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Home / He Gave Her My Place. I Gave Back His Ring. / Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Lahat ng Kabanata ng He Gave Her My Place. I Gave Back His Ring.: Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

10 Kabanata

Chapter 1

I signed the cancellation agreement in a hotel office overlooking the Hudson. The planner glanced toward the closed door, where Luca's security man had been waiting ten minutes earlier.“Does Mr. DeLuca know?”“He will. The booking is in my name, and the cancellation charge comes out of my account.”Outside our families, weddings could end without a conference of men deciding whether the bride had permission. I reminded myself of that as I put down the pen.My phone lit up.Valentina caught the train under her heel. I've sent the coat to be cleaned. Please don't be upset. I'll make sure it's ready for you.Then another message:It's still your wedding coat, amore. Wearing it once doesn't change that.My mother had started it when I was twelve, before the cancer made holding a needle impossible. Ivory silk, a fitted waist, seed pearls along the cuffs. She couldn't know what kind of wedding dress I would choose, she'd said, so she'd make something to go over it.“That way, I get to put m

Chapter 2

The next morning, a junior planner arrived with revised pages for the wedding binder. Canceling my venue hadn't stopped my father from holding planning meetings in his own house. His office had hired her, and nobody there had thought to ask me whether they should stop.Dad opened the binder before I sat down. The seating chart separated the Moretti captains from the DeLuca men; even the dance floor had been negotiated like disputed territory.“Valentina will walk with us. The other families need to see that she's my daughter, not a guest we're tolerating.”On the processional page, my name now shared a line with hers. A new reception backdrop read THE MORETTI DAUGHTERS beneath our family crest. My wedding to Luca had become the setting for her public welcome, nine years late.Dad caught my expression before I'd managed to arrange it.“Don't start, Emilia. You have a father to give you away. Hers died keeping this family alive.”Valentina stared at her lap. “We don't have to do it. I ca

Chapter 3

Matteo drove me to the cleaner that afternoon. Whatever happened to the wedding, I wasn't leaving my mother's coat behind if I could help it.The woman at the counter unzipped the garment bag. I knew before she lifted it free. The waist had been taken in, the train shortened, the pearl-covered cuffs narrowed.“Who authorized this?”She glanced at my brother.Matteo loosened his tie. “Valentina couldn't see how it was supposed to sit. I asked them to pin it.”“This isn't pinned.”“The alterations can be reversed.”I turned back the cuff. My mother's neat stitches had been replaced by a hurried line of white thread, and several pearls tilted sideways.“She spent four months making this.”“I know. That's why Luca and I worked so hard to find everything.” He sounded hurt that I needed reminding. “We wanted you to have her with you.”“Then why did you let someone else change it?”He looked toward the window. “Valentina had a bad night. She said all anyone would remember was that she wasn't

Chapter 4

The house was empty when I brought my suitcase downstairs. A note from Dad lay beside the coffee machine.Taking Valentina for the family portraits. There's breakfast in the kitchen.Matteo had already sent a photograph to the family chat. Valentina sat on a stone bench in my mother's altered bridal coat. Dad arranged the train, Claudia held her bag, and my brother stood beside a reflector. Luca stood beside the photographer, watching the shoot.I'd asked the cleaner to hold the coat until the damage had been assessed, but Matteo had collected it for the shoot anyway.Luca had found that coat for our wedding. Now he watched Valentina pose in it as though nothing was wrong.She's never had proper family portraits, Matteo wrote. Come this afternoon if you're free.Luca messaged privately.Just helping her get through the shoot. I'll take you for your fitting afterward. I love you. Please don't shut me out.I looked at the calendar. That afternoon had been our final wedding consultation.

Chapter 5

Adrienne waited beyond arrivals with a paper cup of coffee and a coat over her arm. She had been my mother's closest friend and business partner long before Gabriella Bellandi married a Moretti.“Is this everything?” she asked, looking at my suitcase.“Everything I brought.”She nodded and handed me the coffee.In the car, she laid the atelier's financial reports on my knees. Bellandi Paris occupied two floors above a quiet courtyard. It had survived my mother by eleven years, but survival had become an expensive habit. Her will had kept its shares out of Dad's hands. None of his men could settle an argument here just by standing in the doorway. Several senior clients had gone elsewhere, and an investor wanted to sell the name to a bridal conglomerate.“You inherited her shares,” Adrienne said. “That doesn't automatically make you creative director. They'll want to know what you can do.”“So will I.”She gave me a quick sideways smile. “Good. Your mother distrusted anybody who arrived

Chapter 6

Luca ordered the DeLuca jet readied for Paris, then stood in the hall while Matteo demanded to know where he intended to look.“Her mother's atelier.”“And if she doesn't want to see you?”That stopped him longer than the question should have.Dad poured himself a drink. “She wants us to panic. Don't reward it.”Claudia had been quiet since the photograph session. Now she looked at him.“When has Emilia ever made us panic? You gave her room away and she asked where she should put her books.”Dad set down the glass.“She could have spoken up.”“She did,” Luca said. “Yesterday, about the cake. The day before, about the ceremony. I was there. She wasn't unclear.”Valentina folded her arms. “So now I did all of this? Matteo gave me the pendant. You told me I could wear the coat.”“We did,” my brother said. “That doesn't mean you didn't know whose they were.”Her face crumpled. “My father died for this family. I wasn't even allowed to remember him without someone saying he was a loyal soldi

Chapter 7

Luca called immediately. I answered because I was tired of wondering whether one more explanation would finally reach him.“Emilia.” He sounded as though he'd been holding his breath. “Thank God. Please don't hang up.”“Then listen.”“I am. Tell me what you need.”“My mother's belongings returned. All of them.”“Done. I'll bring them. And the coat—there are restorers who can repair it. If they can't, I'll commission whatever you want.”I leaned against the cutting table. “You know that isn't the same.”“I know. I just need something I can do.”For a moment, his helplessness broke through the anger I'd been carrying. I knew this man. If I told him someone had threatened me, he'd be at my door before I'd finished speaking. I had never worked out how to make him understand a hurt that didn't come with someone he could punish.“Why do you think I left?”“Because I let her wear it.”“And before that?”Silence, followed by a breath.“I kept asking you to wait.”“You kept deciding she couldn'

Chapter 8

Luca and Matteo arrived two hours before the anniversary show. Adrienne let them into the fitting room after I agreed to ten minutes.My brother carried the coat. Luca held the pendant box and the negative folio. His gaze traveled over me, taking in the pins at my cuff, the shadows beneath my eyes, the sandwich untouched beside the sewing machine.“Have you eaten?”“I will.”He started to reach for the plate, then stopped. I signed the handover inventory while Adrienne checked each item against the list.Matteo watched me open the garment bag.“They say it can be repaired.”The shortened train would need a new border. Along the waist, repeated stitching had left a row of pinholes. I folded it carefully, resisting the impulse to hold it against my face.“Thank you for bringing it.”“Emilia, don't talk to us like couriers.”“What would you like me to say?”He looked at Luca, then down at the bag.Luca placed the Donna ring on the desk. The dark stone caught the light.“I didn't come to o

Chapter 9

The show brought appointments, deposits, and enough serious orders to postpone the sale. Adrienne was careful about the distinction. A crowded fitting calendar meant work we had to deliver, not a miraculous escape from debt.Henri asked me to lead the next collection. I asked for written authority over its designs and a production budget Colette could actually use. We spent two hours arguing over schedules before we shook hands.That evening, Valentina went live on social media.She sat in the Moretti drawing room, wearing plain black, and admitted that trying on the coat had been wrong. Then she explained how difficult it was to grow up in another woman's house, surrounded by another daughter's memories.“I'm not trying to replace anybody,” she said. “I just wanted to belong.”She held up a letter my mother had written to Claudia before she died.Please let Valentina know there will always be a place for her in this family.By morning, clips were circulating beneath photographs of my

Chapter 10

The label withdrew its offer after reviewing the photographer's correspondence. Valentina had requested my mother's portrait in the background and approved the description of herself as Gabriella Bellandi's daughter. Her grief hadn't written that caption. She had.She came to the atelier before flying home.“You got what you wanted,” she said from the doorway. “Matteo barely speaks to me. Luca won't take my calls. Mom's rented an apartment and says we're moving out.”I set down my shears. “I wanted my belongings back and the campaign corrected.”“You knew what would happen.”“No. I knew what would keep happening if I said nothing.”She looked at the racks behind me. “They used to give me everything. Now every time I ask for something, they look at me like I'm setting a trap.”“That sounds like something to discuss with them.”“What am I supposed to do with how much it hurts?”I thought of the attic room and the cake I hadn't tasted in nine years.“Find someone who'll help you without a

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