1

Alex and I had been together eight years. Five of them we spent secretly married.

He never once announced to anyone who I was.

He said he had too many enemies, and keeping my name out of the light was how he kept me safe.

I never agreed with that, because I was the brightest jewel of the Moretti Family and I did not need anyone's protection.

But I always lost, every time, to that gentle, restrained look in Alex's eyes.

Five years of marriage, and Alex had never acknowledged me in public.

My position inside the Castellano Family was an awkward one.

Even the household staff joked behind my back that I was the Castellano Family's uncrowned Donna.

It finally boiled over into another fight between Alex and me.

And this time Alex gave in. He pulled me into his arms.

"I'm sorry, Valeria. I ignored how you felt. Please forgive me.

"Give me a chance to make it up to you. I'll give you the biggest wedding anyone has ever seen."

Then Alex got too busy, and planning the wedding landed back on me.

A week before the ceremony, Alex told me out of nowhere that something had gone wrong with our North American business and he had to fly out and deal with it.

Then an email arrived from an anonymous sender.

It was a voice recording.

"Alex, if Valeria finds out you had a wedding with me, is she going to lose her mind?"

"She's so fierce. She'll definitely hit me."

Then Alex's voice came through.

"I won't let her find out."

Cold shot up from the soles of my feet to the top of my head.

I stood there, frozen.

I knew that woman's voice. It was Lilith.

And she was Alex's adopted sister.

Right after that, the sender pushed a whole pile of chat screenshots at me.

Then she wrote this.

"You think Alex refuses to marry you in public to protect you?

"He doesn't. He's doing it for Lilith! Because Lilith won't let the two of you have a wedding.

"Valeria, if you have any self-respect left, leave Alex!"

"Are you Lilith?"

I wrote back.

Nothing came.

I saved everything the anonymous sender had given me, dragged a chair over, sat down at the desk, and read it all properly.

So the Alex who was too busy to answer my messages had time to talk to Lilith every single day.

Lilith would send him photos of flowers she passed on the street, and he would say, "Not as pretty as you."

Lilith said she couldn't sleep, and Alex stayed on the phone with her until two in the morning, coaxing her under.

Lilith was frightened by the thunder, and he answered in seconds, "Wait for me."

And on the day I was ambushed out in the open, I called Alex twelve times. He didn't pick up once.

I read through every last message.

Every line of it showed how much care Alex had put in.

What made me angriest was the past month.

While I was running myself into the ground planning our wedding, Alex was busy too.

He had been planning another wedding with Lilith.

He asked her patiently what kind of ceremony she wanted, what style of gown she preferred, which flower should anchor her bouquet.

Lilith kept second-guessing herself and couldn't decide.

So Alex drew up five different versions of the plan.

The venue, the favors for the guests, every scale of detail. He had thought of all of it.

Our wedding, from start to finish, he never touched.

I asked him church or outdoors. He said whatever I liked.

I asked what kind of suit he wanted. Whatever I liked.

I asked who he wanted on the guest list. Whatever I liked.

Then he kissed my forehead, his eyes full of guilt.

"Valeria, I can't get to the details right now. I'm putting all of it on you.

"Once the wedding's done, I'll clear my schedule. We'll take the honeymoon we never had. Just the two of us."

The little knot of resentment in me dissolved under that soft voice of his.

I really believed he was just busy.

I believed that right up until the day I saw his messages with Lilith.

Every word of them soaked in care.

That was when I realized those eight years with Alex seemed to mean nothing at all.