loveback

 Balcony- Montenorie Estate

Venisa looked at him for a long moment.

"But you told me you didn't love me anymore."

Code's expression went still.

"You said it yourself," she continued. "After almost a year of trying to convince me that you loved me."

His eyes lowered.

Venisa remembered it clearly.

Almost a year.

I love you.

He had said it so many times.

After moments when she thought he was simply trying to provoke her.

He had told her until the words had become almost familiar.

And still, she never believed him.

The silence between them grew heavy. Venisa turned toward the moon again.

"You know what I don't understand?"

Code waited.

"If you loved me so much, why was it so easy for you to make me believe that you didn't?"

Code stared at her back. "It wasn't easy."

His voice was barely above a whisper. "It was the hardest thing I ever did."

Venisa closed her eyes.

"Then why did you do it?"

Code had no answer that could undo the past.

For a moment, he looked past her toward the gardens below, as though the answer had been buried somewhere in the years between them.

"Because I convinced myself that you were already in love with someone else."

Venisa's expression changed slightly. "Someone else?"

His eyes returned to hers."That fucking DeCalle"

Tala

The name settled heavily between them.

Code's jaw tightened. "I kept seeing him with you."

His voice remained controlled, but there was something bitter underneath it now.

"Everywhere I looked, he was there. Beside you. Driving you around. Walking into your manor like he belonged there. Staying close to you when I wasn't."

Venisa stared at him. "You thought I loved him?"

"I didn't know what to think."

He gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

"But I knew what it looked like."

Code looked away again.

"And every time I saw the two of you together, I told myself the same thing."

His voice lowered.

"Maybe she chose him."

Venisa's lips parted slightly.

"Maybe you never believed me because you already had someone else."

He paused. "Maybe I was the only one who didn't realize it."

Venisa watched him carefully.

The admission came without hesitation.

"Jealous enough to make myself believe things I had no proof of."

His fingers curled at his sides.

"And the more I saw Tala beside you, the easier it became to convince myself that I had misunderstood everything."

He looked at her again.

"I had spent almost a year telling you that I loved you, and you never believed me."

His expression softened, but the hurt remained.

"Eventually, I started thinking there had to be a reason."

Venisa said nothing.

"So I gave myself one."

His voice dropped to a whisper.

"I told myself you loved him."

A long silence followed.

"And if you did," Code continued, "then what right did I have to keep standing there and asking you to believe me?"

Venisa's eyes lowered.

Code took a slow breath.

"So when I finally told you I didn't love you anymore..."

He swallowed. "I wasn't telling the truth."

His eyes met hers. "I was trying to convince myself that I had no reason to love you anymore."

Code's jaw tightened.

There had been moments when his jealousy had become so irrational that his mind created ridiculous, violent images of Tala simply for standing too close to Venisa.

He would imagine grabbing him, stuffing him into a sack, tying it shut, and throwing it somewhere far enough away that he would never have to see his face again, or imagined himself stabbing the sack repeatedly.

Get away from her.

Stop standing beside her.

Why are you always there?

Code almost laughed at himself now.

It had been ridiculous.

But at the time, none of it had felt funny.

Because every time he saw Tala beside Venisa, the same ugly thought returned:

Maybe she chose him.

And that thought had been enough to make Code believe his own lies.

Venisa's voice was quiet. "Tala was my brother."

Code looked at her. "I know that."

"It was revealed weeks after you told me you didn't love me anymore."

Code's expression changed.

He remembered that period—the distance, the silence, the way he had forced himself to believe that Tala had always been the person Venisa wanted beside her.

"When I finally learned the truth," he said, "I believed it."

Venisa looked at him.

"I believed you when they said he was only your brother."

A bitter smile crossed his face.

"But by then, it was already too late."

He couldn't simply return and take those words back.

So he stayed away. He let her believe him.

And he forced himself to live with the consequences.

"I didn't see you again until your grandmother's funeral," Code continued.

His voice became quieter.

"That was when I finally understood how much time I had wasted."

Venisa said nothing.

Code's voice almost broke.

"But the truth was..."

Code had eventually accepted the truth. Tala was Venisa's brother.

He had learned it weeks after he told Venisa he no longer loved her, and by then, there was nothing he could do with the knowledge.

He had been wrong.

All those months of jealousy, all the times he had imagined Tala standing between them—he had built them entirely on a misunderstanding.

So when years passed, Code stopped questioning it.

Until Donna Victoria's funeral.

He remembered the moment clearly.

After hours of receiving mourners, Venisa finally stepped away from the entrance.

She had stood there almost the entire afternoon, accepting condolences with the composure expected of a baroness, even though the grief behind her eyes had never left.

Tala approached her quietly.

"You should rest."

Venisa gave a small nod.

Without another word, Tala walked beside her as they made their way through the manor.

Code watched them leave.

He had been waiting for an opportunity to speak with Venisa.

Just once.

He didn't know what he wanted to say anymore. Perhaps an apology. Perhaps an explanation. Perhaps nothing more than her name spoken between them after all those years.

When he saw her disappear down the corridor with Tala, he hesitated.

Then he followed.

He kept his distance, careful not to draw attention from the mourners still gathered downstairs.

Tala opened the door to Venisa's room.

Venisa stepped inside.

Code stopped several steps away.

He should have turned back.

Instead, he remained there.

He waited.

Perhaps Tala would leave.

Perhaps Venisa would be alone.

Perhaps he would finally have the courage to knock.

And before Code could understand what was happening, Tala leaned down and kissed her.

Code froze.

His entire body went still.

For several seconds, he couldn't move.

He stared at them through the partially opened doorway, unable to reconcile what he was seeing with everything he had believed for years.

Tala is her brother.

He had known that.

He had accepted it.

He had spent years believing that the jealousy which once consumed him had been nothing more than a foolish misunderstanding.

Yet here he was.

Watching Tala kiss Venisa.

His chest tightened.

The old jealousy came back with frightening speed, dragging every buried memory behind it.

Every time Tala had stood beside her.

Every time Code had seen him driving her home.

Every time he had wondered whether Venisa had chosen someone else.

And suddenly, the explanation he had forced himself to accept no longer made sense.

Code's hand slowly curled into a fist.

He had followed her because he wanted to talk.

He had imagined that perhaps, after all these years, they could finally speak.

Instead, he found himself standing outside her room, watching the woman he had never truly stopped loving being kissed by another man.

He took one step backward.

Then another.

He didn't wait for an explanation.

He didn't knock.

He didn't ask.

He simply turned away.

Because once again, Code had seen something he didn't understand—

and this time, he was too afraid to stay long enough to learn the truth.