He Missed Our Wedding, So I Married His Enemy Chapter 10

He Missed Our Wedding, So I Married His Enemy Chapter 10

CARLOS

I woke from the dream again.

My arm had gone numb.

Alessia was asleep beside me.

This was not a dream.

I had truly married her.

No one knew how many years I had loved her.

It began in high school.

She studied art and often carried her easel into the school garden.

The white uniform always looked better on her than on anyone else.

To see her for a few extra minutes, I practiced piano in the room beside the art studio every afternoon.

Alessia decided as a freshman that she would attend the finest art school.

I wanted to attend college too.

My family expected me to study finance and management.

I was still wondering how to make room for music.

Then my father died.

His car was ambushed on the road home.

He left no final words.

He gave me no time to prepare.

The Varela family lost its boss in one night.

Everyone wanted to take something from a seventeen-year-old boy.

I had to leave school and assume control of the group and the family.

Before I left, I went to the music room one final time.

Alessia was painting alone next door.

I gathered my courage.

“I have to perform something at the school concert.”

“Will you listen?”

I played the Moonlight Sonata.

She never understood what the music meant.

She only smiled.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Tell me when they release the program. I’ll come cheer for you.”

That concert never happened for me.

I had only wanted to play for her.

After my father died, all of New York waited for the Varelas to fall.

Some mocked me.

Some threatened me.

Others stood before me and offered almost nothing for the companies my father left behind.

It took me years to teach them silence.

During the hardest days, I did not always know why I kept fighting.

Then I would see Alessia.

She entered the art school she loved.

During her first year, a photograph of her painting beside a lake made her famous.

Many men pursued her.

I was relieved each time she rejected them.

I still did not know what right I had to approach her.

I had never finished high school.

A family that could spill blood again at any moment stood behind me.

At that time, I did not deserve her.

During Alessia’s second year of college, the Varela Group finally became stable.

I began buying her charity-auction paintings anonymously.

It was the only way I knew to be close to her.

The year she graduated, her father became ill.

She abandoned painting and entered the Bellandi Group.

I watched her face the same burden I once had.

She was forced to assume responsibility without warning.

To win the board and family council, she began choosing an alliance husband.

My name was on the list.

I thought my chance had finally come.

She chose Lorenzo.

What did that man have that I did not?

I never pressured Alessia.

I only found Lorenzo more offensive with every passing year.

took several deals from the Salvi Group.

Lorenzo hated me for it.

Whenever we met at a banquet, he sneered or tried to provoke me.

I ignored him.

If I answered, Alessia would stand beside him.

I could not bear to see it.

I never imagined Lorenzo would announce another woman on the day he was supposed to marry her.

When I saw the photograph, I left my first comment beneath one of his posts.

Then Alessia sent me two words.

Where are you?

My fingers moved faster than thought.

I sent my location.

When she entered the billiards room, I kept playing so she would not realize I had been waiting.

When she asked me to marry her, I should have agreed at once.

Why did I make her sink those final three balls?

When she could not hit the last one and prepared to give up, I finally went to her.

“I’ll teach you.”

That ball had to go in.

She had to become my wife.

Years later, Alessia found the collection room.

The love I hid for almost a decade was finally placed before her.

Everything I had only dared express in secret finally received an answer.

I looked down at the woman in my arms.

In her sleep, she moved closer.

I tightened my hold and kissed her forehead.

This time, I would never let her leave.

THE END