Morning light streams through my window, warm and golden.
I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, cataloguing the ache in my chest. Not pain—fullness. Something too big to contain, too vast to name.
Except I can name it. I've just been afraid to.
I love them. All three brothers—so different from each other, yet so familiar.
The realization doesn't hit like lightning. It settles like truth, quiet and undeniable. Like something I've known for weeks and only now have the courage to admit.
The day unfolds in fragments. Each moment crystallizes what I already know.
Santo is already at the breakfast table when I arrive, newspaper open, coffee steaming. When he sees me, his face lights up—soft, private, a smile meant only for me.
"Good morning." He rises, pulls out my chair. "Sleep well?"
"Better than I have in weeks."
"Good. You needed it."
He passes me coffee without being asked—prepared exactly how I like it, cream and two sugars, remembered without prompting. Our fingers brush during the handoff.
"How did you know?" I ask, taking a sip. "That this is how I take it?"
"I pay attention." He settles back into his chair, pale green eyes warm. "To everything about you."
"That's either sweet or stalkerish."
"Can't it be both?"
I laugh, and he grins, and something clenches in my chest.
Santo is safety. Tenderness. The steady ground beneath my feet. With him, I feel cherished. Protected. Like I could fall from any height and he'd always be there to catch me.
"What are your plans today?" he asks.
"Reading in the garden, I think. It's too nice to stay inside."
"Save me a spot for lunch?"
"Always."
The morning drifts into afternoon, and I make good on my plans—curling up on a blanket beneath the roses, losing myself in a novel while the sun climbs higher.
I'm so absorbed in the story that I don't notice the shadow falling over my page until a familiar voice breaks through.
"What are we reading?"
Matteo drops down beside me without invitation, sprawling across the blanket like he owns it. Like he owns everything.
"A romance novel." I try to angle the book away from him. "You wouldn't like it."
"Try me."
He plucks it from my hands before I can stop him, examining the cover with exaggerated interest.
"Oh, this looks good. 'His throbbing manhood'? 'Her heaving bosom'? Piccola, I'm wounded. You have three perfectly good men at your disposal, and you're reading about fictional ones?"
"Maybe the fictional ones are less annoying."
"Impossible."
He flips to a random page and begins reading aloud in the most ridiculous voice imaginable—deep and melodramatic, like a bad soap opera actor.
"'Take me, Rodrigo,' she breathed. 'Take me now, before my husband returns from war.'"
"That's not even what it says!"
"It should be. This Rodrigo fellow is clearly the hero."
He continues, adding dramatic pauses and suggestive eyebrow waggles. "'Oh, Rodrigo, your muscles are so... muscular. Your eyes are like... pools of... something wet and eye-colored.'"
I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe, swatting at him uselessly while he dodges and keeps reading.
"'Rodrigo pressed her against the wall of the hay barn—'"
"It's a library!"
"'—the hay barn, which was full of hay, because it was a barn—'"
"Matteo!"
"'—and whispered the words she'd longed to hear: 'Mi amor, your bosom is heaving at exactly the right frequency.'"
I finally manage to snatch the book back, but I'm laughing too hard to be properly annoyed. He catches my wrist when I swat at him, pulls me close, and suddenly we're not laughing anymore.
"There she is," he murmurs, amber eyes softening. "That smile. I'd make a fool of myself every day just to see it."
He kisses me until I forget my own name. Until the book falls from my fingers and my hands are in his hair and the afternoon sun is warm on my skin.
Matteo is passion. Fire. The spark that ignites my blood. With him, I feel alive. Wanted. Like every nerve ending exists just to feel his touch.
The afternoon heat eventually drives us inside, and when evening settles over the estate, I find myself wandering toward Luca's study.
I tell myself I'm just checking on him—but the truth is, I need to see him. Need to complete the picture that's been forming in my mind all day.
He's drowning in paperwork when I arrive, jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up, shadows under his eyes. A tray of food sits untouched on the corner of his desk—dinner he forgot to eat.
"You need to take care of yourself," I say from the doorway.
He looks up, guarded at first, and then something softens when he sees me. "I was going to eat."
"Three hours ago, according to Enzo."
"Has it been three hours?"
I cross to his desk, pull the tray closer, remove the silver cover. "Eat. Now. Or I'll tell Enzo you've been skipping meals and he'll lecture you for an hour."
"You'd weaponize Enzo against me?"
"Without hesitation."
The ghost of a smile crosses his face. He picks up the fork, takes a bite. "Satisfied?"
"Getting there."
I settle into the chair across from him, and we eat together in comfortable silence.
He works between bites, signing documents, reviewing contracts, carrying the weight of an empire on his shoulders like he always does. But he's lighter with me here. I can see it in the looseness of his shoulders, the ease of his breathing.
"Thank you," he says when I stand to leave. "For dinner. For... this."
"You don't have to thank me."
He catches my hand before I can go, pulls me closer. Presses a kiss to my palm, tender, reverent, and murmurs against my skin.
"Thank you anyway."
Luca is strength. Surrender. The walls that crumble only for her. With him, I feel powerful. Seen. Like I could conquer the world or burn it down.
Later, when night has fully fallen, I sit by my window, watching the moon rise over the estate that's become my home.
Three men. Three kinds of love. All real. All consuming.
I think about the arrangement—choose one. The deadline approaching like a blade.
I imagine life with only Santo, never feeling Matteo's fire again. Life with only Matteo, losing Luca's rare tenderness. Life with only Luca, without Santo's gentle steadiness.
Each scenario feels like amputation. Cutting away parts of myself that have grown essential.
I can't choose.
I don't want to choose.
The thought is terrifying. Impossible. Selfish, maybe. Society would call it greedy—wanting three men when most people struggle to find one.
But this isn't about greed. It's about completion.
They've each claimed different pieces of my heart. Santo holds my need for safety. Matteo holds my hunger for passion. Luca holds my desire to be truly seen. Together, they make me whole.
Apart, I'm just fragments.
I want all of them. Need all of them. Not because I can't decide, but because choosing would mean becoming less than what I've become with them.
Now I just have to figure out how to ask for the impossible.