“I needed you,” Isabella whispered. “I needed you all those years. Everything would have been so different if you were there.”
“I know,” her mother murmured, her voice filled with regret. “I know, and I will never forgive myself for that. But I’m here now, Isabella. I’m here. I won’t leave you again.”
They stood there for what felt like an eternity, mother and daughter clinging to each other as though trying to make up for the lost years in a single embrace.
As the tears continued to flow, their moment of reunion was silently watched from the shadows. Enrico stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets, his expression as stoic as ever, but his eyes were fixed on Isabella. He watched the way she clung to her mother, the vulnerability in her eyes, the raw emotion that spilled out of h
