The Wedding Was Never Mine to Lose

Halfway through the alliance ceremony that was meant to bind me to the man I had loved since childhood, his personal courier, Vittoria Rizzo, appeared in the doorway of the great hall … pregnant.

Lorenzo Falcone held her by the arm and looked at me without a trace of guilt, his voice carrying across the silk and candlelight as though he were reading terms at a sit-down. "I know I can't take Vittoria as my bound wife. But I gave her my word. She'll have her ceremony, and the child will have a whole family."

"From today, she is my woman too. You will love the child in her belly as if it were your own blood."

The assembled families whispered among themselves, faces caught between shock and disbelief, made men and their wives trading looks along the long tables. My parents' fury was plain. They drew me aside, my mother's grip iron on my wrist, and told me to walk out, that no Valente should have to stand under such an insult.

My in-laws, the Falcones, pressed me the other way, murmuring about the bigger picture, about the alliance, about finishing what had been started before the eyes of every family in the city. All I could do was look at Lorenzo's indifferent face, and then at Vittoria's smug little smile. And I smiled too.

I pulled the corsage from my chest and threw it at her.

Then I turned to the man I'd loved for fifteen years and said, grinning, "A ceremony for three? How tasteless. I'll step aside and let her be the bride tonight."

"Congratulations on the pregnancy … it's your wedding now."

And I clapped, loud and slow.

……

The entire hall fell silent in shock.

Lorenzo's face darkened. "Adriana. This is our day, and you have to make a scene, don't you?"

He had the nerve to call me the one making a scene.

At my own alliance ceremony, before every family that mattered, he openly stood behind his pregnant mistress and declared he would keep us both.

Did he think I would simply bow my head and take it?

I lifted the microphone from the hand of the master of ceremonies and spoke clearly, my voice steady enough to carry to the back tables where the enforcers stood along the walls. "Thank you all for coming. There's been a small change to the arrangement. Don't worry. The ceremony goes on. Only the bride has changed."

"Tonight's couple marries because of a child, so let's send them our blessings."

The room stayed silent. Not a glass moved.

Lorenzo's expression twisted darker still, and his parents' faces contorted with the shame of it, the whole Falcone bloodline sitting there exposed before the Commission's own.

I ignored them all and crossed the floor to my parents, forcing a smile as I reached them. "Papa. Mama. Let's go home."

Guilt sat heavy in my chest. My parents had never in their lives worn such humiliation, and it was mine that had put it on them.

My mother held my hand tightly, her eyes full of distress. My father rose from his seat, turned to the gathered families, and bowed. "I've arranged another table elsewhere. Every gift has been returned. Tonight, you drink and eat as my guests."

Watching Don Valente bow, my heart ached. In my whole life I had never once seen my father lower his head to any man. He had always been strong, always proud, the kind of proud that made grown made men straighten when he entered a room. But tonight, because of me, he turned his ring slow around his finger and bowed anyway.

Lorenzo and I had been raised in the same circles, close since we were children, but my parents had always stood against him.

We had fought about him more times than I could count. I used to think they were unfair, that they simply held some old grudge against the Falcone name. Now I understood how sharp their judgment had always been. They had seen the truth in him long before I let myself.

Lorenzo was never worthy of my love.

I used to believe he loved me the way I loved him. I thought he would never take anyone else. Since we were children I had followed him, watched his every move, adored him in silence.

Fifteen years had passed.

Fifteen years is such a long time. Even a heart made of stone should have softened by now. Lorenzo's never did.

That man stayed distant, always drifting toward some other woman.

Whenever he saw me, something in him closed. But no matter how many times he pushed me away, I went back, a moth to the flame, knowing I would burn and unable to turn from it.

I told myself that one day he would finally see my worth and love me with his whole heart. Instead reality slapped me across the face. He got a child on his courier. And then he brought her to our ceremony.

Lorenzo dared to humiliate me before my family, before my friends, before every family I had ever known, without a single thought for what it did to me.