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Chapter 3

作者: Eternity
Back in the private room, the tango accelerated into a wild Latin rhythm.

Luca and Sienna spun across the dance floor, their bodies nearly pressed together. Her red hair flew around her, and her short leather skirt climbed higher with every turn.

The music stopped. They stared at each other, breathless, then burst into laughter.

“You kept your promise,” Sienna said, still pressed against him. “You broke the rules for me again.”

Luca gave her a crooked smile.

“You said nothing felt exciting without me. I’m too softhearted to refuse.”

Her hand slid down his chest and stopped over his old rib injury. Luca winced when she pressed it, but he did not move her hand.

Even then, my first instinct was to worry about him.

As Sienna’s fingers reached his open collar, Luca caught her wrist and dropped to one knee.

The room fell silent.

Sienna covered her mouth as he removed a black velvet box from his jacket.

Inside was a rare royal-blue sapphire surrounded by diamonds. Delicate platinum chains streamed from either side like a meteor crossing the midnight sky.

Students from the design school raised their phones. They recognized the most important piece of my graduating year—the necklace I had made entirely by myself.

Luca looked up at Sienna.

“You gave me a midnight race I’ll never forget.”

He lifted the necklace.

“So tonight, I asked Elena to turn that sky into something you could wear.”

Several people turned toward me.

Sienna’s eyes filled with tears. Without looking in my direction, she nodded eagerly.

Luca stood and fastened the necklace around her neck.

The sapphire settled against her skin.

Pain pierced my chest, followed by a violent cramp in my stomach. The lights began to blur.

Natalie caught my arm.

“Elena, you look terrible.”

I pulled away and stumbled toward the hallway.

One month earlier, Luca had arrived at my studio carrying a locked case. Inside was the sapphire his grandmother had collected when she was young.

The Bellini family had always intended it for their heir’s future wife.

Luca placed the stone in my hand.

“No matter what this becomes, it will only be worn by the woman I plan to spend my life with.”

Then he asked me to design the necklace myself.

I thought he was finally ending our annual breaks. I thought he was going to propose.

The graduation exhibition was only a month away, but I practically lived in my studio to finish it. I drew every sketch, carved the wax model, supervised the casting, polished the platinum, and set every stone.

My morning sickness was severe during those weeks. I wore loose sweaters to hide my changing body and locked myself in the restroom whenever the nausea became unbearable.

Luca never noticed my exhaustion or that I had stopped drinking coffee and alcohol. He was too busy counting down the days until he was free again.

I believed I was creating the necklace I would wear at our wedding.

Instead, Luca took his family’s promise, our memories, and the work of my own hands, then placed all of it around Sienna’s neck.

“Elena? Can you hear me?”

I opened my eyes and found myself lying on the hallway carpet. A club employee crouched nearby while Natalie supported my shoulders.

“Should we call an ambulance?”

Anemia and exhaustion had finally caught up with me.

“No.” I braced one hand against the wall and stood. “I’ll go to the hospital myself.”

Natalie offered to come, but I refused. I could not bear for anyone to watch me fall apart.

Outside, the New York night was cold and damp. My car had not arrived.

The revolving door opened behind me.

Luca came out carrying Sienna. His black coat was draped over her shoulders, and one of her arms rested around his neck.

“I’m fine,” Sienna murmured. “You should stay with Elena. I don’t want her to think I’m coming between you.”

“She knows what these thirty days mean,” Luca replied.

Then he saw me by the curb and stopped.

“Elena, her leg never fully recovered. I think she injured it again while we were dancing.”

He hesitated, as though expecting me to argue.

“I’m only taking her to the hospital.”

Their thirty-day relationship might have ended on paper, but Sienna had never left his life.

Luca was so focused on her injured leg that he did not notice my pale face, my shaking hands, or the scrape along my wrist from collapsing onto the floor.

Sienna’s car arrived first.

Luca carried her to the back seat, then looked back at me.

“I’ll take her to the hospital and see you later.”

The door closed between us.

“You won’t.”

My voice disappeared into the wind.

Luca never heard me.
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    One year later, Westbridge invited me to headline its annual graduate design exhibition.I returned to New York with a new collection and a contract to join a European jewelry house as its youngest associate designer. The campus looked smaller than I remembered.The racing garage still stood behind the engineering building, but Luca's name had been removed from the captain's board. Sienna had left Westbridge before graduating. Her extreme-sports account remained active, though Luca never appeared in it again.Natalie met me outside the gallery. "You have twenty minutes before the press preview.""I know.""And someone is waiting inside."I did not need to ask who.Luca stood before the central display. Inside the case lay the sapphire necklace, or what remained of it. I had dismantled the original design. The flowing chains and meteor shape were gone. I recut the platinum into two separate arcs that never touched. The sapphire rested between them, held in place without pretending the p

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    The pain began shortly before midnight. At first, I told myself it was exhaustion. Then the cramping sharpened, and blood soaked through my clothes.I called emergency services. At the hospital, an ultrasound confirmed what I already feared. The pregnancy had stopped developing weeks earlier. Nothing I had done that night caused it. The doctor explained this twice, perhaps because I kept asking whether flying, working, or waiting too long had made the difference.Sometimes, she said, a pregnancy ends despite every effort to protect it.I signed the forms alone.Natalie arrived the next morning. She had called to check on me, heard something wrong in my voice, and booked the first flight to Milan. When she entered the hospital room, she did not offer empty reassurance. She sat beside me and held my hand."I'm sorry," she said.That was enough.Luca learned three days later. Natalie had not intended to tell him. But when he called her for the twentieth time, demanding to know whether I w

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