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one drawing away from disaster
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2026-07-17 23:12:51
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Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi mrs. ricciardi, version 2.0
“You look beautiful.”I didn’t hear her.I mean, my ears caught the woman’s voice. Soft, professional, slightly rushed because the world outside this room was standing with one foot over a cliff and asking us to fix the eyeliner faster.But the words didn’t really register.I sat in front of Alessandra’s vanity with my back straight and both hands folded in my lap while the woman behind me swept a large brush over my cheekbones.One hour.It had been one hour since I slapped Rafael.One hour since he walked out of the bridal suite with a red mark on his face and the expression of a man who had just received a weather report, not his ex-wife’s palm.One hour since he stood in front of both families and announced, without giving anyone time to prepare their nervous systems, that the ceremony would still happen.With Arabella Garcia as the bride.Not the prospective bride.Not a temporary replacement.Not the woman who happened to be tall enough to fit into the dress.The bride.Me.The
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi built for hell, dressed for marriage
My jaw tightened.Rafael stepped closer again.Now there was only one step between us. His cologne reached me, cedar, citrus, and something dark. The same scent from Lake Como. The same scent that had once clung to the pillow after he left and abandoned a black folder on the breakfast table.He didn’t remember destroying my life once, but his body clearly still remembered the route.“There’s another option,” he said.I looked up. “You call that an option?”“You walk down the aisle with me. The wedding happens. The transaction closes. Every vendor gets paid in full. Ricciardi covers every change fee, every Marino cancellation, and every loss your team incurs today.”“How generous. Do I also get complimentary breakfast after this legal kidnapping?”“GALA receives a written statement confirming that Alessandra’s disappearance had nothing to do with any operational failure by your company.”I went quiet.“No claims,” he continued. “No investigation. No mention of GALA in any public report
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi one missing bride, one hostile acquisition
I froze.NOPE.My brain immediately started working too hard, producing so many thoughts at once that they crashed into each other like expensive cars in valet parking.“You’re walking down the aisle with me.”Pfffttt....His bride was missing, so now he was replacing women the way someone replaced a broken centerpiece five minutes before the guests arrived.No Alessandra? Use Arabella.Out of white flowers? Use cream.Salmon overcooked? Serve steak.Ex-wife available? Put her at the altar.Apparently, the helicopter had erased six years of his memory but left the entire warehouse of wealthy Italian male audacity perfectly intact.I stared at him.Rafael was still standing directly in front of me, tall, calm, and deeply irritating in a black tuxedo fitted across his shoulders as if the fabric had been designed after studying sin academically. His hair was neat except for one dark piece falling slightly over his forehead. His eyes didn’t blink.He is Dead serious. I laughed.I laughed
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi you chose the woman you forgot.
Signora Marino held her clutch with both hands, her face pale beneath her makeup, while a man who was probably her brother kept asking why security had closed the corridor.“What do you mean Alessandra isn’t in her room?” Signora Marino asked.“She may just need some space,” Dianna replied.“Space where? Nevada?”Someone from the Ricciardi family scoffed.Signora Marino turned immediately. “Is something funny?”“Nothing,” Rafael’s aunt said, even though her face clearly had several ideas.Rafael’s mother stood at the front, still elegant, still calm, but one hand gripped her folding fan too tightly.“Your daughter was the one who insisted this wedding happen now,” she said to Signora Marino. “You were the ones who asked for the date to be moved up, the media controlled, and everyone flown to Los Angeles, and now she disappears five minutes before the altar?”“Alessandra would not leave without a reason.”“I hope the reason is good enough to explain sixty guests, two families, and my s
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi five minutes, no bride
Three hours before the ceremony, the entire venue entered the phase where everyone looked calm because the panic had grown too large to fit on their faces.“Guest arrival at forty percent,” security said.“Press release embargo is still active,” Valentina said.“Catering plating test is complete,” Jemima said.I stood near the lawn entrance, checking the pergola through my tablet. “Dianna, check the candle count on table seven. Jemima, make sure the backup generator is live. No one turns on the overhead lights before the sunset cue.”“Ms. Garcia?” someone called from behind me.I turned.One of Alessandra’s bridesmaids stood there in a champagne-colored silk dress. Her face was pale beneath her makeup. One hand gripped her phone, the other held the edge of her skirt.“What is it?”“It’s about Alessandra.” Her tone made every voice in my earpiece take half a step back.“What happened?”“She finished her makeup earlier. Her hair too.” The bridesmaid looked behind her, toward the private
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi finally, i met the years you lost
The next three weeks passed in a blur of boarding passes, coffee that tasted like punishment, and Dianna saying, “There’s been a slight change,” so many times I started considering adding the phrase to GALA’s banned-word list.San Francisco to Los Angeles.Los Angeles to San Francisco.Sometimes I left before Al and Gabby woke up. Sometimes I came home after they were already asleep on their sides in their own beds, cuddling toys that legally should not have been allowed under the blankets.I tested five entrées, rejected three sauces, moved one hundred and twenty chairs eleven inches, and stood in the middle of Villa Miravento’s lawn at nine at night telling a Parisian lighting designer to lower the warmth by two percent.“Two percent won’t be visible,” he said.“It will be to me.”He looked at me like I had personally insulted his country.The lighting was lowered by two percent.It looked better.I also spent two hours arranging mature lemon trees that had arrived on specialized tr
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi The Wife
The small pan hissed softly as the oil heated, the sharp scent of roughly crushed garlic already filling the kitchen before I realized I was humming. Fuck.A Shakira song.Wildly off-brand for this morning’s mood, which had gone to hell at five twelve a.m. sharp, when Arsen, the technological basta
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi Glass Mansion, Soft Monsters
Five Years Later.“AL, STOP PULLING MY HAIR, I’M A PRINCESS!”“UGLY PRINCESS!”Something small, warm, and heavy slammed into my waist. Then something else landed on my stomach. I didn’t wake up because of an alarm, but because two tiny bodies decided I was their personal playground.“Oh God,” I ras
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi He Never Chose Me
“Wow,” I said at last, closing the door behind me with a soft click. “I thought you were still busy having a reunion with your ex.”His gaze dropped for a second, traveling down my body. From the thin heels, to my bare legs, to where the dress cinched at my waist, to the neckline that was bold enou
Second Time, Mrs. Ricciardi Platinum Barbie
Seven p.m., and Lake Como looked like an expensive postcard that had been photographed to death. Deep blue, almost black. Villa lights scattered messily across the water. A thin veil of fog hovering low, like a cheap Instagram filter no one bothered to turn off.From the study window facing the lak
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