Lahat ng Kabanata ng After Fifty Two Canceled Weddings I Walked Away: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

The fifty-first time Lorenzo stood me up at the altar, he was attending the Moretti Family's celebration for securing the North Harbor shipping route.Sera had planned the entire evening for him.Every guest who did not know the truth mistook her for Lorenzo's wife, the true matriarch of the Moretti Family."Don Moretti, North Harbor was the route Matteo wanted more than anything.""It is only right that you and Mrs. Moretti accept tonight's toast together."A chorus of agreement swept through the ballroom.Lorenzo did not correct them. Instead, he let Sera take the chair at his right - the seat traditionally reserved for the wife of the Don.I had been legally married to him for three years, yet our marriage had never been made public.To everyone in the room, I was only his Underboss, stationed at the far end of the ballroom to watch every entrance and exit.Crystal chandeliers glittered above a tower of champagne. Sera sat at Lorenzo's right hand.I stood for four straight hours wit

Two hours later, I was handing the North Harbor personnel roster over to Carlo when a message from Lorenzo appeared on my phone.Bring me a coffee.He was particular about coffee to the point of obsession. The balance of sugar and bitterness had to be exact.No one else in the Family could make it the way he liked it.I stared at the message for a moment, then went to the service pantry.Sera was already there.Lorenzo's black overcoat still hung from her shoulders, and she was turning Matteo's pocket watch slowly between her fingers.When she saw me, a smile curved at the corner of her mouth."You have gotten remarkably tame lately, Erin.""I thought you would storm into the council room and drag Lorenzo away from me.""Did you?"I lowered my eyes to the coffee grinder."Would you like a cup? It is Blue Mountain. He brought it back from Jamaica."My calm caught her off guard.She studied me as if trying to decide what I was planning."Do you really think a marriage certificate no one

Lorenzo stared at his signature at the bottom of the page, and I watched the color drain slowly from his face.Before that day, I had forgiven him fifty-one times.Perhaps, in his mind, so many acts of forgiveness had become indistinguishable from forgiveness without limit. He had come to believe that I would always understand him, always yield, and always be waiting exactly where he had left me.Sera had learned the same lesson from my silence. Every concession I made had emboldened her, until she no longer hesitated to parade Lorenzo's choices in front of me."Erin, is this some kind of joke?"Lorenzo turned quickly back to the first page. His eyes raced over the words, but with every line he read, his grip on the papers tightened."If this is only because Sera upset you, there is no reason to go this far.""She and I have never crossed that line.""She was Matteo's wife. She is the person he left behind, the one he worried about most.""Taking care of her is how I repay the life I o

The chat filled almost immediately with exclamation marks.So you were the woman waiting every time the Don canceled a wedding?Sera was always seated at his right hand. We thought it was something Matteo had arranged before he died.Erin, do not go soft on him again. A man who hid his own wife for three years deserves to lose her.The balance Lorenzo had worked so carefully to preserve had finally collapsed. Only then did everyone see whose pain had paid for the duty he spoke of so proudly.As for me, I had laid down the heaviest chain around my neck. Whatever Lorenzo felt from that day forward no longer belonged to me.Without me, he returned alone to the estate where we had lived for three years.Eight years could not disappear without leaving something behind. But what remained was nowhere near enough to make me turn back.Lorenzo rarely drank at home. That night, he sat in the darkened living room and emptied an entire bottle of whiskey.He could not understand why I had forgiven

For Lorenzo, freedom was nothing like that.He, too, had entered a new world without me, but everywhere he looked, it was desolate."Erin, now that we are no longer married...""As an ordinary man asking for a second chance, do I still have the right to pursue you?""I will show you that I have finally learned how to choose."A pulse began beating at my temple."No, Mr. Moretti.""If possible, I would prefer never to see you again after today.""You and Sera never crossed a physical line. I have never accused you of doing so.""But the fifty-two times you abandoned me were just as real.""I do not hate you. But I will never love you again."Lorenzo's brow tightened. Without me to steady him, his eyes were full of bewilderment."But without you..."I turned away before he could finish."The world keeps moving, no matter who leaves it.""Time will carry you through whatever pain you think you cannot survive."Leaving Lorenzo had never frightened me.During my eight years as Underboss, I