He Missed Our Wedding, So I Married His Enemy Chapter 02

He Missed Our Wedding, So I Married His Enemy Chapter 02

ALESSIA

Cold wind struck me as I left the Silver Room.

On the steps outside, my head finally cleared.

Ending an engagement was not as simple as saying the words.

My marriage to Lorenzo had always been an alliance.

Three years ago, illness forced my father to step down.

I abandoned the art I had studied for years and entered the Bellandi Group.

No one believed a twenty-two-year-old woman could manage the family’s hotels, logistics network, and film investments.

Even fewer believed I could control the power hidden behind those legal businesses.

To win the council’s support, I needed a husband.

There had been two names before me.

Lorenzo Salvi.

And Carlos Varela.

I chose Lorenzo.

We had known each other since high school.

I understood his ambition.

I understood his weaknesses.

If I married him, I could remain inside the Bellandi family and continue managing everything my father had given me.

Carlos was different.

His father died in an ambush when Carlos was seventeen.

Everyone expected the Varela family to collapse.

Carlos did not run.

He took control of his father’s companies and every man still loyal to the Varela name.

Within three years, everyone who tried to divide the family had disappeared from New York.

Now Carlos controlled the East Coast’s largest private aviation company, a major film-financing group, and an international freight network.

The financial press called him the world’s youngest investment genius.

The underworld called him Mr. Varela.

No one mentioned the night his father died in his presence.

After my engagement to Lorenzo, I rarely spoke to Carlos.

Over the next two years, Carlos took several major deals from the Salvis.

Lorenzo hated him for it.

Whenever we met at family banquets, Lorenzo either scoffed or deliberately provoked him.

Carlos acted as if he did not see him.

He was only a year older than us.

Yet he was colder and steadier than all the other young heirs.

Among men who lived for liquor, women, and danger, he always seemed separate.

Once, I was there when Lorenzo tried to provoke him.

When Carlos refused to react, Lorenzo threw down his cards and dragged me away.

I looked back without thinking.

Carlos was watching me.

His brows were drawn together.

Something moved in the depths of his black eyes.

It was not a look dramatic enough to haunt a movie.

Yet cold sweat broke across my back, and my heart lost its rhythm.

In the car, I opened Lorenzo’s deleted photograph again.

Carlos’s comment remained in my screenshot.

That isn’t Alessia.

When everyone else pretended I did not exist, he was the only one who spoke the truth.

I opened our conversation.

The last message was two years old.

For a long time, I stared at the empty box.

Then I sent two words.

Where are you?

I watched the screen.

I thought Carlos would not answer.

A location arrived in less than five seconds.

The Black Crown Hotel.

Top floor.

He replied so quickly I wondered if he had been holding his phone, waiting for me to write.

My temple pulsed.

Then I remembered what I had just said inside the Silver Room.

I told the driver to change direction.

The Varela hotel stood in Manhattan’s most expensive district.

There were no reporters or tourists outside.

Only two lines of men in black suits.

They recognized me and opened the private elevator.

Carlos’s location pointed to a suite.

When I arrived, I discovered it was actually a private billiards room.

That made it easier to breathe.

Carlos was playing alone.

He wore only a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.

When he leaned over the table, the fabric drew clean, hard lines across his shoulders and back.

His jacket lay on a sofa.

A black pistol rested beside it.

“Mr. Varela.”

I approached him.

Carlos did not answer.

The cue struck.

A ball dropped into the corner pocket.

He lowered himself over the table again.

There was no one else in the room.

He was deliberately making me wait.

I swallowed and forced myself to continue.

“You saw Lorenzo’s photograph.”

“I saw your comment too.”

Carlos remained silent.

In the time it took me to speak, he sank four more balls.

I stepped around the table and blocked his next shot.

“I came because I need your help.”

At last, he raised his eyes.

They settled on my face, calm and unreadable.

My fingers tightened.

“Carlos, I know this is abrupt.”

“But if you’re willing to marry me, I will enter the marriage with complete sincerity.”

The cue struck.

For the first time, he missed.

Carlos stopped moving.