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หน้าหลัก / Mafia / No Longer the Don's Bride / Chapter 3

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Chapter 3

ผู้เขียน: Arya
The next day, Dante sent over an antique pocket watch acquired at a closed-door auction.

Same maker.

Same year.

A seven-figure price.

His assistant set the velvet box in front of me.

“The Don canceled a port transfer and a family meeting to secure it.”

“He also said Miss Sinclair knows she was wrong and hopes you won’t stay angry with her.”

I left the box closed.

Dante never hesitated to compensate me.

He simply refused to understand why I was hurt.

That afternoon, I set out with the jewelry installation I had spent six months designing, bound for a private museum jointly owned by several old families and closed to the public.

We had barely cleared the city when Dante called.

“You’ve left the estate?”

“Yes. I’m taking my piece in for review.”

Silence held for two seconds.

“What time will you finish? I’ll pick you up.”

I tightened my hand around the phone and did not answer at once.

Last night, he had carried Rosalie away without looking back.

Today, he had remembered my review.

“Four.”

“All right.”

His voice softened.

“Come straight home afterward. I’m cooking dinner for you myself. Rosalie wants to apologize in person.”

He knew the watch could not be replaced.

This was his way of coaxing me into forgiving him.

Once, the slightest concession from him would have been enough to make me relent.

Not anymore.

I was about to answer when a familiar white Bentley appeared in the rearview mirror.

Rosalie’s car.

Dante must have heard the change in my breathing.

“Vivienne?”

Before I could respond, the car lurched violently.

Metal screamed behind us.

The driver slammed on the brakes.

The glass case holding my work tore free of its restraints and crashed down.

Ignoring the pain in my forehead, I threw open the door and ran to the trunk.

The main structure had snapped into three pieces.

For a moment, my mind went completely blank.

When I first returned to the Sinclairs, everything I knew about jewelry came from helping my foster mother in her cramped repair shop.

I could reset a loose stone with steady hands, but I had never studied gemology, design history, or technical drawing.

I spent six years catching up—classes before sunrise, restoration apprenticeships after lectures, and nights redrawing the same design until every proportion was exact.

I failed my first qualifying review, told no one, and started over the following year.

More than a thousand designers had entered the international jewelry competition.

After three rounds, only twelve of us reached the final review.

I had spent six months on this installation, filled more than a thousand pages with sketches, and endured dozens of failed castings to complete it.

Now all of it lay shattered in front of me.

The driver’s door of the white Bentley opened behind us.

Rosalie ran toward me, white-faced.

“Vivienne, I’m sorry. Dante said you wouldn’t see me. I was desperate to apologize before your review, so I followed you.”

She caught my hand, shaking with sobs.

“I dropped my phone. I bent down to get it and didn’t see you slow down...”

I pulled free and called the local police.

Rosalie rushed to stop me.

“You can’t let them file a report! Dante can handle this. If it goes on record, I’ll lose my license!”

When I kept dialing, she turned and grabbed for the damaged display case.

“I’ll pay for it. I’ll take it to be repaired right now.”

“Don’t touch it!”

Too late.

A jagged edge opened her wrist.

Blood poured out.

When Dante arrived, he saw the blood at my temple first.

He crossed to me in quick strides and cupped my face.

“Where did you hit your head? Are you dizzy?”

I looked at him, my throat tightening.

Before I could answer, Rosalie called from behind me.

“Dante...”

He turned.

At the sight of her blood-soaked wrist, he stripped off his jacket and pressed it to the wound.

“Why did you touch the broken glass?”

“I was trying to fix Vivienne’s piece.” Rosalie looked at me through her tears.

“This is all my fault. But I swear I didn’t hit her on purpose.”

The local officers arrived, spotted the family crest on Dante’s lapel, and did not even ask for the dashcam footage.

In lowered voices, they asked whether he wanted the collision recorded as a routine rear-end accident.

Dante kept pressure on her wound.

His answer came without hesitation.

“Routine collision. Seal the file. We’ll settle privately.”

My head snapped up.

“I don’t agree.”

“Rosalie is hurt.”

“My work is destroyed.”

“I’ll hire the finest restorer available.”

“My review is in forty minutes. No one can repair it by then.”

Dante fell silent.

I lifted the broken installation and headed for the escort car behind us.

Even if the outcome was already decided, I refused to surrender my last chance without trying.

Dante caught the car door before I could open it.

“Even if you get there, all you’ll be delivering is wreckage.”

Wreckage.

Why was everything I fought to protect so easy for him to dismiss—or replace with money?

I held his gaze.

“That’s my decision.”

Rosalie suddenly clutched her chest and doubled over, retching.

After hearing her symptoms over the phone, the Visconti physician suspected a concussion and ordered her taken to the family clinic at once.

Dante lifted her into the car.

Before getting in, he looked back at me.

“Stay here. The family attorneys will handle the accident.”

“Once Rosalie is cleared, I’ll go to the judging panel with you and explain.”

I stood amid the broken glass, holding the remains of my work.

“Dante, the judges won’t wait.”

He watched me for two seconds, his jaw tight.

Then Rosalie moaned from inside the car.

He turned away and closed the door.

Forty minutes later, the competition committee sent its decision.

[Your work was not submitted by the deadline. Your place in the final has been withdrawn.]

I stared at the message for a long time.

I had expected to cry.

Instead, I stood there in silence.

The pain settled deep in my chest, grinding away until even that gave way to numbness. That was when the last of my hope for us died.

I was leaving him.
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  • No Longer the Don's Bride   Chapter 10

    Before the exhibition left Sicily, I agreed to see Dante once.He was waiting inside the shuttered restaurant.The Blue Room looked exactly as it had before. The table facing the courtyard remained, but it had been set for only one person.Dante rose the moment he saw me.A year had left him noticeably thinner. His once-immaculate shirt was creased, and the old watch I had given him remained on his wrist.“Sit.”He drew out the chair facing the courtyard.Rosalie’s old place.I remained standing.“I received the watch. Thank you.”“I wasn’t the one who repaired it.” His voice was low and rough. “The watchmaker searched for a year. I only returned it to you.”An old vintage from the restaurant’s cellar stood open on the table.He poured a glass, then hesitated instead of offering it to me.“I came here alone many times after you left.”“Every time, I tried to order what you would have wanted.”“I could never remember which vintage you preferred, how you liked your steak, or whether you

  • No Longer the Don's Bride   Chapter 9

    A year later, I returned to Sicily with The Empty Seat for a touring exhibition.Rosalie intercepted me outside the airport.She had lost weight, and a pale scar still crossed her right wrist.“Five minutes, Vivienne. That’s all I’m asking.”She held out the mahogany wine case.The inscription inside had been ground away, leaving an ugly scar in the wood.“Dante has not seen me since you left. He revoked every one of my permissions at the Visconti estate. He even bought the restaurant we used to visit and closed the Blue Room.”I did not take the case.“That has nothing to do with me.”Tears slipped down her face.“I know.”“I used to believe you had taken him from me. Eventually I understood that if he had loved me, he would have chosen me at some point during those ten years.”“Protecting me was a habit. He also believed you would never leave, no matter what he did.”She wiped her face.“The night I broke the watch, I almost stopped.”“I remembered you holding me after your foster mo

  • No Longer the Don's Bride   Chapter 8

    Dante remained in London.He bought an apartment near the college and had a hot latte with no sugar delivered every morning.The first day, I had security return it.The second, I left it untouched outside my door.Eventually, he stopped attaching his name and had the latte delivered to reception instead.I still never drank it.That winter, the college held its annual exhibition.I rebuilt my installation without disguising any of the three fractures.My foster father’s stopped pocket watch sat at its center. Around it, I fired sections of my foster mother’s water-damaged drawings into translucent enamel panels.I called the piece The Empty Seat.One of the judges asked why I had left the breaks visible.I ran my fingers just above one of the sharp seams.“Because some things remain broken.”“Hiding the damage does not mean it never happened.”The Empty Seat received the exhibition’s highest honor.Dante sat in the last row during the ceremony.When the applause began, he rose with ev

  • No Longer the Don's Bride   Chapter 7

    Vivienne’s POVDante waited outside the college for an entire day after reaching London.Rain began to fall toward evening.I emerged from the studio carrying the reinforced frame of my installation and saw him at once.He had no umbrella. His black overcoat was soaked through, but he held an old leather case beneath it, protecting it from the rain.Inside were the drawings recovered from my foster mother’s workshop.“Vivienne.”His voice was rough as he came toward me.I stopped.“Why are you here?”My own calm surprised me.Once, a few hours without word from him had been enough to keep me awake all night. Now he had crossed half of Europe to stand in front of me, and I felt no answering pull at all.He offered me the case.“I hired conservators to save everything they could.”“I found the footage proving Rosalie broke the watch deliberately. The collision has been reopened. She has been removed from the rally, and her license will be revoked.”I did not take the case.“And?”The que

  • No Longer the Don's Bride   Chapter 6

    Rosalie went still, the color slowly draining from her face.“Dante, what’s wrong?”“I said get out.”He moved past her, but she caught his sleeve.“Did Vivienne say something about me again? She’s the one who refused to forgive me. She was willing to ruin my career over one mistake—”Dante stopped.“She’s gone.”Rosalie stared at him.“Gone where?”“London.”“That’s impossible.” The answer came too quickly, and the color drained from her face. “She promised me she wouldn’t accept the offer in London.”Dante turned slowly.“When did she promise you that?”Rosalie opened her mouth, but nothing came out.The last trace of warmth disappeared from his eyes.“What else have you kept from me?”He ordered the security team to retrieve every recording from the estate’s east wing.At 1:47 a.m., Rosalie entered the suite carrying a blanket. Minutes later, she stepped into the corridor with the pocket watch in her hand.She stood beneath the wall sconce for a long time, staring down at it.Then s

  • No Longer the Don's Bride   Chapter 5

    （Dante’s POV）By morning, the Visconti estate was crowded with the most powerful families in Sicily.Heraldic banners hung along the galleries, black cars filled the courtyard, and the place reserved for the future Donna remained conspicuously empty.The ceremony was scheduled for three.At ten minutes to the hour, Vivienne still had not arrived.Dante stood at the far end of the ballroom and looked toward the entrance for the third time.“Where is the Sinclair car?”The steward lowered his voice.“Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair are already here, Don. They haven’t been able to reach Miss Sinclair either.”Dante frowned.When Vivienne had left two nights earlier, he had dismissed her departure as another quarrel. He had not followed her. He had been certain she would come back once she had calmed down.For four years, however bitterly they fought, she had always been there when he turned back.He expected the same that afternoon.At three, the quartet reached the end of its opening program.Murm

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