Chapter 121 One Half Of Me The plates clattered harder than I meant them to when I dropped them into the sink. The sound echoed through the kitchen loudly. “Go home, Penelope.” I didn’t look at her. The edge in my voice was sharper than the porcelain shards at the bottom of the basin. “You’ve said enough.” “Have I?” Her reflection glared back at me from the dark windowpane. “Why won’t you speak of her? Why does my sister's name haunt you?” Her words hit something I’d spent years nailing shut. I drew a slow breath through my nose. Then I turned around and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Penny, stop.” I turned, forcing calm into my voice. “We’ve had a good time. Great conversation. Great wine. Good food. Now you need to go. We’ll talk tomorrow when you’re yourself.” She shrugged off the hand I’d rested on her shoulder. “You talk about that Savannah girl all the time. Sav this. Sav that. You’re obsessed. Every detail, every move she makes.” Her voice cracked, but she pressed on. “I walked in on you, Roman, with your hand down her knickers, sucking her in like she was oxygen. You were never that way with my sister, were you?”I closed my eyes for a beat. “I just don’t understand it,” she went on, voice unsteady. “How can you fall in love again and now fall harder than when it was true?” My jaw tightened. “My love for Savannah is true. And I will not discuss my private life with you, Penelope. Now, go.” She crossed her arms like a stubborn child, feet planted. “No. I’m not going.” I turned away, counting to three in my head. “You’re going to. You’re being unbearable and I don’t want to deal with you.” “Let’s talk about my sister, Roman.” Her voice sliced through my composure. “Let’s talk about Dahlia for once. Not Sav. Let’s talk about your daughter—Naomi. Let's talk about all the people you lost.” I froze. Her words dug into the one place she had no right to touch. “Why does it feel like you’ve tried so hard to erase that part of you?” she demanded. “Screwing a widower isn't appealing to Sav? What did my sister do to make you wipe your entire being clean of her? What, Roman? I’m curious to know.”“Watch your tongue,” I said quietly. The warning in my voice was low, almost too calm. “Because right now, I’m beginning to really lose it with you.” She reached for my half-finished glass of wine, lifted it, and drained it in one defiant gulp. The crimson liquid slid down her throat at once like water. “Even better,” she said hoarsely. “I want you to lose it. If that’s what it takes for you to admit you were once madly in love with a woman who bore my face.” “You look nothing like her.” She laughed. “You're blind if you actually believe that. There was no difference between Dahlia and I.” I turned to her fully. “You are both different.” “She was my twin!” Penelope’s voice rose, breaking the air between us. “Same womb, same face. So we’re a lot more alike than you’ll ever admit.” Her tone softened, but it only made it worse. “Sometimes I wonder how you do it.” “Do what?” She didn’t blink. “Look at me and not see her staring right back at you.”Silence stretched as the clock ticked behind us. “All these years,” she whispered. “How did you never freak out for once? Was it a sick thrill, Roman? Facing your past? Did it fascinate you to look upon my face and see your dead wife?” “I’m not scared of Dahlia,” I said, voice flat. “And I never saw her in you.” “She was my twin, Roman. One half of me.” “You and Dahlia are not the same,” I said. “You never were. You never will be. She never had your stubbornness or your strength. And you certainly don't have her tenderness.” A bitter chuckle slipped out of her. “I always wondered why you fell for her. It was… unnatural. I was afraid you’d break her. Because boys like you break girls like her. When she said yes to marrying you, I thought she was walking into the lion’s den with no clue. She was too soft for you.” I forced my hands to stay still at my sides. “Penny, please. We shouldn’t do this. It won’t end well for either of us.” She laughed once, humorless. “My sister’s dead, Roman. It didn’t end well for me.” Her voice cracked but she steadied it. “She loved you. So fucking much. Dahlia shouldn’t be forgotten so quickly over a flavor of the season like your Sav. She was your soul mate. Roman, my sister died while carrying your child.” My chest burned. The air in the room felt too thin. “The child wasn’t mine,” I said quietly. She froze. “What?” “It wasn’t mine,” I said again, louder this time, anger bleeding through the restraint I fought hard to maintain. “Naomi wasn’t mine.” She jerked back like I’d struck her. The drunken blur in her eyes cleared in an instant. “What? How dare you smear dirt on my sister’s name—” “It’s the truth!” My voice cracked, echoing off the marble counter. “Your perfect sister, the one who couldn’t hurt a fly, got pregnant for another man! And she had the audacity to pin it on me. Dahlia wasn’t as innocent as she pretended. You’re her sister. You had to know.” Her lips trembled. “That’s not true. My sister would never break her vows to you. She loved you more than anyone. Even more than me.” I scoffed, unable to help it. “I find that hard to believe.” Her eyes filled. “So that morning she died—that’s why you turned your back on her. You believed she was cheating. That’s why you let her die even though you knew she was reaching out to you.”“I didn’t know,” I said. My voice broke on the words. “I would never have let that happen if I’d known. Don’t you dare paint me as a monster. I did not kill Dahlia. It was an accident.” “Why do I find it hard to believe that the man standing in front of me, accusing my innocent sister of infidelity, had nothing to do with her death?” she spat. “There were more Blackwoods living in that house, at that time, than I can count. Why did she have to drive herself? Why were the brakes cut? Nothing makes sense, Roman. Every night I wake up at midnight thinking—what the hell did you and your twisted family do to my sister?” “I did nothing but take care of her and love her,” I said. “Lies,” she hissed. “You didn’t deserve her. None of you did. You killed her. You Blackwoods ruin everything you touch.” Something in me cracked then—not loudly, not visibly, but with the quiet force of a splintered bone. I stepped closer, my voice low and shaking. “If your innocent sister hadn’t—” Penelope’s breath hitched, but she didn’t move back. There was defiance in her eyes, the kind that begged for me to finish the sentence and destroy her illusions. I stopped myself, fingers curling into fists. No. Not yet. “Roman,” she whispered, voice trembling. “Say it. Finish that sentence. If my sister hadn't what?” I turned away, my hand gripping the counter edge until my knuckles went white. I could taste the bitterness of the wine on my tongue, and something else beneath it—regret, old and foul. She took a step forward, her reflection hovering beside mine on the glass door of the cabinet. “You act like you’re angry at me, but it’s guilt, isn’t it? That’s what’s eating you alive. You blame yourself for what happened to her. You always have.” I shut my eyes. Don’t. “You can’t even look at me without remembering her face,” she said softly. “That’s why you hide behind Savannah. Because she’s safe. She doesn’t look like Dahlia. She doesn’t remind you of what you lost.” Her voice was unraveling now, slipping between grief and venom. “You think I don’t see it?” she went on. “The way you go quiet or defensive when I mention her name. The way you used to flinch whenever you hear that song she used to play on the piano. You walk around pretending you’ve moved on, but you’re still standing in that burning wreck, Roman. You just built your new life over the ashes.” “Stop.” My voice was low, trembling from the effort to keep it steady. She didn’t. “She died because of you, and you just—what? Replaced her? With some girl who can’t even tell when you’re bleeding under your skin?”