Pregnant and Abandoned at the Altar by a Billionaire

PROLOGUE

CECíLIA

My mother snipped the tag out of my dress with the little scissors she’d kept in her purse for twenty years.

“There. That should feel better.”

I turned toward the mirror. The silk swayed slowly, brushing my ankles. Until then, the dress had hung under plastic, something I saw on afternoons spent at fittings. Now I was wearing it, the last pin was out, and this was really happening.

Dalva crouched to smooth the hem. I watched her fingers working near my feet and pressed my lips together.

“Mom, get up.”

“There’s a crease.”

“Nobody’s going to notice it all the way down there.”

“I will.”

I laughed. So did she, without taking her eyes off her work.

With my wedding dress spread around us, my mother still managed to find work to do. She made one last adjustment, braced a hand on my arm, and got to her feet, trying to hide the effort it took. I took the scissors before she could put them away.

“You’re staying with me today. No working.”

“I’m right here.”

“I mean on your feet, Mom.”

Her eyes filled as she smiled, and I couldn’t hold back my own tears any longer. I rested my forehead against hers. She warned me at once:

“Don’t cry. You’ll ruin your makeup.”

“You started it.”

“I didn’t pay a girl to paint my face.”

The makeup artist busied herself by the window and pretended not to hear.

I stepped back, laughing, and took the handkerchief my mother pulled from her purse.

Real cloth, a blue D stitched in one corner.

Something small and familiar in a suite where I couldn’t even open the water bottles without help.

Below us, the crew was placing the last flower arrangements along the path to the chapel. Through the window I could see two people carrying a tall vase and a third pointing across the garden. Everyone in the hotel seemed to be under orders to keep every last thing in place.

Dante had asked me what I wanted for the wedding.

I’d said white flowers, my family close by, and a meal we could actually eat, instead of portions so tiny you felt you ought to apologize for being hungry.

He’d laughed at that. Then he’d pulled me into his lap and asked again, as if it hadn’t sunk in that I could ask for more.

I didn’t need anything more.

That morning, I just wanted him to sound like himself again when he answered the phone.

Our conversations had been strange since Thursday. Short. He said there was trouble at the company: the article that week had set off a dispute on the board, and he’d sort it out before we left on our trip.

I’d read the article. His parents’ divorce, a fight over shares in the group, details of a deal that hadn’t even gone through yet. I’d felt his shame—the shame of having strangers discuss things that still hurt, things he’d barely been able to tell me.

When I asked if he needed me, he said he needed a little time.

I gave it to him.

Now I was looking at my phone on the vanity for the fourth time in ten minutes.

He still hadn’t answered my message.

“I’m ready. Are you?”

I turned the phone facedown as my mother came over.

“Eat something before you go downstairs.”

She held out a plate with two slices of toast. The smell of butter turned my stomach, just as it had the past three mornings.

“Just one.”

“Since when do you bargain with me over toast?”

“Ever since they sewed me into this dress.”

Dalva gave my waist a professional once-over. Not a single button was too tight, and she knew it. Still, she left the plate on the vanity and went to see if there was any tea.

Alone for a few seconds, I touched my belly.

There was nothing to see. Under the silk, my body looked just as it had in the weeks before. But I could close my eyes and see those two lines.

Pregnant.

I could hardly think the word without smiling.

I’d found out on Wednesday. On Thursday I bought another test. I couldn’t trust that much happiness to one little stick. I took both tests before telling anyone.

Not even Marina knew.

I wanted to tell Dante first.

The day before, I’d practiced in the shower. I tried to find something beautiful to say, but it all sounded rehearsed. In the end, I decided to take his hand, put it on my belly, and just tell him.

We’re going to have a baby.

I imagined him going quiet. Dante often did when something caught him before he’d worked out what to say. Then he’d look at me again, really look. I knew that change. It was the way he shut out the rest of the world to be with me.

I wanted to see that look.

I wanted that first second to belong to us alone.

Two knocks, and the suite door opened. Marina came in carrying a sandal, her hair hastily pinned up.

“Don’t start,” she warned our mother. “This shoe is cutting into my foot. I’ll put it back on when I have to.”

My sister seemed lighter. For weeks I’d been watching for this: a little complaint, an impatient laugh, anything she could do without being afraid.

“Come here,” I said.

She left the sandal by the door and came over. The makeup couldn’t quite hide her sleepless nights, but she was beginning to look like herself again. She hugged me carefully, trying not to crease the dress.

“You look beautiful.”

“So do you.”

“I know. Mom made it.”

My mother reached automatically to straighten the neckline of Marina’s blue dress. Marina rolled her eyes and let her.

For a few seconds, I just watched them. Everything I’d asked for was here. My sister safe. My mother close by. The man I loved waiting downstairs. A child who didn’t have to know yet how hard the world could be.

I could pay back the loan. I’d worked it out. It would take time, and work, but I could repay every cent. Later, when Marina had settled in, when telling Dante wouldn’t leave her facing questions about her life she still couldn’t answer, I would explain.

I should have told him already.

The thought surfaced, but I pushed it away. I didn’t want to spoil the morning with worry, and Augusto had assured me more than once that he understood.

It was a loan. For an emergency. I shouldn’t have let it weigh on me so much.

The wedding coordinator came to tell us we had fifteen minutes. My mother went with her to check the way down. Marina sat to put her sandal back on, muttering curses at the buckle. My phone buzzed on the vanity.

I reached for it too quickly.

It was Augusto.

“Everything’s ready over here.”

I looked at the message for a moment before replying that I was coming down.

I’d wanted it to be Dante.

***

I found Augusto in the corridor leading to the garden.

He wore a dark suit with a flower in his lapel and was talking to one of the security men. He stopped when he saw me.

“Cecília.”

I smiled. It took him a moment to smile back, but people were passing between us, and I thought nothing of it.

“Is Dante okay?”

“He’s waiting.”

“I asked if he’s okay.”

Augusto adjusted his cuff. In the brief pause, I realized how tightly I was gripping the ribbon around my bouquet.

“It’s been a tough week. You know how he is when he feels exposed.”

I nodded.

I knew. I knew how little Dante said at times like this. How he went to the window whenever his parents’ divorce came up. How he hated hearing from someone else that people had been talking about him.

I also knew how he’d rest his face against my shoulder when he finally got tired of holding himself so stiffly.

“I’ll talk to him later.”

Augusto glanced over my shoulder. Marina had stopped a little way behind us to fix the strap on her sandal.

“Is your sister feeling better?”

At that, I let my guard down.

“She is. Much better.”

“That’s good.”

I touched his arm for a moment.

“Thank you for not making things any harder.”

He looked back at me.

“No need to thank me now.”

The wedding coordinator called my name. Augusto went in through a side door, and I joined my mother at the chapel entrance.

Dalva offered her arm.

“Ready?”

I thought about telling her I was scared. Just a small, nameless fear I could blame on the ceremony, the guests, everything in my life about to change. I didn’t want to make her carry it with me.

“I’m ready.”

The music began.

The doors opened. Beside me, my mother drew a deep breath.

Before I could take in anything else, I searched for Dante.

He stood with the officiant at the end of the aisle. His suit lay smoothly across his shoulders. He looked as if he’d needed no one to help him get dressed. His hands were clasped in front of him, his eyes on me.

He didn’t smile.

I kept walking.

People in the front rows turned as I passed. A murmured comment. The click of a camera. My mother squeezed my arm, and I thought the emotion of it all had caught up with her.

Dante didn’t take his eyes off me.

A few steps away, I smiled at him. A question as much as a smile, trying to reach him before I got there.

His expression didn’t soften.

My mother kissed my cheek. When she let go of me, I reached out my hand.

Dante held it only long enough to guide me to his side.

His fingers were cold.

“Are you okay?” I asked softly.

He looked at my hand, still close to his. Then at my face.

“We’re about to find out.”

The officiant began welcoming everyone before I could ask what he meant.

I stood still, my bouquet in front of my belly, catching only bits of what he said about marriage and commitment. His voice was close, but the words barely reached me. I tried to look at Dante again. He was watching the man in front of us.

Then he said:

“Before we go any further, I need an answer.”

The officiant paused.

The microphone beside the little pulpit carried Dante’s words through the chapel. The people in the front row went still.

“Dante?”

He took a folded sheet of paper from his jacket.

Such a simple movement. For a moment I thought he’d written his vows. That he was about to say something that would explain his expression and make me laugh at how frightened I’d been.

He unfolded the paper.

“Did you receive eighteen thousand reais from this company?”

I looked at the page he held between us.

I recognized the date. The amount. The name Linha Norte.

My face went cold.

“I did, but…”

Behind me, people began to murmur.

“What for?”