Chapter 318: The Variable That Refused To Resolve

Sam was a variable he had never been able to solve.

Gio sat at his desk in the south wing, the quarterly assessments still waiting, the lamp still burning. Outside his window, the garden was dark. The estate had gone to sleep above him. Somewhere upstairs, Arianne and the twins were asleep. And Gio was alone with the memory of a girl who had smiled at him like he mattered.

He had solved every other equation in his life. His survival under his half-brothers. His place in Arianne’s household. His role at her side. He had calculated and strategized and anticipated, and he had gotten everything right.

Except Sam. Sam was the variable that refused to resolve.

He met her when Arianne became friends with Alex and Gilbert.

The brotherhood was forming then — Arianne and Alex and Gilbert, the three of them inseparable, their orbit pulling in others over time. Gio was on the periphery. He was always on the periphery. When Arianne visited the Pemberton estate or the Rochefort house, she brought him with her. She never left him behind.

That was where he first saw Sam. Gilbert’s younger sister. She was five years younger than him — a child, really, when he was already a teenager. Even then, she was bright. She smiled like the sun. She had Gilbert’s bluntness but none of his edges, as if she’d inherited the Pemberton directness and softened it with something entirely her own.

She was kind to him. That was the first thing that registered. She was kind to him when almost no one else was.

The rumors about Gio had followed him since the day Arianne took him in. Bastard. Illegitimate. Mistress’s child. The other students at the high school knew who he was. They knew his father had been Gabriel Summers. They knew his mother had been the other woman. They made sure he knew they knew.

Sam never looked at him the way the others did. She never spoke of him badly. She never flinched when she passed him in the hallway at Gilbert’s school events, even when the other girls murmured behind their hands. She would catch his eye and smile. Wave. Sometimes call out a greeting that made Gilbert turn his head.

"Hi, Gio!"

He never knew how to respond. He would nod or raise a hand. Something awkward. She never seemed to mind.

Franz was the same. Franz was closer to Sam’s age. They attended the same schools, ran in the same circles. Gio noticed the silent admiration Franz held for Arianne. The way the younger Rochefort brother watched his sister when he assumed no one was looking. Gio recognized that look. He understood what it meant to want something you didn’t think you could have.

Franz had helped him because of that kinship, or so he’d assumed. Eventually he understood it wasn’t the case. Franz had never looked down on anyone, regardless of their birth origin or status. Perhaps something he’d learned from his older brother, Alex.

Sam was different. Sam’s kindness didn’t come from a hidden motive. She wasn’t using him to get closer to Arianne. She wasn’t trying to curry favor with the Summers heiress. She was just kind. Persistently, bafflingly kind.

When Arianne left to study overseas, Gio assumed his connection to the Pemberton and Rochefort families would fade. He was wrong. Sam made sure to drag him with her and Franz to lunch whenever she could. Every week. Every break. She would appear at his school or call the house phone and tell Aunt Estella she was kidnapping Gio for the afternoon, and Aunt Estella would smile and hand him his jacket.

He never understood why.

She was seventeen when she confessed.

Gio was home from college for a break. Twenty-two years old. He’d been studying abroad, following Arianne’s path, trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He still didn’t know. He only knew he wanted to be useful to her.

There was a gathering at the Pemberton estate. The brotherhood, plus Sam and Franz. One summer. The gardens were in bloom. Someone had put music on. Sam was there, and she was different — older, taller, her cheerful smile now framed by the face of a young woman. She’d been scouted for modeling already. People were starting to notice her.

Gio had been noticing her for years, though he never let himself dwell on it.

After the gathering, she pulled him aside. Into the garden. Away from the noise and the music and the people. The sunset was bleeding across the sky. She was fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve.

"I need to tell you something," she said.

He waited.

"I’ve liked you. For some time. Since I was old enough to understand what that meant." Her voice was steady, but her hands were not. "I’ve been working up the courage to say it for years."

He stared at her. The words didn’t make sense. They couldn’t make sense. She was Samantha Pemberton. Gilbert’s precious younger sister. Beautiful. Bright. Cheerful. She could have anyone. She could have someone who wasn’t him.

"Sam." His voice came out rougher than he intended. "You’re seventeen."

"I know how old I am."

"I’m twenty-two. I’m in college. I’m—"

"I know who you are."

"You don’t." He shook his head. "You don’t know what you’re saying."

"I’ve known what I was saying since I was thirteen years old." Her eyes were wet now, but her voice didn’t waver. "I’ve watched you for years. I’ve watched you look at me like I mattered. And then look away like you weren’t allowed to. I’m tired of watching you look away."

He couldn’t breathe.

"I’m sorry," he said. "I can’t. I’m grateful for your kindness. I always have been. I can’t give you what you want."

The tears spilled over. She didn’t try to hide them. They fell, and something in his chest — something he refused to name — cracked.

He left for college the next week. He didn’t see her again for a long time.

Over the years, he heard news of her.

She was dating someone. A boy from her university. Then another. Then someone in the industry. Her modeling career was taking off. She was on magazine covers. She was walking runways. She was building a life that had nothing to do with him.

He assumed she had moved on. He hoped she was happy. Samantha Pemberton deserved to be happy. That was what he told himself whenever she came to mind, which was more often than he wanted to admit. She deserved someone who wasn’t him.

The hotel room happened three years later.

He was twenty-five. Working as one of Arianne’s assistants — not yet executive, not yet exclusive. He took whatever tasks he could to lighten her burden. One night, a meeting at a posh bar with an important partner. Gio was there as support.

Sam was across the room. She was partying with friends. Already a runway model, making a name for herself. She was drunk. Wasted. Stumbling. A man had his arm around her waist, and Sam was trying to pull away, her smile faltering.

Gio knew that look in the man’s eyes. He’d seen it before. Bad intentions.

He crossed the room before he’d made the conscious decision to move. Put himself between Sam and the man. Spoke words he didn’t remember later. The man backed off. Gio took Sam’s arm and guided her out of the bar, into a taxi, to a hotel room where she could sober up safely.

He didn’t lecture her. He sat her on the bed. Got her a glass of water and waited.

"You need to choose your friends more carefully," he said.

She looked at him. Even drunk, her eyes were bright. She smiled. "You came for me."

"Of course I came for you."

"Like when we were younger. You always looked out for me. Even when you pretended you didn’t."

Gio didn’t answer.

Perhaps it was the alcohol. Perhaps it was the years of distance. She leaned forward and kissed him.

He should have pulled away. His body didn’t listen. His hands found her waist. Her back. The bed. She was beneath him, and his mouth was on hers, and then on her throat, and she said his name and something in him broke.

He pulled back. Stood. His hands were shaking.

"I’m sorry. This shouldn’t have happened."

She sat up on the bed. Her face was flushed. Her eyes glistened with tears.

"Why? Why shouldn’t it have happened? You want me. I know you want me. I’ve known for years. Why won’t you—"

"Sam."

"Why won’t you let yourself have this? Have me?"

"Because you’re Samantha Pemberton."

The words fell between them like a door slamming shut.

She stared at him. The tears spilled over. He didn’t explain. He didn’t tell her what he meant. He left the room. Left the hotel. Left her.

He’d been avoiding her ever since.

–

Gio sat in the south wing. The lamp was still burning. The quarterly assessments were still untouched.

Sam had thought the issue was her name. Her family. The Pemberton heiress, too wealthy, too connected, too much. She’d thought he rejected her because of who she was.

The truth was the opposite.

He was the one who wasn’t enough. The illegitimate son. The mistress’s child. The boy who’d been beaten by his half-brothers until Arianne took him in. He had nothing to offer her. No name. No wealth. No standing. A pauper couldn’t fulfill the whims and wishes of a precious princess.

That was what he’d told himself for eight years. That was the cage he’d built, bar by bar, every time he looked at her and looked away.

You can be selfish for this one.

Arianne’s voice, years ago. The permission he’d never taken.

How long do you plan to torture yourself?

Her voice again, this morning. The question he still didn’t know how to answer.

He stared at the dark garden outside his window. Somewhere in the city, Sam was living her life. Modeling. Filming. Building a career that had nothing to do with him. She’d moved on. Or she’d tried to. He’d never asked.