He tightened his grip around my wrist, his fingers cold against my skin.
"Bianca," Adrian said, his voice low, almost careful. "Why are you acting like this?"
I looked down at his hand, then slowly lifted my eyes to meet his.
For ten years, I had loved this man with everything I had.
When I was eight years old, I was sent to the DeLuca household because of my heart condition. Back then, Adrian was already the most dazzling boy I had ever seen. He was proud, quiet, and distant, like someone born to stand above everyone else. The kind of boy the old men in the parlor already called il principe, the heir who would one day sit at the head of the table.
But he was also the first person who sat beside my hospital bed and peeled an apple for me with clumsy hands.
He was the one who carried me on his back when I was too weak to walk.
He was the one who promised me, under the old fig tree in the DeLuca courtyard, that when we grew up, he would marry me.
I had believed him.
I had believed every word.
So for the next ten years, I followed him like a shadow. I loved what he loved, waited where he told me to wait, and forgave him every time he chose someone else over me.
And then, on the tenth anniversary of our relationship, he secretly arranged a grand church wedding for my cancer-stricken best friend.
Viviana Caruso's final wish was to marry him.
And Adrian DeLuca agreed.
He did not tell me. He did not ask me. He did not even give me the dignity of hearing it from his own mouth.
Instead, he blocked every piece of news, ordered everyone around him not to inform me, and tried to hide the entire ceremony from me like I was some shameful inconvenience. Every associate, every soldier, every cousin who might have whispered the truth to me had been told to keep their mouths shut. Omertà, but turned inward, aimed at me.
But Viviana live-streamed the whole ceremony for me to see.
I watched the man I had loved for ten years stand before another woman in a white wedding dress, the altar candles burning behind them like something sacred was actually happening.
I watched him put a ring on her finger.
I watched him lower his head and kiss her forehead while everyone applauded.
That night, I cried until my chest burned, until my heart spasmed with pain, until the world went black and I fainted on the cold floor.
After the wedding, Adrian stayed with Viviana at the family's island estate.
And later, when my heart condition suddenly flared up, he rushed to take her to the hospital instead, leaving me behind as if my life meant nothing.
That day, I almost died.
It was also on that day that something inside me finally shattered beyond repair.
So when Dominic Moretti, the Don who controlled Seattle's port territory and half its shipping lines, proposed to me, I said yes.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Not because I wanted to provoke Adrian.
But because I was tired.
I was tired of waiting for a man who only remembered me when Viviana did not need him.
I was tired of being the person left behind.
Dominic kept confirming it over and over again.
"Bianca Bellandi, are you truly willing to marry me?"
Every few minutes, his message would appear on my screen, as if he was afraid I would regret it, afraid this happiness was too sudden to be real.
After I agreed, he sent me more than a dozen diamond ring designs.
Each one was breathtaking.
"These are rings I acquired at auction," he wrote. "Do you like any of them?"
When I did not reply immediately, another message came only seconds later.
"If none of them suit your taste, there's a jewelry auction in London soon. I'll take you there myself, and you can choose whatever you like."
I stared at the photos for a long time.
The diamonds sparkled coldly beneath the light, beautiful and distant, like another life waiting for me.
Finally, I pressed the voice message button and said softly, "The Graff pink diamond is beautiful. Let's use that as our wedding ring."
The moment I finished speaking, I sensed someone behind me.
I turned around.
Adrian was standing there.
