His Assistant Destroyed Our Marriage (Her Marriage in Crisis #96)

Prologue

Nora

Five Years Ago

My hands won’t stop shaking.

“Nora.” Sophia grabs my elbow at the back of the cathedral. “Breathe. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re gray. Actual gray. Like a corpse in couture.”

“That’s very supportive, thank you.”

She laughs and adjusts my veil, her fingers gentle despite her teasing. “He’s going to die when he sees you. You know that, right? The man is going to absolutely fall apart.”

“Dante doesn’t fall apart.”

“He will today.” She kisses my cheek. “Now go marry the love of your life before I start crying and ruin my makeup.”

The music swells. The doors open. And suddenly I’m walking down an aisle lined with white roses and candlelight and more people than I can process, all of them turning to look at me.

My grandmother’s ring slides toward my knuckle. Too loose. Mom told me to get it resized, but there wasn’t time, and now I’m walking toward forever with a ring that doesn’t quite fit.

Then Dante looks at me.

Everything else disappears.

He’s standing at the altar in charcoal gray, and his eyes are wet. Dante Moretti - who negotiates billion-dollar deals without blinking, who made grown men cry in a boardroom last Tuesday - is crying. Because of me. Because I’m wearing white and walking toward him.

“Tesoro,” he whispers when I reach him, so low the priest doesn’t hear.

My treasure. He’s been calling me that since our third date, when I made us the worst dinner of his life and he ate every bite anyway. “You’re the most valuable thing I’ve ever found,” he said that night, and I thought he was being dramatic.

He wasn’t.

His steady hands take my shaking ones. His thumb runs across my knuckles - once, twice - and the trembling stops.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs.

“You better. I can’t feel my legs.”

He laughs, soft and just for me. “I’ve got you, tesoro. I’m not going anywhere.”

***

“I wrote my own vows,” Dante tells the priest. “If that’s okay.”

The priest nods, surprised. We didn’t rehearse this.

Dante pulls a folded paper from his jacket. His hands are shaking now. I’ve never seen his hands shake.

“Nora.” He clears his throat. “I’m not good at this. You know that. I’m good at numbers and strategy and making things happen. I’m not good at-” He gestures vaguely. “Feelings. Words. The stuff that actually matters.”

Soft laughter from the pews. Not from me. My eyes are fixed on his face.

“I’m going to build something big. Something that matters. It’s already started, and it’s only going to get bigger, and there are going to be days when it feels like I’m drowning. Days when the work is all I can see.”

He looks up from the paper. Meets my eyes.

“But I need you to hear me. Really hear me.” His voice cracks. I’ve never heard his voice crack. “No matter how big it gets - no matter how loud the world screams - you come first. You will always come first. I swear it.”

The cathedral goes silent.

“You are not the thing I’m building toward,” he says. “You’re the reason I’m building at all. And I will never, ever let you forget that.”

He folds the paper. Takes my hands again.

“I swear it, tesoro. Every word.”

Tears are streaming down my face. The makeup artist is probably having a heart attack somewhere, but I don’t care.

“I believe you,” I whisper.

And I do. God help me, I believe every word.

***

“Have I told you how beautiful you look?”

We’re swaying on the dance floor, Dante’s hand warm on the small of my back. The reception has become a blur of champagne and relatives I haven’t seen since my communion.

“Only about fifteen times.”

“Sixteen, then.” He pulls me closer. “You look beautiful.”

“You hate dancing.”

“I hate dancing with other people. I’ve never danced with my wife before.”

My wife. The words settle into my chest like something warm and permanent.

The ring slides on my finger. I twist it back without thinking.

“We should get that resized,” Dante says.

“After the honeymoon.”

“I’ll have someone come to the lake house. A jeweler.”

“Dante, it can wait.”

He stops dancing. Looks at me with sudden intensity. “Nothing about you waits, tesoro. Not anymore. Not ever again.”

“I-”

“I meant it. Every word up there. You come first. Always.”

My hand touches his face. He turns into my palm, presses a kiss there.

“I know,” I say. “I know you did.”

Someone taps his shoulder - another relative wanting a turn with the bride - and the moment breaks. Dante steps back, and as he does, my eyes catch movement at the back of the room.

Vanessa. Dante’s executive assistant. She’s standing near the exit in a champagne dress that’s almost, but not quite, white.

She’s not watching me.

She’s watching him.

“Everything okay?” Dante asks, following my gaze.

“Fine. Just - is Vanessa okay? She looks…”

“She’s probably tired. She’s been working the Hartwell prep nonstop.” He kisses my forehead. “Stop worrying about other people. This is our day.”

But I watch her a moment longer. There’s something in her expression - something sharp and hungry - that I don’t understand.

She raises her glass. Not toward us.

Toward him.

Then why is she looking at you like she’s the one who lost something?

“Tesoro?” Dante’s hand finds mine. “Where’d you go?”

“Nowhere.” I shake off the unease. “I’m right here.”

The music changes. He pulls me close again.

And over his shoulder, Vanessa keeps watching.