Chapter 19 Giulia
GIULIA
Two days before the wedding, I find Luca in the hallway outside my father's office.
He's been avoiding me successfully for the past week.
Every time I've tried to talk to him, he's either disappeared before I can reach him or looked through me like I'm not even there.
Like I'm a ghost haunting the halls of my father's house, invisible and irrelevant.
But today I'm desperate enough to corner him.
I've been lying awake every night, my hand on my still-flat stomach, thinking about the baby growing inside me and the life we're about to start together.
I keep thinking that maybe if I can just talk to him, if I can just make him understand how sorry I am, how much I love him, we can find a way through this.
"Luca." I step in front of him before he can walk past me, blocking his path. "Please. I need to talk to you."
He stops, and for a moment I think he's going to push past me anyway. But then his eyes meet mine, and what I see there makes my breath catch in my throat.
Nothing.
There's nothing in his eyes. No anger, no pain, no residual affection. Just a cold blankness that's somehow worse than any emotion would be. It’s more than there was before all of this. Then, I could tell something was eating at him, even if he treated me professionally. Now it’s as if he’s emptied out entirely.
"What do you want, Giulia?" His voice is flat and bored.
"I want to talk about the wedding. About us. About—"
"There is no us." He cuts me off, his tone still perfectly neutral. "There's a legal arrangement that your father is forcing me into. That's all."
The words feel like a slap, but I force myself to keep going. "I know you're angry. I know I hurt you. But we're going to be married, we're going to have a child together, and I just thought—"
"You thought what?" He raises an eyebrow, looking down at me as if I’m a stupid child. "That we'd play house? That I'd forgive you and we'd live happily ever after?"
"No, I just—I thought maybe we could try. Maybe we could—"
His voice goes hard. "Stop. You need to stop trying, Giulia. You need to accept what this is and stop pretending it's something else."
"What is it, then?" My voice breaks on the question, and I hate myself for the weakness. "What are we?"
"We're two people trapped in a situation neither of us wanted.
" He takes a step closer, and I can smell his cologne—the same scent that used to make me feel safe, desired, loved.
Now it just makes me want to cry. "I'm marrying you because I have to, because your father is giving me no choice.
Because you're carrying my child, and I have a responsibility to that child.
But don't mistake obligation for anything else. "
"Luca, please—"
"I don't love you." He says it deliberately, slowly. "I loved Valentina. I loved the woman I met in that club, but she doesn't exist, does she? She was just a role you were playing.”
"That's not true." I blink back the tears that are threatening to form, my voice wavering. "Everything I told you was true. Everything I felt was real. I am that person—"
"No, you're not." I can see the muscle ticking in his jaw, the only sign that this conversation is affecting him at all.
"You're Giulia Ciresa. The don's daughter.
A woman who lies as easily as she breathes.
A woman who manipulated me into falling in love with someone who doesn't exist so she could trap me into marriage. "
"I didn't—I never meant to trap you. It was supposed to be one night. And I wanted to tell you, but—”
"But you didn't." His voice drops. "You waited until you were pregnant. Until you had no other choice and you needed me to save you from the consequences of your own actions."
"That's not fair—"
"Fair?" He laughs. The sound is so bitter it makes me physically recoil.
"You want to talk about fair? Is it fair that I spent months falling in love with a woman who was lying to me every single time we were together?
Is it fair that I'm being forced to marry someone I can barely stand to look at?
Is it fair that my entire life has been destroyed because you were too much of a coward to tell me the truth? "
Each question cuts deeper and deeper until I feel like I'm bleeding out right here in the hallway. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry. I know I hurt you. I know I should have told you sooner. But I love you, Luca. I've loved you since I was sixteen years old, and everything I did—"
"If you loved me, you would have been honest with me.
It was selfish. You wanted what you wanted, and you didn't care who you hurt to get it.
I'll be there for the baby. I'll provide for our child.
I'll be a father. But that's all you're getting from me, Giulia.
That's all you have any right to expect. "
"So that's it?" I feel a shiver run through me, and I bite my lip, forcing myself to look at him. "We're just going to be strangers who happen to be married?"
"We're going to be exactly what your father wants us to be.
" He straightens his jacket. "We'll present a united front in public and play the happy couple for the organization.
But in private, you need to accept that this isn't a love story.
This isn't some romantic fairy tale where the princess gets her prince.
This is a legal contract. Nothing more."
"Luca—"
"I have to go." He moves past me, and this time I don't try to stop him. "I'll see you at the wedding, Giulia. Try to smile for the guests."
He walks away, his footsteps echoing in the empty hallway, and I stand there watching him go until he disappears around the corner.
I press my hand against my mouth to stifle the sob that bursts out of me.
I can't let anyone hear me—can't let my father or Romeo or any of the guards know that I'm falling apart.
But it hurts so much I can barely breathe.
I destroyed the only thing I ever really wanted. And now I'm going to marry him in two days, and he's made it perfectly clear that he'll never forgive me. That he'll never love me again. The best I can hope for is cold civility and shared responsibility for the child growing inside me.
And I have no one to blame but myself.
—
The wedding is held in the back chapel of the local diocesan church.
My wedding to Alessandro would have been at St. Patrick’s, a huge, practically royal affair with thousands of dollars' worth of flowers and a gown that cost six figures, and a reception to match. My union with Luca is nothing like that.
My father wants it over quickly, made binding, and then moved past as fast as possible.
My expensive gown is no more… not that I wanted to wear it, anyway.
Instead, a dress is chosen and brought to me, left in my room for me to find when I go upstairs the day before the wedding, in a way that feels like a warning.
Follow through, do this part of your duty at least, or else.
The wedding will be small, just immediate family and a handful of trusted associates. A quiet ceremony to legitimize the situation and move forward.
And the morning of, I stand in my room and stare at my reflection in the mirror, trying to reconcile all of this before I have to go out and pretend that this is the happiest day of my life.
In other circumstances, ones where Luca was in on this with me all along, where we defied everyone to be together, it would be. But instead, I lied to him, and now nothing is the way I once wished it could be.
The dress that was brought up for me is beautiful—ivory silk with delicate lace sleeves, fitted through the bodice and flowing into a simple skirt.
Savannah helped me with my hair, curling it and pinning it into an elegant updo, and she helped with my makeup as well.
It’s impossible to even tell I’ve been crying more than not over the last three days.
I look like a lovely bride, but I feel like I'm going to my execution.
"You look beautiful," Savannah says from behind me, soft and uncertain. She's been trying to be supportive, but even she seems unsure about this whole situation. "Really, Giulia. Stunning."
"Thank you." My voice sounds hollow.
She moves closer, her reflection appearing beside mine in the mirror. "Are you okay?"
The question is so absurd that I almost laugh. Am I okay? I'm about to marry a man who hates me, who told me two days ago that he can barely stand to look at me, and made it clear that our marriage will be nothing but a legal arrangement.
"I'm fine," I say instead. "Just nervous."
"That's normal." She squeezes my shoulder, and I can see the worry in her eyes. "Every bride is nervous on her wedding day."
But not every bride is marrying a man who's being forced into it. Not every bride has destroyed the love of the man she's about to pledge her life to.
There's a knock on the door, and my father enters a moment later. He's wearing a dark suit, his expression unreadable as he looks at me. "It's time," he says simply.
I nod and take a deep breath, trying to steady myself. Savannah gives me one last encouraging smile before slipping out of the room, leaving me alone with my father.
"You look appropriate," he says, which is probably the closest thing to a compliment I'm going to get from him. "Remember what we discussed. You'll smile and play the role of the happy bride. You'll give no indication that this marriage is anything other than a love match."
I nod, biting my lip. "I understand."
"Good." He offers me his arm, and I take it, my hand trembling slightly as I place it in the crook of his elbow. "Let's go."
The drive to the chapel feels endless. My father's presence beside me is solid and unyielding, a reminder that this is happening whether I want it to or not. That I have no choice. I gave up my choices when I lied to Luca.
The chapel doors open as we arrive. I walk inside with my father, and I see him.