Alessandro looks at me, and his expression is cold enough to freeze blood. "How noble of you.” There's acid in his voice, barely controlled fury beneath the veneer of civility. "To consider my feelings after leading me on. After letting me believe we were building something together."
"Alessandro—" his father starts, but Alessandro cuts him off with a sharp gesture.
"No. I want to hear this." He moves closer to the table, his eyes never leaving mine. "I want to hear Giulia explain how she fell in love with someone else while she was engaged to me and planning our wedding. While she was letting me kiss her and hold her hand and introduce her to my family as my future wife."
Each word is designed to make me feel as small and worthless as possible. And it's working.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, my voice coming out smaller than I intended. "I never meant to hurt you. I never meant for any of this to happen."
"But it did happen." Alessandro leans forward, his hands flat on the table, his face close enough that I can see the fury in his eyes. "And now I'm the one who looks like a fool. The man who couldn't keep his fiancée interested. The man who got dumped for—" his eyes flick to Luca, standing silent and still behind Romeo's chair, "—for one of your father's soldiers."
The contempt in his voice when he says "soldiers" makes my skin crawl. Like Luca is beneath him, beneath all of us, likethe idea of me choosing Luca over him is not just insulting but incomprehensible.
"Luca Moretti is a respected member of this organization," Romeo says, his voice carrying a warning edge. "And he's going to be family. I'd suggest you choose your words carefully."
Alessandro straightens, but his eyes stay on Luca for a long moment, suspiciously. There's something in that look that makes my instincts flare. It feels dangerous. Like he knows or suspects something. Or is planning something.
But then the moment passes, and Alessandro turns back to me with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "You've made a mistake, Giulia," he says softly, his tone pitying now. It makes my skin crawl. "You think you're in love, but you're just infatuated. And when that fades, you're going to realize what you've given up. What you've thrown away for a momentary passion."
"That's enough," my father says, his voice carrying absolute authority. "The engagement is dissolved. The terms are agreed upon. There's nothing more to discuss. Leave the paperwork, and I will sign and return it."
Francesco Marchesi nods, standing. "Agreed. Alessandro, we're leaving."
But Alessandro doesn't move immediately. He's still looking at me, and his expression makes me want to run. It’s cold and calculating, utterly devoid of the charm he'd shown me during our courtship.
"I hope he's worth it," he says finally, and then he turns and walks out of the room, his father and their advisors following.
The door closes behind them, and the silence that follows is suffocating.
My father stands, gathering the papers. "That went as well as could be expected. Romeo, make sure the settlement is processed by Friday. Giulia, we’re heading home.”
He leaves without another word, and Romeo follows after giving me a brief, sympathetic look that doesn't make me feel any better. The security follows them, and I know I’m expected to go too. But for a moment, I’m frozen, staring at Luca as we’re briefly left alone in the private room, the space between us feeling like an unbridgeable chasm.
I stand on shaking legs, gathering my purse and trying to figure out what to say, how to bridge the distance. How to make him understand that I never wanted it to be like this.
"Luca—"
"Don't." He's not looking at me, his eyes fixed on some point past my shoulder. "We're not doing this here."
"I just want to talk. I just want to explain?—"
"There's nothing to explain." He finally looks at me, and the coldness in his eyes makes me flinch. "You made your choices. I'm living with the consequences. That's all there is to it."
"But we're getting married. We're going to have a child together. We have to find a way to?—"
"To what?" I can see the fury simmering beneath his controlled exterior. "To be happy? To pretend this is something it's not? To act like you didn't destroy everything?"
"I didn't mean to?—"
"But you did." His jaw works; his controlled tone is worse than if he’d shouted at me. "You did destroy it. And now we both have to live with that. So no, Giulia, we're not going to talk. We're not going to explain. We're going to get married in less than two weeks because we have no other choice, and then we're going to spend the rest of our lives figuring out how to coexist without killing each other."
He walks past me toward the door, and I reach out without thinking, my hand catching his arm. "Please," I whisper. "Please don't hate me."
He stops. For just a moment, I think I see something flicker in his eyes that might be pain, or regret, or the ghost of what we used to have. But then it's gone, replaced by that terrible coldness.
"I don't hate you," he says quietly, and somehow that's worse than if he did. "I don't feel anything for you at all anymore. And that's exactly how it needs to be." He pulls his arm free and walks out, leaving me standing alone in the private room with the weight of his words pressing down on me until I can barely breathe.
—
