I looked in the mirror, noticing my belly's gotten a little big and it was getting more and more noticeable that I was pregnant, even though I was four months in. But I could still see my feet. I had a doctors' appointment next week and I was supposedly learning gender and development. I kinda didn't want to know gender yet, though. I felt extremely tired literally every moment of every day, and I took three naps a day. I can barely keep my eyes open.

These past few days, Cristiano has been trying to keep me happy and himself happy by forgetting the elephant in the room, but when we're just sitting in a room in silence, we're both obviously thinking about it.

He came up behind and wrapped his arms around me. "Good morning, my favorite people."

I grinned as he kissed the back of my head. "Morning, on behalf of our baby."

"Happy birthday, and merry Christmas, angel." He turned me around and pecked my lips, holding my hands.

I giggled, even though this day was just a reminder that is have to break up with him soon. "Thank you. It's four in the morning, do you honestly think everyone is up?"

"Definitely not. The only other person who'd be awake right now, is Zach. That's just because he has the mentality of a five year old on occasions such as Christmas."

"He's not that childish." I said, lying just to back him up.

"I call bullshit on that statement." He led me out of the room and downstairs, into the living room where I'd convinced everyone to let me decorate everything. They only disagreed because of the fact that I was pregnant and they didn't want me to be on my feet too much. I'm literally only four months in, not seven months in. But I know it's still important, it just bugs me.

"You went...all out."

"I was bored, and I love celebrating Christmas more than my actual birthday. And would you say that I'm weird if I said that 75% of the presents here are from me?"

"All of these? There are at least forty presents here, they take up half the living room. Damn." He chuckled, stepping over boxes to get to the couch.

"Well there are a lot of people who live here. The only other person who got tons of presents is Marcella and let me just tell you--she's stoked that we're having Roseros."

"She acts like you're having Roseros tomorrow. She's the only woman I've ever known who's excited and ready to be a nonna at 46 years old." He shook his head, pulling me to sit in his lap. I laid against his chest and he kissed my forehead.

Then it was silent. Another moment passed where we were both thinking about the thing keeping us from being completely normal together. It felt like a void whenever these moments passed, like for a second we weren't together and we didn't want to be near each other. I hated these moments.

And I was tired of these moments. I was so sick of spending every day of the past three months worrying about this man not loving me. Breaking up isn't good for us having a baby, but stress isn't good for the mother or the child.

I gathered all of my guts and courage, thinking about the confession to come out of my mouth. This wasn't apart of the plan. I was about to fuck everything up on Christmas morning, but hey. It's better fucking everything up with my boyfriend rather than fiancé. That's a horrible way of putting things.

"Cristiano, I love you." I said carefully, not wanting to see his reaction. But he didn't react. He was still processing this, I'd completely caught him off guard. That's when I started tearing up.

"What?" He asked, as if he couldn't quite understand me.

I sat up, looking at him with a tear falling. "These past few months, I've been acting weird and keeping secrets and it resulted in a lot of arguments. I'm so sorry. The 'big secret' everyone knows and is keeping from you. The secret Eli wasn't okay with, the secret I couldn't tell you until the right time..." I took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes.

"The secret is that I love you more than anything. I love you so much. The reason I decided not to tell you is because I know you don't and can't love me too. I was just afraid that it'd be over. We'd be over. And because of that, I--"

"No." He said instantly, shaking his head. "No. I know what you're going to say and I'm not letting that happen. We are not breaking up, Harlow," he breathed, before sighing and running a hand through his hair.

"But I can't do this anymore. I've been holding this in for nearly five months and I just can't take it, knowing that the man that I love is never going to love me. I-I can't be with you." My voice broke and it didn't help that the look on his face was soul-crushing.

"Don't. God, don't. If you're telling me this then I'll tell you this: I am doing everything I possibly can to find a cure. I know you think it's dangerous to fuck with the Institution like that but I don't care because it's for us. The three of us. I'm so close, angel, just wait. Just wait a week. Seven days. That's all I'm asking you. Please."

I looked down and sniffled. "I don't know if I can."

"Harlow..." I glanced at him and his eyes were glassy, which is something I'd only seen one other time. He sighed again and we stayed silent for a few minutes, which seemed like a lifetime.

"Fine." He said, taking a deep breath. "If you want--need for this to be over...okay. But please, don't distance yourself too much. Don't be sad when I propose because I cannot handle that either. I hate this, so much. But please, don't let this ruin this." He put a hand to my belly and that made me cry more.

I buried my face in his chest with quiet sobs and he hugged me tight, kissing my head. I just wanted to throw up. I felt sick to my stomach, and not because of my pregnancy. I was full of regret but I knew that this relationship hurt too much. It hurts both of us too much. And I couldn't live with it.

He let go of me and patted my back, telling me to move inaudibly. I got off of him and he stood up. This happened to be at the same time everyone walked in. They looked at him and he had sniffled, trying to wipe a tear that fell. "I just need some air." He said, grabbing his keys and heading out the door.

They looked at me and I stood up too. "I told him." I started to break down and Eli came to hug me.

"I'm so sorry, Har."

We spent my birthday, aka Christmas morning, without Cristiano. He was out all day. No one got a call, a text. He wouldn't answer any calls or texts. We opened presents, and I gathered all of his presents and set them on the floor near his side of the bed. I swear, I'd never cried so much in my life. I spent hours locked in that room.

Then he walked in, startling me and I stood up, looking down at the floor.He suddenly decided that he wasn't gonna let this end. He came in and closed the door, locking it. "Harlow." He called. "Look at me."

I couldn't.

"Harlow, look at me." He cupped my face with his hands and forced me to look up at him. His nose and eyes were tinted red and it tore me apart to know that I made him cry.

"I swear to God, I would do anything for you. I'd die for you. I've never ever felt like that about anyone. I know I cannot love you, I hate that. That's so fucked up because you deserve as much love as the world can ever give. I'm sorry that I'm the only person on this planet that can't give that to you. But I promise that I will find a way to be able to. Just please, give me a chance to love you. I want to so bad. And once I do, I'll love you forever and a day."

He was trying so hard. He was barely hanging on, and it looked like he could fall at any moment. "A week?"

"Yes, God, yes. Seven days, that's all I need. Just seven days to think and get myself in order. Please."

A week. That's what echoed in my mind. "I-I will wait a week, like you said," I didn't think that it would only take a week. I was just so broken that I'd believe anything to be fixed again. "Because I love you."

"And I'm so glad that you do." He chuckled sadly. "But I have something to tell you." He said. "My secret. Harlow, I actually can love, it's just that my serums don't allow me to. You know this. But if I tried, I could. It's just that for everyone who has below 40% happiness, if they feel more than that such as love, then the serums in their blood will turn into a heart-stopping poison."

"So if you were to impossibly fall in love, you'd die. How instant?" This is the worst day of my life.

"It starts at your fingertips, turning them black. Your body temperature decreases, and the poison slowly transfers up your limbs and paralyzes you from the neck down. Once it reaches your lungs, it's delayed, causing you to barely be able to breathe. Then when it reaches your heart, you seize and die. That's over a course of five hours, give or take." That's five hours of feeling yourself die.

I didn't know how to take that. "Don't love me."

"That's gonna be impossible. Eli has been helping me find the one person who possibly has a cure. We found them, and we're trying to find their exact location, but they set up an intense firewall and even when he gets past it, he'll run into a ton of encrypted information that would take us longer to find any information on the person, such as where they live."

"Who is it?" I asked, and the face he made told me I wouldn't like it.

"Jack Winters, who happens to be your real biological father. Just no news of your mother. I'm sorry." I tensed when he mentioned my family. Growing up, I always felt like I didn't belong in my 'family'. I guess I was right all along. I didn't grow up with a family, I grew up with snobby sadistic rich people.

"It's fine. I couldn't care less about my father. I barely knew him, he was too busy being a mentally ill drunk than to be a dad."

"At least you can thank him for having the cure." He shrugged a shoulder with a bit of hope. A moment of silence went by and I remembered something.

"I totally forgot about these." I went to the bed and sat down, leaning to get his presents.

"No, I'll get them." He quickly grabbed them and put them on the bed before I could even get close to touching them.

I groaned. "I am only four months in!"

"It's still important that you rest." He said.

I rolled my eyes with a small smile, reaching inside a bag. "This is from...Lex. It's a new Rolex watch and a card with a pacifier in it. I got a matching one and thought we're not married yet, yours says 'hubby' and mine says 'wifey'."

He chuckled, setting it to the side. I reached into another bag. "I think everyone got us baby stuff. I'm surprised they didn't get a crib. This is from your mother." I turned the bag upside down and about twelve newborn baby outfits of different colors came out.

"Wow." He scoffed. "I'd hate to see how much she'd give at the baby shower."

I laughed a little and looked in another bag. "Okay, big boss Dominic, the person I love to bother. This is addressed to both of us. It's a...paper." I looked over the letter and realized it was from the Institution.

"What does it say?"

"This is basically a grant that our child will be permitted to live a normal life without going through the Institution." I smiled, laughing because I couldn't believe he got the Institution to agree to this. He smiled too, but rolled his eyes at another thing addressed to me in the bag.

He reached into the nightstand and grabbed my official Mafia gun. Then he took out a long flat box and opened it. "This is a sniper rifle with your initials and says on it that it's your official second weapon. And a card that says something you'll totally be happy about."

"What?" I asked, already thinking about the things (not people) I'll shoot.

"You're replacing me as head don of the Italian Mafia as soon as I become capo. You're basically my second-in-command."

"Oh, that's the second best news I've heard in the past four months! I get to go on dangerous missions and no one can stop me!" I cheered.

"I can stop you."

"No, you can't because we have a co-dominant relationship and I'm not submissive and I'm a grown-ass woman!" I continued to cheer.

He chuckled. "Okay, I won't stop you."

Though we were still recovering from the fact that we broke up for a few hours then got back together, the fact that we both know that I'm in love with him, and the fact that if he loves me he will die, we still laughed and opened presents with just the two of us.

It was the first purely happy conversation we had in months, and it felt good to know that he knew I loved him. Sure, we were worried about the next week, but we were still happy with no secrets.

He talked to everyone in the kitchen and Zach was especially glad to hear that things were getting okay with us. "Thank God. I was so tired of keeping your secrets."

"And of being threatened." Eli added.

"And hearing Cristiano's annoyed outbursts throughout the house." Alexi rolled her eyes. "I hope you liked your presents."

"Yes, I enjoyed receiving tons of baby stuff four months into the pregnancy, months before the actual shower." He grinned sarcastically. "But grazie. Aren't we learning gender next week?" He asked me, kissing my head before getting coffee.

"I'll be almost 18 weeks, so yeah. It's basically telling us about the baby's development also, which has to do with gender. Stop torturing me with the fact that I can't have coffee."

"I'm not." He took a purposely noisy sip.

"You are! You're making loud slurps and I can smell it, you're drinking it right in front of me and it's torture."

  "Okay, I'll drink it later when you aren't around," he put the cup down. "Is that okay?"

I still pouted from the fact that I can't have coffee. "Yeah."

"So, about the estate. Are you going to stay here, or go back to Firenze?" He asked Dominic, who rolled his eyes at Cristiano's persistency to get them out of Venice.

"You're truly serious about moving out?" Marcella's tone of voice obviously meant that she didn't want to let her only son go. But he's 23.

"Yes. I know I'm young but I'm getting married in four months and then a month after that I'm going to be a father. I cannot stay here for various reasons for the safety of my family." He made a hella good point. It was also incredibly sweet.

"That's a good point." I muttered, but they heard me.

"It's just that--you're 23 years old. Your life is moving way too fast. So is Harlow's. I just don't want you to move on with your life so quick."

"That's a good point too." I muttered, but they heard me and Cristiano sighed.

"You know what? I will stay for eight months after the baby is born. Then we're gone. Okay? I don't necessarily have to live in the estate to be part of the Familia. I'll still be capo, just not under living conditions."

"Okay. Speaking of, since your little bambino isn't going to the Institution, you have the choice to still allow he/she to be in the Mafia. They just have to be trained by the best here."

"I am not training my baby to shoot people!" I objected as soon as he said it. Zach scoffed. "I know it's cocky to automatically say that I'm the best, but it's scientifically a fact." I added.

"Okay, not the best. Not just one person." Dominic shook his head.

"CAT? The only thing I'd be okay with is sniper shooting and literally everything that Eli does in the sidelines away from any danger at all."

"Thank you for low-key calling me a coward." He smiled sarcastically and I chuckled.

"You're not a coward. I was making a point."

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Ugh, I'm such a bad author. I was supposed to update week ago and I had a concept ready for the chapter, it's just that my third book about Peyton and Lucian is really good and I'm getting distracted. I'm so sorry--forgive me!!!
.~_~.

Bye, loves!

- COA