Sad, Really

My stomach felt like it was being pulled from the inside.

Because once, a few hours ago, maybe even a few minutes ago, I would have defended that. I would have stood in front of anyone and said, yes, I love him, of course I do, I’m marrying him, I chose him.

Now....

“She’s still young,” Lorenzo continued. “She has a big family, a big ego, and an even bigger mouth, but when she’s truly afraid? She comes back to me.”

“Don’t say that,” Camilla whispered.

“Why? It’s true.” Lorenzo’s voice softened in a way that made me sick. “You know about the man who used to follow her around campus?”

I froze.

“The stalker?” Camilla asked.

“Yeah. After that, I became... her center. Her little safe place.” He said it with amusement, like I were a kitten he had once found in the rain and who could no longer survive without a bowl of milk from his hand. “She always feels safe when I’m with her. It’s sad, really.”

Sad.

That one word went deeper than his lips on Camilla’s mouth. Deeper than the lie in his message. Deeper than the business, the families, the altar, my white dress that suddenly felt like a fool’s costume.

I saw myself five years from now, ten years, twenty. Smiling beside Lorenzo at family dinners. Maybe with kids who had his brown eyes. Maybe still waking at night when an unfamiliar sound passed outside the window. Maybe still believing, like a stupid little girl, that the man beside me protected me because he loved me.

When.. he only enjoyed being the locked door.

Lorenzo laughed again. “I could leave town for a week, and she’d forgive me if I came back looking guilty. She’s too dependent. She’ll walk down the aisle tommorow, look at me, cry, and everyone will call it romantic.”

I wanted to cry.

I wanted to make an ugly sound. The kind that came from the most humiliating place inside a woman when her dignity had just been ripped out and trampled across the floor of a wine storage room.

But the Moguel family had not raised me to give a man like Lorenzo the satisfaction of seeing my tears before he received the damage he had caused.

So I stood straight, pushed the door open, and walked in.

Lorenzo turned first. His face changed so quickly it was almost funny. From irritated, to startled, to pale, to the early shape of panic still wearing a Tom Ford suit.

Camilla made a small sound and immediately stepped back, her hand going to her hair, then her lips, then her dress.

I walked toward the wine rack.

My heels clicked against the stone floor. One, two, three. My hand didn’t shake as I took a bottle of red wine from the middle shelf. I read the label for a moment because apparently my brain was still functioning and, more horrifyingly, still polite enough to notice details.

“Barolo,” I said. “At least one of you has taste.”

“Aubrey,” Lorenzo said.

I turned toward Camilla. “You should fix your lipstick before you go back to the party. The color is still on my groom’s mouth.”

Camilla flushed all the way down her neck. “I...”

I raised one finger. “I’m still wearing earrings heavy enough to kill a bird. Don’t make me work any harder tonight.”

Lorenzo stepped forward. “Just listen.”

I looked at him.

Two hours ago, I had looked at that face and thought of home. Now I looked at his red-stained lips and thought about how expensive tomorrow’s photographer was for an event that would never happen.

“Listen to what?” I asked. “The business part? The Camilla part? Or the part where my trauma apparently had strategic value in our relationship?”

His face twitched. “It’s not what it sounded like.”

“I like that line. Classic. A little stale, but Italians are very loyal to tradition.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“No. You only meant to marry me.”

Lorenzo looked at me with eyes that had started to plead, and the most insulting part was how quickly my body almost recognized that plea. Two years was long enough to train a heart into a stupid dog.

I felt the ring on my finger. The diamond was heavy, beautiful, very Bandini. I had stared at that ring in the bathroom of my New York apartment and thought, maybe I made it. Maybe I won’t always have to look over my shoulder. Maybe there is a good man who chose me and didn’t make that choice feel like a trap.

I pulled at the ring.

I twisted it once, twice, until my skin hurt. Then it came off.

Lorenzo stared at my hand as though he had only just realized there was a part of me that could leave.

I walked closer, near enough to smell his expensive cologne mixed with wine and Camilla’s lipstick. That scent used to calm me. Now I wanted to shower until I forgot my own name.

I took the pocket of his jacket, opened it with two fingers, and dropped the ring inside.

“Don’t be late tomorrow,” I said.

“Aubrey.”

“I’m serious.” I smoothed the front of his jacket with my palm, very soft, lovingly. It made his face fall apart even more, and I found a small part of myself that could still smile. Apparently, I wasn’t completely dead yet. “I want everyone to see your face when our wedding doesn’t happen.”

He grabbed my wrist.

I looked at his hand.

That was all.

He immediately let me go.

Camilla started crying softly behind him, and I want to laughed because of course she was crying. Of course the woman who kissed my fiancé in a wine room the night before my wedding now had tears for herself.

“Camilla,” I said without looking at her, “save it for the altar. There’ll be plenty of seats tomorrow.”

Then I walked out.

I didn’t run.

I wanted to. My knees had plenty of opinions on the subject. So did my stomach. My entire body seemed to be sending urgent memos demanding that we find somewhere dark and fall apart in private. But I walked. Heels against the floor. Shoulders straight. A bottle of Barolo in one hand as though I had just chosen a drink for dinner, not watched my future burn under romantic lighting.

The corridor felt longer than before.

The music from the garden returned little by little. Laughter. Glasses clinking. Papa was probably still making everyone feel like family. Mama was probably correcting a napkin. Bianna was probably judging someone’s shoes. Adam was probably looking for me.

I had almost reached the corner when I saw him.

Zachary Bandini leaned against the stone wall, one leg crossed casually in front of the other, a glass of whiskey in his hand. His black suit was still perfect. His hair still fell messily over his forehead in a way that was unfair to every other man alive. But his smile was gone.

His eyes dropped to the bottle in my hand, then lifted to my face.

I raised the bottle slightly. “I took a souvenir.”

His gaze shifted past me, toward the wine room door still open farther down the corridor. Lorenzo’s voice drifted faintly through the hall, calling my name.

“Good choice,” he said, taking a slow sip of whiskey.

“For the wine or for destroying your brother tomorrow?”

His eyes returned to my face.

There was a brief pause.

Then one corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk. “Both pair well with red meat.”

I laughed.

Damn it.

The laugh didn’t come from anywhere funny. It came from someplace cracked, rough, and far too close to tears. I covered my mouth with the back of my hand for a moment, not because I was embarrassed, but because I was afraid that if I let the sound keep coming, it would turn into something I couldn’t put back inside.

“Aubrey, wait.” Lorenzo called again, closer this time.

I looked at Zach. “You heard everything?”

“Enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“To know my brother is even more stupid than I thought.” He glanced toward Lorenzo’s voice, his jaw tightening slightly. “And my expectations were already low.”

I swallowed. My throat hurt. “Congratulations. He surprised us all.”

Lorenzo appeared at the end of the corridor, his face pale, his tie crooked, his mouth still faintly stained red. When he saw Zach, he stopped.

“Zach,” he said.

Zach didn’t fully turn. “Lorenzo.”

Lorenzo looked at me. “Aubrey, please. Don’t do this.”

I hugged the bottle of wine to my chest. It was strange, using a Barolo for emotional support, but everyone was making bad choices tonight.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Don’t humiliate our families.”

Our families.

Something inside me went quiet.

Zach let out a very soft laugh.

I looked at Lorenzo and finally smiled. “You should be careful,” I said softly. “Your next sentence might determine whether I only cancel the wedding or have my father buy something very expensive to ruin your life.”

And I walked away.