The Fifth Canceled Wedding
Vance canceled our wedding for the fifth time on the day I planned to tell him I was pregnant.
The pregnancy report was folded inside my bridal clutch. Six weeks. His child. I had imagined telling him after the ceremony, when the vows were spoken and the church was empty. I imagined his hand resting over my stomach, his cold face softening for once, and his voice promising that this baby would never be treated like a debt.
But Vance did not come.
The wedding organizer stood beneath the cathedral window with her clipboard pressed to her chest. Around us, white roses filled the aisle, candles burned beside the altar, and Vance's capos stood in black suits without daring to meet my eyes.
"I'm sorry, Miss Sandra," she said. "Don Vance ordered the ceremony postponed."
Postponed. Such a gentle word for being abandoned.
"What reason did he give this time?" I asked.
"A security emergency. He said rival families were moving."
I almost laughed. Vance always used serious words when he lied. Rival families. Blood feud. Emergency council. Words heavy enough to make everyone lower their heads and stop asking questions.
My phone vibrated inside my clutch. Vance.
For one foolish second, my heart still moved toward him. I answered.
"Sandra," he said, cold and impatient. "The wedding has to wait."
"Where are you?"
There was a pause. Then he said, "Julia was surrounded by paparazzi at the airport. She called me crying. I couldn't leave her there."
Julia. His childhood sweetheart. His first love. The actress who claimed she wanted nothing to do with the Mafia, yet always needed Vance whenever I was supposed to have him.
I looked at the empty space beside me at the altar. "I'm standing here in a wedding dress."
"You'll survive," he replied. "Your family's debt is still unpaid. We'll marry when I return."
Before I could answer, Julia's soft voice came faintly through the phone. "Vance? The reporters are still outside..."
His tone changed at once. "I'm coming."
Then the call ended.
Outside the cathedral, a giant billboard lit up with breaking entertainment news. There was Vance, guiding Julia through a crowd of reporters with his black coat around her shoulders. The headline read: MAFIA HEIR VANCE MORETTI PROTECTS ACTRESS JULIA LORNE AFTER AIRPORT CHAOS.
No one mentioned the bride he had left behind. Of course they did not. I was not the woman Vance protected in public. I was the debt bride waiting in the shadows.
The penthouse was silent when I returned. It was supposed to become our marital home tonight. Champagne waited in a silver bucket. White lilies filled the bedroom. I took off the wedding dress myself and unfolded the pregnancy report again.
Six weeks. Vance's child. My child.
The front door opened after midnight. Vance came in with Julia under his arm. She wore his coat, and two of his men followed with her luggage. Her luggage. Into my home.
"Why are you still awake?" Vance asked.
I looked at Julia leaning into him. "You brought her here?"
"The press found her hotel. She needs somewhere safe." He glanced toward the master bedroom. "Clear your things from the room tomorrow. Julia needs to rest. She's used to a larger bed."
My whole body went cold. "That is our bedroom."
"It's a room. Don't be petty."
Petty. He had left me at the altar while I carried his child, and now I was petty for not offering our bed to another woman.
I pulled the engagement ring from my finger and placed it on the glass coffee table.
"I'm ending the engagement."
Vance stared at the ring. Then he laughed. "No."
"No?"
"Your father's debt is still unpaid. You don't get to end anything."
Before I could answer, a guard entered with a black briefcase. "Boss, an unmarked courier left this downstairs. It's addressed to Miss Sandra."
I opened it. Inside were syndicate bonds. Untraceable. Transferable. Real. Exactly enough to clear my family's debt.
"The debt is paid in full," I said. "So now I'm leaving."
Vance picked up one bond and saw the seal. Achilles. His enemy. The man he hated more than death.
"You called him?"
"I called someone who answered."
His face darkened. "You think Achilles can buy what belongs to me?"
"I don't belong to you."
He crossed the room and grabbed my wrist hard enough to make me gasp. "You belong to me until I say otherwise."
For the first time in five years, I did not lower my eyes. "Then say it. Say you don't love me, but you still won't let me go."
Something flickered across his face. Then Julia pressed into his arms and whispered, "Vance, she's scaring me."
Just like that, his attention shifted. He released me and looked over her shoulder at his men.
"Take her downstairs. Let her stay in the basement until she remembers who she belongs to."
The capos seized my arms. The pregnancy report slipped from my clutch and fluttered to the floor.
I screamed Vance's name once as they dragged me toward the basement door. He did not follow.
The last thing I saw before the steel door swallowed me was Julia lowering her gaze to the paper near her foot. She saw the word pregnant.
Then she looked up at me and smiled.
