Two days pass. I know that the brothers demand an immediate answer, but nevertheless they do not rush or put pressure on me.
I barely eat. The meals arrive on silver trays, prepared with care, and I push food around plates until someone takes them away. Everything tastes like cardboard. Like grief.
I barely sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see their faces. Santo's gentle earnestness. Matteo's raw vulnerability. Luca's fierce devotion. Three men who've offered me everything, and I can't give any of them an answer.
I avoid the brothers entirely. Can't look at them without feeling my heart splinter into three jagged pieces. Can't face the hope in their eyes, the waiting, the silent question that hangs over every interaction.
Have you decided yet?
I try making lists. Pros and cons, like this is a job offer or a real estate decision. Something logical. Something I can solve with reason.
Santo: safety, tenderness, unconditional love, the feeling of coming home.
Matteo: passion, fire, someone who sees me and wants me anyway, the feeling of being alive.
Luca: strength, protection, someone who'd burn worlds for me, the feeling of being powerful.
The paper stays blank beyond those few words. How do you weigh tenderness against passion? Safety against fire?
How do you assign points to the way Santo holds me versus the way Matteo kisses me versus the way Luca looks at me like I'm the center of his universe?
How do you choose between three men who've each become essential as breathing?
On the third day, a knock at my door.
Not demanding like Matteo. Not soft like Santo. Not commanding like Luca.
"Come in," I called, not caring who it was.
Enzo.
He carries a tea tray—chamomile, my favorite, with honey on the side exactly how I like it.
He sets it down on the table without asking permission, then settles into the chair by my window like he belongs there. Like he's done this a thousand times before.
"You look terrible, signorina."
I laugh bitterly from my position on the bed, still in yesterday's clothes, hair a tangled mess. "Thanks. That's exactly what I needed to hear."
"Forgive an old man's bluntness."
His warm brown eyes study me with something like compassion.
"But watching you torture yourself has become unbearable for the entire household. The staff are taking bets on when you'll finally emerge. The brothers are driving each other, and everyone else, mad with their pacing."
"I didn't realize my suffering was so entertaining."
"It's not entertaining. It's painful." He pours tea into a delicate cup, adds honey, stirs.
"For all of us. These men, difficult as they are, have become better since you arrived. More human. Watching them wait for a decision that's clearly destroying you..." He shakes his head. "It's not easy."
"I don't know what to do." The confession spills out before I can stop it, raw and desperate. "I've tried everything, Enzo. Lists. Logic. Praying to a God I'm not sure I believe in anymore. Nothing helps."
"What does your heart tell you?"
"That's the problem."
I sit up, pulling my knees to my chest.
"My heart tells me I love them. All of them. Differently, but... equally. Santo makes me feel safe in ways I've never felt before. Matteo makes me feel alive in ways I didn't know were possible. And Luca..."
I swallow hard. "Luca sees me. Really sees me. All of me. And he wants me anyway."
"That sounds like quite a gift."
"It's a curse." My voice breaks. "Because choosing one means losing two. And I can't do that, Enzo. I can't cut away parts of myself that have become essential. It would be like asking me to choose which limb to amputate."
Enzo sips his tea. Lets the silence breathe. The afternoon light catches the silver in his hair, and I'm struck by how tired he looks. How old.
"May I tell you something, signorina?" His voice is careful, measured. "In my years serving powerful families, not just the Morettis, I've seen many things. Many... unconventional arrangements."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that the world is not as rigid as we're taught to believe."
He sets down his cup, meets my eyes directly.
"I've seen men who share business empires because neither could succeed alone. Women who manage multiple households across continents. Relationships that don't fit neatly into traditional boxes but work nonetheless—because the people involved had the courage to make them work."
I stare at him, heart suddenly pounding. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"I'm saying that rules are made by those brave enough to break them." His warm brown eyes hold mine. "The Moretti brothers have never followed conventional paths. Why should their love life be any different?"
"But they're brothers. They'd never—"
"They nearly destroyed each other fighting over you," Enzo interrupts gently. "And then they sat down together and agreed to let you choose. They've already proven they can put your happiness above their own pride. That's not nothing, signorina."
"It's impossible."
"Is it?" He tilts his head. "Or is it simply unprecedented? Those are different things."
I'm quiet for a long moment, turning his words over in my mind. The idea is terrifying. Absurd. The kind of thing that only happens in the romance novels Matteo mocked me for reading.
But also...
"What if they say no?" I whisper. "What if I ask for this and they think I'm greedy, or selfish, or…"
"What if they say yes?" Enzo counters. "What if the only thing stopping all four of you from being happy is the assumption that you're not allowed to be?"
"You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple. It's terrifying." He rises, straightening his impeccable jacket. "But the question isn't who you choose, signorina. The question is what you're brave enough to ask for."
He moves toward the door, then pauses with his hand on the frame.
"For what it's worth," he says quietly, "I've watched those boys since they were children. I've never seen them as happy as they've been these past weeks. All three of them. At the same time."
He glances back at me. "That's not a coincidence."
Then he's gone, leaving me alone with cold tea and a spark of something dangerous.
Hope.
I sit in the fading afternoon light, heart racing, mind spinning with possibilities I never let myself consider. Three men. Three loves. Three futures that might not be mutually exclusive.
What if the impossible is actually possible?
What if the only thing standing in my way is fear?
I think about Santo's words in the garden: I'd share you with my brothers for the rest of my life if it means you stay.
I think about Matteo's vulnerability in the library: I want to be real. Whatever that looks like.
I think about Luca in the moonlit lake: None of it matters if you're not there.
They've each told me, in their own way, that they'd rather have part of me than none of me.
Maybe it's time to find out if they meant it.