The One He Left Became The One He Couldn’t Have Chapter 15
Matteo and I set our wedding for two weeks out.
Tight timeline.
But the Ricci family took their heir’s marriage deadly seriously.
They’d begun preparations years ago.
So even with the rush, everything moved smoothly.
Aunt Mariana told me.
Matteo had been gravely ill as a child.
After he recovered, the Riccis took him to Italy to see the family’s old priest.
The priest said he had to marry by September of his twenty-seventh year.
Then his life would be smooth, healthy, prosperous.
The Ricci elders believed deeply in these things.
When Aunt Mariana first brought up this match over the phone.
The Riccis had already done their background work on my family.
Matteo and I were aligned in destiny. A union foretold in the Marian hymns.
So after I agreed to the engagement.
The entire Ricci household was overjoyed.
I received many, many precious welcome gifts.
The most meaningful of all was a pair of jade bangles that had belonged to Matteo’s birth mother.
When Matteo gave them to me.
I was deeply moved. But also sad. Guilty.
The perfect return gift from me would’ve been the brooch my mother gave my father.
But it was still with Adrian.
Maybe he sensed my low mood.
Matteo took me to the garden.
“Gianna, are you unhappy?”
He looked at me with concern.
The bangles on my wrists pooled with deep green.
Even if I knew nothing about jade, I understood their worth was beyond measure.
I’ve always been someone who can’t take kindness without giving back tenfold. A hundredfold.
I mentally ran through every gift I could offer Matteo.
Everything felt inadequate.
The guilt was already crushing.
And then meeting Matteo’s gentle gaze.
I don’t know why.
When I decided to finally let Adrian go, I didn’t cry.
When I left New York, the city I’d lived in for twenty-one years, I didn’t cry.
When Adrian refused to return the brooch, I didn’t cry.
But right then, the tears just fell.
Matteo clearly panicked.
He was a gentleman through and through.
An Italian old-money heir with flawless breeding.
But he obviously had zero experience comforting a crying woman.
The way he dabbed at my tears with his handkerchief was downright clumsy.
I laughed through the tears. “Matteo, you’re wiping off all my makeup…”
“You’re wearing makeup?”
“You can’t tell?”
Matteo answered with a perfectly straight face. “I thought you were just naturally this stunning.”
I admit it. I’m vain and shallow sometimes.
And that one line lifted me right up.
“Matteo, you’re so good at sweet-talking. Have you had a lot of girlfriends?”
“Does kindergarten count?”
My eyes went wide. “You haven’t dated since you grew up?”
“Saying no would be a lie.”
“In college in Italy, I had a girlfriend.”
“We realized we weren’t right for each other and parted amicably.”
“Was there someone after that?”
Matteo paused a few beats. “There was.”
“Just unfortunate timing. She didn’t feel the same way.”
A quiet understanding settled in my chest.
So that was it.
Maybe he’d locked his heart away because the one he loved loved someone else.
That’s why he agreed to this arranged marriage.
I didn’t know why.
But a faint thread of bitterness coiled through me.
Then I pulled myself together. Maybe it was for the best.
At least I wouldn’t be burdened by too much guilt.
When I left the Ricci estate that day.
Matteo said to me, “Gianna, I hope you’ll truly see me as your future husband.”
“I know you’re independent and capable.”
“But leaning on me once in a while would make me happy too.”
I felt something in my heart crack open. Just a little.
“Matteo. I will.”
I gave Matteo a pair of cufflinks and a tie clip first.
Not wildly expensive.
But they were designs I’d sketched myself on a whim a while back.
This gift was clean.
Because when I designed them, they weren’t meant for Adrian.
I was just missing my parents.
And poured that longing into every pencil line.
When I handed the designs over to the jeweler, I had no idea that Adrian Valentino was sitting in the old house we once shared, holding the pink diamond ring I’d shipped back. Sitting there all night.