Chapter 434 : Quiet Falls

*Giovani*

I stood in Olivia’s art studio, staring at the canvas on the easel. I’d sat on the bed for a long time after she stormed out, and when I finally got up, I didn’t know where I was going.

After the yelling, even standing in there felt like a violation. She’d told me I was welcome, but I couldn’t stop remembering the way her hands felt on my chest when she shoved me away.

I messed up. That glared back at me from every angle of the painting, a fury of reds and purples, blues and blacks, all coalescing around a face in the middle of the canvas. If I stood on one side of the painting, it looked like Olivia, but on the other, somehow, I couldn’t see anything but Elena.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed her number. I needed to talk to her, to explain, to beg her to come home. Just like it had the last two times, it rang all the way through.

“Buongiorno!” she chirped on her recorded message. “You’ve reached Olivia Val—”