Then he leaned down, bringing his lips close to my ear. The words he whispered cut deeper than any public humiliation ever could.
“Did you really think a baby would be enough to trap a man like me?”
His voice was an icy whip, each syllable soaked in venom.
“Women like you are good for empty nights, Valentina. A man like me doesn’t choose a girl anyone could have for a few dollars and cheap attention. You were a mistake. Nothing more. And today, I am getting rid of that mistake.”
He pulled back as slowly as he had approached, holding my shattered, stunned gaze for one final second before delivering the final blow.
“I hope you enjoyed your last fantasy of being important. Because from today on, you are nothing to me. And you will never have anything of mine—my name, my money, or my child. You are less than the insects crushed beneath my shoes, Valentina.”
My eyes burned as I desperately tried to understand the absurdity of what was happening. My heart, which momentsearlier had been overflowing with happiness, was now being ripped apart—destroyed with cruelty by the last person I ever expected.
“Enrico…” I whispered, humiliated, broken. I was now the woman abandoned at the altar. The woman everyone watched beg.
Enrico turned his back on me without mercy.
Without hesitation.
He walked away from the altar under the horrified, indignant—or satisfied—stares of the guests. He never looked back.
I stood there, alone at the center of the altar, my perfect dress, my bouquet crushed in my hands, my dreams scattered across the floor.
Exactly as Enrico wanted me.
Tears streamed freely down my face. My vision blurred completely as the murmur of the crowd grew louder.
My father tried to reach me. Someone came to hold me upright. But I felt nothing but pain, shame, and despair.
It was the perfect image of a woman destroyed.
A woman who fell from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds, who lost everything she loved and believed in before hundreds of silent witnesses.
And there, at the altar of that immense cathedral—surrounded by people who judged me, despised me, or pitied me—I made myself a promise.
Enrico Ferrara would never find me again.
He would never know about our daughter.
And he would never again have the power to destroy my life.
Never.
“Get me out of here,” I whispered weakly, my body collapsing into the arms of whoever was holding me.
“Please… just get me out of here.”
Instinctively, I covered my stomach with my free hand—a useless gesture to protect the innocent life inside me, the life Enrico had just rejected in front of everyone.
And as I was dragged out of the church, I left her behind at that altar—the girl who believed in love.
Because she no longer existed.
The woman who rose in her place would never again give anyone the power to shatter her like that.
ONE
ENRICO FERRARA
