"But the guests are already invited," he continued, and I could hear the strain in his voice, the pull between what he wanted and what he'd committed to. "The families are expecting this. Even if I wanted to back out now, there's no undoing it. The sit-down was months ago. The terms were set."
Another pause. Then, suddenly, he laughed. A warm, genuine laugh, the kind I hadn't heard from him in years. "You clever little ghost," he said, his voice dropping to something intimate, conspiratorial. "Fine. I'll do what you say. When the time comes, I'll put our wedding photos behind Adriana's. The ones that matter, the ones of us, they'll be hidden right behind hers. To me, those are the real ones. Those belong to us."
The words settled over me like a funeral shroud.
I had already decided to leave. I had already made my peace with the end of this arrangement. But hearing him say it, hearing the casual, almost gleeful way he planned to desecrate our union by hiding photographs of himself with another woman behind our wedding portraits, was something else entirely. It was not just betrayal. It was contempt. A deliberate, calculated humiliation designed to exist in secret, a private joke shared between two people at my expense.
It was as if I had been struck across the face twice, each blow landing harder than the last. The air left my lungs. My vision blurred. A surge of fury so intense it bordered on nausea rose through my chest and lodged in my throat.
At that moment, Gianluca ended the call. I heard his footsteps approach the bedroom door. He pushed it open cautiously, peered inside, and found me sitting upright in bed, my eyes fixed on him.
He flinched.
"Addie, why are you up?" he asked, his voice shifting instantly from the tender warmth he'd used with Adelina to something cautious, measured. Guilt flickered behind his eyes like a candle in a draft.
I took a slow breath. I kept my expression cold, blank, unreadable. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood.
He studied my face, searching for signs that I had heard. When he found none, the tension in his shoulders eased. Relief softened his features. But then he noticed the way I was looking at him, and his jaw tightened.
"Why are you staring at me like that?" he said, forcing a casual tone. "I just had too much to drink last night. That's all."
I said nothing. I walked past him toward the bathroom.
After a moment of silence, he tried again. This time, he smiled. It was the practiced, easy smile he used when he wanted something, the one that had fooled me for five years.
"Addie, I have some things to handle today, so I won't be able to stay with you this morning." He leaned against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, as if this were the most natural conversation in the world. "Adelina wants to stand as a witness at the ceremony, and we still need to choose her dress. To make sure everything goes smoothly tomorrow, I need to go with her to the fitting."
He must have sensed the refusal forming on my lips, because he added quickly, "Come by this afternoon, and we'll pick out your gown together. Don't worry. You'll be the most beautiful bride anyone's ever seen. Adelina won't outshine you."
The fact that he felt the need to say it told me everything.
"Fine," I said. A single, flat syllable.
Surprise crossed his face. He hadn't expected agreement. For a moment, something like suspicion flickered in his eyes, but eagerness won out. He gathered his things with barely concealed haste, snatched the car keys from the table, and left without looking back.
The door closed behind him, and the apartment went silent.
I hadn't planned to go. But curiosity is a dangerous thing, especially when it's laced with the bitter need to confirm what you already know. That afternoon, I took a taxi to the dress shop, a high-end boutique in the old quarter that catered to the wives and daughters of powerful families.
What I saw when I walked in confirmed every suspicion I had ever tried to bury.
Gianluca and Adelina were standing close together near the fitting mirrors, their bodies angled toward each other in a way that spoke of intimacy so practiced it had become unconscious. Adelina wore a short white gauze skirt that clung to her narrow waist and left generous expanses of pale skin exposed. The fabric was sheer enough that the light caught the faint, unmistakable marks on the back of her neck. Kiss marks. Fresh ones.
My entrance shattered whatever private moment they'd been sharing. Adelina's eyes went wide, and she darted behind Gianluca like a startled animal seeking shelter, as if I were the threat. As if I were the intruder in my own wedding preparations.
Gianluca stepped in front of her, positioning his body between us. His expression was smooth, casual, utterly unbothered.
"You're late," he said. "Adelina already picked out a gown for you. Go ahead and try it on."
He gestured toward a dress hanging on a rack near the wall. I looked at it. It was a plain white dress, simple to the point of insult, with a single artificial flower pinned to the bodice. Beside it, on a separate rack, hung the gown Adelina had been trying on: an elaborate confection of silk and lace, with delicate beadwork cascading down the bodice and a train that pooled on the floor like spilled milk. The kind of gown a bride wears. The kind of gown I should have been wearing.
The difference was so stark, so deliberately humiliating, that for a moment I simply stared at the two dresses side by side, letting the full weight of the insult settle into my bones.
Gianluca didn't seem to notice anything wrong. Or perhaps he noticed and simply didn't care. Seeing my hesitation, he added, "Wedding preparations can be overwhelming. Adelina wanted to make things easier for you. Help you relax."
I couldn't help the sneer that twisted my lips. Simplify. That was what he called it.
"There's no need to try it on," I said, my voice flat and final. "Just use this one."
Adelina tugged on Gianluca's sleeve. Her lower lip trembled, and her voice came out in a wounded, fragile whisper. "Adriana doesn't want to try it on. Do you think she doesn't like the dress I picked for her?"
