V.
Alessandro’s son.
Lívia leaned forward to greet the boy. Not a boy, a man! A handsome, smiling, tall man. He was about the same age as her daughter, maybe only a few years older. She kissed him on the cheeks clumsily, and he was clearly taken off guard by this gesture, but he quickly cleared the surprise from his gaze. How could she be so stupid, so sentimental, as to immediately kiss a complete stranger! After all, she was a stranger to this boy, just some foreign woman. Giacomo, that was his name. He stood awkwardly across from her, but then he unexpectedly embraced her. She breathed in his scent: a bittersweet, deep scent. She hugged him back, to hell with good manners. All the seams of the past that she had sewn together so tightly had ripped. The threads broke and all the painful
