Axel #2
Delia being guided down the hallway by Daniel and Sarah, her face drained and blank, eyes unfocused. She was still in her wedding dress but her veil was gone. She moved like someone in shock—stiff, distant, barely tethered to the moment.
They were taking her away from the sanctuary. Away from the wedding that clearly wasn’t happening.
I stepped back, letting them pass without seeing me. Daniel saw me and something passed across his face—recognition, then relief.
“Axel,” he said. “Good. Wait for me. I need—just wait.”
He disappeared into the suite holding Elena’s hand, closing the door firmly behind them.
I stood in the hallway, trying to piece together what had just happened. Jake clearly wasn’t here. The wedding wasn’t happening. And Delia had looked shattered in a way that made my chest constrict.
Then Jake’s mother appeared, crying so hard she could barely walk. Someone was supporting her, guiding her toward the exit. She kept saying “I can’t believe he did this” over and over.
He did this.
Jake had done something.
The rage hit first—white-hot and absolute. Pure fury at Jake for whatever he’d done to put that look on Delia’s face.
And beneath that rage—buried so deep I almost didn’t recognize it—was something else.
Relief.
Terrible, selfish, monstrous relief that she wouldn’t marry him after all.
The realization made me sick. Here was Delia, clearly devastated—and some dark part of me was glad. Glad she was still unmarried. Glad Jake was out of the picture. That the future I’d been dreading—watching her belong to someone else permanently—had just evaporated.
I hated myself for it.
About eight minutes later, Daniel emerged from the suite looking like he’d been wrung out. He looked exhausted, older than his thirty-three years, like he’d aged a decade in the last hour.
“Jake left,” he said. “Texted her. Said his ex-girlfriend is pregnant.”
The words landed like punches. “He texted her?”
“Right before she was supposed to walk down the aisle.” Daniel’s voice was thick with rage, then he inhaled raggedly and palmed his face, worry flooding his eyes.
“She’s in there. Sarah’s with her, but—” He stopped.
Ran his hand through his hair. “Mom’s confused about what happened and I can’t handle both right now. Can you check on Delia?”
“What do you need?”
“Just—be there. She won’t talk to anyone.”
I didn’t hesitate. “Where is she?”
“Bridal suite. Last door on the left.”
I found the room easily. The door was partially open. Inside, Delia sat on the floor in a pool of white silk and lace, her face blank, her hands loose in her lap. Her maid of honor hovered nearby, mascara running, looking helpless.
For a moment I just stood there, looking at the girl who’d refused to let me disappear as a child. The girl who’d talked at me until I talked back. She had saved me without even knowing she was doing it.
And now she was the one falling apart.
I stepped inside and said her name.
The least I could do was sit on the floor with her while her world collapsed around her.
When she finally said she needed to leave, I drove her home. We didn’t speak during the drive. She stared out the window at the city sliding past, still in her wedding dress, looking small and lost in a way that made my chest ache.
I wanted to say something. Wanted to offer comfort or reassurance or anything that might help. But I’d never been good with words, especially not around her. Silence was safer—less likely to reveal things that needed to stay hidden.
At her building, I put the car in park.
“Do you need help upstairs?” I asked.
“I’m not an invalid. Just abandoned.”
“I’ll wait until you’re inside.”
She got out without arguing. I watched her disappear through the doors, watched the elevator lights climb. Her apartment was on the sixth floor. When the lights stopped moving, I counted to sixty. Then another sixty.
Her window stayed dark, stubbornly unchanged.
I sat there because leaving felt wrong. Because some part of me needed to be sure she was safe, even if safe just meant alone in her apartment processing the worst day of her life.
My phone rang. Daniel.
“Is she okay?”
The question was impossible to answer honestly. Was anyone okay after being abandoned at their own wedding?
“She will be,” I said instead.
“Thank you for staying with her. I know you don’t—” He stopped. “I know this is hard for you. Being around her. I’ve always known.”
The words settled between us. Years of mindful space, acknowledged in a single sentence.
“It’s fine,” I said.
After we hung up, I sat in my car watching Delia’s building and forced myself to confront the truth I’d been avoiding.
Nothing had changed. Jake leaving didn’t make Delia suddenly—magically—available to me. It didn’t erase the fact that the Santoros had saved me, that wanting her had always been a betrayal of the family who’d given me everything.
The distance I’d maintained for seventeen years was still necessary. Still right. Still the only way to keep everyone safe.
I’d go back to my life. Delia would go back to hers. We’d return to our separate orbits, connected only by Daniel and occasional family events I’d continue to avoid.
This was just a temporary crisis—a moment where our paths crossed out of necessity, not choice.
And whatever I felt—whatever I’d always felt—had no place in this moment. She needed support, not someone waiting in the wings hoping for an opportunity that should never exist.
She deserved better than that—better than me using her devastation as an opening.
I repeated that to myself as I finally started the car and drove back to my empty penthouse.