Chapter 14 - THE SECOND WEDDING THAT WASN'T A WEDDING
Two years after I left Alessandro at the altar, he invited me to Lake Como.
I almost laughed.
“No.”
He smiled.
“Understandable.”
“Very.”
“Then somewhere else.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
Then said:
“I want to ask you something.”
My heart pounded.
“Alex.”
“Not marriage.”
I studied him.
“Go on.”
He invited me to the small lakeside house where we'd met forty-seven days after the canceled wedding.
The same place I'd asked why he stayed nine hours.
This time, there were no lawyers.
No investigators.
No bodyguards inside.
Just dinner.
Candles.
And the antique watch resting on the table.
I smiled.
“You're becoming sentimental.”
“I've always been sentimental.”
“You hid it under organized crime.”
He laughed.
“Fair.”
After dinner, we walked toward the lake.
The air was cool.
Alessandro stopped beside the dock.
“Serena.”
I turned.
“I've loved you badly.”
My throat tightened.
He continued.
“For years, I thought the size of my love excused the quality of my choices.”
I stared.
“It didn't.”
“I know.”
He took a breath.
“I betrayed you. I humiliated you. And when you needed me to follow you out of that hotel, I stayed behind.”
His voice trembled.
“I can't undo that.”
I nodded.
“But I also know the last two years have been the most honest years we've ever had.”
That was true.
We had rebuilt something.
Slowly.
Without promises.
Without rings.
Without the fantasy that thirteen years together meant we automatically deserved forever.
Then he smiled.
“I want to ask whether you'd like to keep choosing this.”
I laughed softly.
“This?”
“Us.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“No wedding?”
“Not unless you want one.”
“No empire?”
“The legal businesses remain. The rest is gone or being resolved.”
“No mistress?”
His face tightened.
“Never again.”
I studied him.
Then asked:
“And if you're afraid?”
“I tell you.”
“If you're tempted to run?”
“I tell you.”
“If we become unhappy?”
“We tell each other before we destroy each other.”
My chest tightened.
That sounded more valuable than any vow we'd planned for the cathedral.
I reached for his hand.
“Yes.”
His eyes widened.
“Yes?”
“I want to keep choosing us.”
He laughed.
Then cried.
Then kissed me.
Not like a mafia boss claiming a woman he'd lost.
Like a man being given something he knew he didn't own.
Six months later, we decided to marry.
Not because the old wedding needed replacing.
Because the new relationship deserved its own beginning.
There were no 214 guests.
No cathedral.
No political families.
No alliances.
Just thirty-two people.
My closest friends.
Lucia.
A few members of Alessandro's family.
And Bianca nowhere near the ceremony, by mutual agreement.
The night before the wedding, Alessandro handed me the antique watch.
The engraving remained.
Thirteen years behind us. The rest of our lives ahead.
I smiled.
“I still hate that.”
He laughed.
“Then turn it over.”
On the back, beneath my father's hidden message, Alessandro had added:
ONLY IF YOU CHOOSE IT.
I looked at him through tears.
May you like
For the first time, the future didn't feel like something I'd waited for.
It felt like something I was choosing.
