Chapter 1

Ivy's POV

Layla slammed into me without warning. Caught off balance, I had no chance to brace myself, and I hit the cold marble floor hard.

By the time I got to the hospital, the baby was already gone...

"Miss De Luca, I'm sorry for your loss. Mr. Moretti must have something important to deal with. That's why he couldn't make it."

The doctor beside me tried to comfort me.

"He came to every single one of your prenatal appointments and always asked me in detail what you should avoid to protect the pregnancy. He still loves you very much."

Everyone thought he loved me deeply.

I used to believe it too—until two months ago, when his childhood sweetheart, Layla, came back from abroad.

I wiped away my tears and unlocked my phone.

I opened my social media app, and the post Layla had just shared was pinned at the top of my feed.

The caption read: "You promised you'd always stand by my side. I promise the same."

The photo showed two clasped hands.

One of them, long-fingered and lean, was Reese's.

On his ring finger was the wedding band I'd picked out for him.

She'd posted it just for me to see.

I slowly scrolled back through her older posts.

There was a candid shot of Reese in an apron, cooking in the kitchen of his private residence, captioned: "I never want to eat, so you learned recipe after recipe and made me all kinds of delicious things just to coax me into eating. You really do take such good care of me."

There was also a moody, low-lit photo of the two of them kissing on a terrace, captioned: "It's you now. For the rest of my life, it'll only be you. No one else."

Every picture cut like a knife. Just yesterday, I'd sat across from Reese, finalizing the details of our wedding together.

I gripped my phone so hard my knuckles turned white.

Then I calmly typed a comment: "Wishing you both everything you've ever wanted."

After that, I opened a contact list I hadn't touched in ages and dialed a number I'd set aside for years.

The call connected almost immediately, and a respectful voice came through the line.

"Principessa, you've finally reached out to us.

"Back then, you insisted on running around with the Moretti family's illegitimate son. Don De Luca was so furious he threw you out.

"The De Luca family has been waiting all these years for you to come home!

"We'll come for you in a week."

I hung up, and it felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

A week from now was exactly the day of the wedding of the century Reese had promised me.

There didn't need to be a wedding.

And I no longer wanted this man.