smile.

***

“It’s… furnished,” are the first words Nina says when she steps into the penthouse, and they make me laugh out loud. We left Kael with my mother before I brought her here—the apartment we were planning to share before everything happened.

“It is. I was never able to live here without you, but I suppose it was waiting for this moment. Waiting for you to come back to it. For you to come back to me. I know your mother decided to stay on the island instead of returning to Pienza. When we comevisit her, we can stay here,” I offer. “We can change anything you don’t like. We can change everything, if you want.”

Already standing in the middle of the living room, between the sofas, Nina turns back and walks toward me. She leans her side against my chest, resting her head on my shoulder, and I wrap my arms around her.

I kiss her forehead. We stay like that in silence, just absorbing the space around us for a while, until she turns in my arms and aligns our bodies face to face.

“What if we stay for good?” she asks, catching me off guard. “I didn’t leave Khione by choice, Nero. And if I get to choose, I want to raise my son here. We met here, we grew up here, we started our family here. I want it to grow here too.”

“Grow, huh?” I tease, waggling my eyebrows. “Are you telling me you’re finally going to give me another child?”