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Chapter 2

Author: Katerina
The next morning, I went to the bridal atelier alone.

I had spent two years designing that gown, choosing everything from the cut of the neckline to the embroidery along the train.

Although I no longer intended to walk down the aisle, I wanted to see myself wearing it once before I walked away.

As the designer removed the gown from its garment bag and spread the ivory skirt across the fitting platform, she glanced toward the door.

“This is going to look beautiful on you, Miss Russo. Will Mr. Valenti be joining us?”

“He’ll be here,” I answered after a brief hesitation.

It was the last time I spoke about Damian with that kind of certainty.

At ten thirty, his assistant texted to say that an emergency might prevent him from attending. I called Damian and heard hospital carts and paging announcements in the background.

“You’re still at the hospital?”

“Sienna had an allergic reaction to the brooch. The swelling around her neck got worse this morning, so the doctor wants to keep her under observation.”

Sienna’s tearful voice came through the phone as she asked whether the reaction might leave a scar.

I looked at the empty chair beside the fitting platform. “Today is our final fitting.”

Damian sighed. “Alessandra, don’t turn this into a competition. I’m marrying you in two days, and you’re the woman who will stand beside me at the ceremony. Sienna is sick, and I’m only staying with her for a few hours. Do you really have so little confidence in us?”

Before I could answer, an assistant approached with a cream-colored box Damian had sent. Inside was a pair of ivory satin wedding shoes with low heels and soft protective pads along the backs. A card rested between them.

[Your heels blister easily. Don’t wear anything too high.]

When I was eighteen, my first pair of heels had left both feet bleeding, and Damian had carried me to the car. The fact that he still remembered made it harder to stay angry with him. That was how he kept me from giving up: he noticed the smallest details about me, then relied on thoughtful gifts to make up for the moments when he failed to be there.

“Did you get them?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“They should fit. I confirmed the size with the atelier.”

I looked at the chair where he should have been sitting. “They fit.”

His voice softened. “Be patient with me today. I’ll come home tonight, and we’ll have dinner together.”

Before I could answer, Sienna called his name and asked him to check whether the swelling had returned. Damian ended the call to examine her.

I completed the fitting without him.

Luca arrived as the designer began packing the gown.

“Damian asked me to drive you home,” he said.

Rain was falling heavily when we left the atelier. When Luca unlocked his car, I found a white stuffed lamb with a blue ribbon sitting in the front passenger seat, secured beneath the seat belt.

I reached for it. “I’ll hold this so I can sit down.”

Luca immediately moved between me and the open door.

“Leave it there. It’s for Sienna. You can sit in the back.”

“The toy needs the front seat more than I do?”

Luca sighed. “You’re making this more difficult than it needs to be. You’re not like Sienna. You’re stronger.”

“You always ask me to be reasonable. Why don’t you ever ask her?”

After a moment of silence, he gave me an honest answer.

“Because she actually cries.”

His answer made our roles clear. Sienna cried and was comforted, while I stayed calm and was expected to take care of myself.

“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t.”

I pulled the garment bag closer and stepped out from beneath his umbrella. Luca called my name but did not follow me.

Twenty minutes later, Sienna posted an Instagram Story.

The white lamb sat beside her hospital bed, perfectly clean and dry, while Luca stood near the window with rain darkening one shoulder of his coat.

[He drove through the rain to bring this to me. He said he wouldn’t leave until I felt better.]

I stood beneath the awning of a closed restaurant with my gown and wedding accessories in my hands.

An assistant from the atelier hurried toward me and handed me the veil I had forgotten.

It had been prepared for my meeting with Damian at the Marriage Bureau the next morning.

But as I took it from her, I finally understood something. Neither Damian’s thoughtful gifts nor Luca’s occasional kindness could change my place in their lives.

Whenever Sienna wanted something, they expected me to step aside.

It no longer mattered.

I was leaving.
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