Chapter 1 The moment of Realization

I stood there, frozen like an idiot, looking at the rattling papers scattered on the table in front of me. Divorce papers. I don’t realize why it surprised me. I suggest, it’s not like I didn’t see it coming. Three years of marriage to Matteo, and it’s continually been like taking walks on glass sharp, painful, and so damn fragile. 

But now, here I become, stuck inside the place I used to call “our domestic,” though it in no way in reality felt like mine. The afternoon sunlight pouring in from the huge home windows felt like a sort of sick comic story. Warm, stunning… and completely out of sync with the chaos in my head. My arms grazed over the papers, trembling as they touched Matteo’s signature. Bold, very last. He didn’t hesitate. Not one bit. 

Meanwhile, I stood there, falling aside.

I could feel a tear sliding down my cheek, splattering onto the page, blurring his ideal ink. God, it’s reputable now. The quit of our 3-12 months joke of a wedding, and all I had to do changed into a sign on the dotted line. Simple, right? But not anything felt simple. Everything felt heavy. Crushing.

I shifted my gaze to Matteo, statue close to the window like a few form of Greek god carved out of ice. He regarded ideals continually. Tailored in shape, polished shoes, and that entire “I don’t provide a damn” vibe radiating off him. Cold. Untouchable. The guy I used to assume I cherished. Or perhaps I nonetheless did. That’s what hurt the most.

"You need to sign," Matteo said, his again nevertheless turned to me, like I wasn’t even really worth the courtesy of a look. "ASAP." His tone turned into flat, robotic, as though we were speaking about some mundane business deal, now not the give up of the whole thing I thought I had.

"We need to finalize this earlier than Reily comes back," he added, his words touchdown like a punch within the intestine. Reily. Of course, it must be her.

My grip tightened on the threshold of the desk, my knuckles going white. It continually got lower back to her. The female who’d stolen his coronary heart if he even had one to scouse borrow. The lady who made sure I’d never stood a threat. She was the reason we had been here. The purpose of everything fell apart before it ever absolutely started.

I couldn’t help the sour snort that slipped out. "Wow," I muttered below my breath. "You without a doubt don’t waste time, do you?"

Matteo sooner or later grew to become, his darkish eyes assembly mine, but there has been not anything in the back of them. No warm temperature. No remorse. Just... Vacancy. "It’s better this manner, Gianna," he said, like he was looking to give an explanation for a primary math problem to a child. "You knew what this was from the start."

Oh, I knew. But that didn’t make it any less complicated to swallow.

"You’ll get twenty million and the property out west," he endured, so casually, as if he were giving me an early birthday gift. "Gramps could kill me if I assist you to walk away with nothing."

Twenty million dollars. A villa. It sounded like a dream come genuine for everybody else. But in that moment, it felt like he was throwing me scraps. Like I become simply another one among his business transactions, smartly tied up and filed away. He could’ve offered me the sector, but I might’ve traded it fascinated about even a sliver of real love from him.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, trying to preserve it together. "Does your grandmother know about this?" I asked, my voice shaking.

Matteo’s jaw tightened. "Gramps’ evaluations don’t count. This is my choice."

I may want to experience the dam breaking inside me, the tears welling up as I stood there, pathetically clutching onto the portions of my broken marriage. "Matteo, please," I whispered, my voice cracking. "Can’t we just... try?" I love you."

He didn’t even balk. My phrases hung in the air like they have been nothing. Worthless. Matteo raised an eyebrow, his face twisted in a few blends of disbelief and annoyance. "Why, Gianna? Why could you want to live in a marriage like this?"

"Because I love you," I blurted out, my voice determined, uncooked. "I nevertheless love you, even if you don’t feel the same." 

And that’s once I noticed it the flicker of something in his eyes. Was it a pity? Disgust? Whatever it became, it changed into long gone as speedy because it came, replaced by using that bloodless, detached mask he constantly wore around me.

"Enough, Gianna," he said sharply, reducing through my coronary heart with each word. "A marriage without love is nothing but torture. For both of us."

For each folks? I wanted to chuckle. He had no idea what torture turned into. Torture changed into loving someone who could in no way love you returned. Torture was watching him fall for a person else at the same time as you stood there, invisible.

"This turned into a mistake from the begin," he endured, his voice company, final. "You knew I had feelings for Riley. You knew this became just me rebelling against Gramps’ expectations. But now, she’s back, and I’m going to marry her."

His words have been like daggers, stabbing me time and again. I couldn’t breathe. Reily again. And now, I was not anything extra than an impediment in his perfect little love story.

"I’m accomplished," he stated, turning his lower back on me again. "Our agreement is over."

Contract. That’s all it ever changed into for him. A fucking agreement.

The silence that accompanied became suffocating, thick with all the matters I wanted to say however couldn’t. I opened my mouth to argue, to beg, but then his cellphone rang, and just like that, I was forgotten.

"Reily?" His voice shifted, all at once warm, tender. Like he was a totally one of a kind individual inside the blink of an eye. "Hey, infant. You’re already in Chicago? I thought you were coming later tonight."

I felt like I was going to be unwell. He didn’t even care that I nevertheless became status proper there, tears streaming down my face, at the same time as he gushed over Reily like she became the most effective man or woman inside the world who mattered.

"I’m coming to get you properly now," he stated, a smile creeping throughout his face. He didn’t even look in my direction before taking walks out the door, leaving me there alone, staring at the spot where he was.

The sound of his car engine roaring to lifestyles snapped me out of my trance, and I rushed to the window, looking as his smooth black Benz disappeared down the driveway. I’d in no way felt so... Empty.