You Kept the Don’s Daughter Waiting and Now She’s Someone Else’s Chapter 09

You Kept the Don’s Daughter Waiting and Now She’s Someone Else’s Chapter 09

Luca didn’t have the patience to listen to her complaints.

He took the phone. A dozen missed calls lit up the screen, all from his parents.

He barely had time to hit answer before his mother’s voice came through, sharp and frantic.

“Luca! Where the hell are you?”

“A bunch of Conti soldiers just showed up and took all the Conti guests away! They said the wedding is off.

What the hell happened?”

His father’s voice cut in too.

“Aren’t you supposed to be picking up the bride?”

“Where’s the bride? The hotel is in chaos. Everyone’s asking!”

Luca gripped the phone, his knuckles white.

It took him a long moment to answer.

“Nina… left.”

His mother went quiet.

“What do you mean, left?”

“She left with someone else. The wedding is off.”

Silence on the other end.

Then his mother’s voice went sharp and shrill.

“She left with someone else? What the hell were you doing?!”

Luca closed his eyes,

“Mom, I’m coming over now.”

He hung up and turned to leave.

Coral still hadn’t fully grasped what had just happened. All she knew was that her touch-up had gotten her

yelled at by everyone, and she felt wronged.

She couldn’t help herself.

“Nina is being so dramatic.”

“I just fixed my makeup and she cancels the whole wedding and runs off with another man?”

‘Did she even think about you? About how this looks for both families?”/

Luca whipped around.

“Shut up!”

Coral flinched.

In all the years since college, Luca had never spoken to her like that.

Her eyes went red.

“Why are you yelling at me? It’s not like I made her cancel the wedding!”

Luca opened his mouth, ready to say “It is because of you.”

But the words caught in his throat. He looked at Coral’s wounded face, and suddenly he couldn’t say it.

Was it really because of her?

If he hadn’t crossed so many lines. If he hadn’t taken her side again and again. If he hadn’t made Nina back

down every single time.

If, back upstairs, he’d taken Nina’s hand and walked her down in the very first minute.

If, in that final minute, he hadn’t said “Wait for Coral to finish.”

Would Nina have left?

No.

The one who’d pushed Nina away, from start to finish, was him.

The blood drained from Luca’s eyes.

He felt something hollow open in his chest, empty enough that even breathing hurt,

He didn’t look at Coral again. He turned and walked toward his car.

He had to find Nina.

No matter what, he had to find her.

By the time Damon drove me to the new hotel, it was almost one.

The car rolled through the gates, and I saw white ribbons and lilies of the valley lining both sides of the road.

A long carpet of flowers stretched across the lawn, leading to a semi-open chapel at the far end. Sunlight

poured through the glass dome above, falling onto an arch woven from white roses.

The guest seats were already set up, each chair tied with a pale gold ribbon.

On the screen at the front, there were no photos of Luca and me.

Only a picture.

Damon and me, standing outside our old apartment building. –

I was sixteen, he was seventeen.

I was in my school uniform, clutching a stack of books, grinning like an idiot.

Damon stood beside me, hands in his pockets, head tilted, looking at me.

I’d almost forgotten that photo.

But he’d kept it.

I stood at the chapel entrance, staring at the wedding scene he’d somehow already set up, and my brain

short-circuited.

“Damon. You prepared way too much.”

Damon shoved his hands in his pockets, fighting a grin.

“Of course I did. When I set out to take something, I do it flawlessly or not at all.”

I looked at him.

He cleared his throat and corrected himself on the spot.

“Not that I stole you. You came willingly. Legal, proper, above board.”