The One He Left Became The One He Couldn’t Have Chapter 26
Extra 2
The day Gianna and her husband Matteo made their post-wedding visit to the Valentinos.
Adrian had just had a massive fight with Summer.
He’d moved out of the house they shared.
Decided to cut ties clean.
When a friend sent him that hotel hallway video.
It hit him all at once.
From the very beginning, everything with Summer had been a setup.
The fragile little flower act hid a venomous heart.
He couldn’t bear to replay that day in his mind.
Couldn’t bear to think how wronged and hurt Gianna had been.
He would have clawed his way back to that day. Strangled that wretched version of himself with his own hands.
He and Gianna had been side by side for fifteen years.
How had he been so insane, so blind, not to believe her?
It was that day. That moment.
He’d lost Gianna completely.
Lost her for good.
So now, when Gianna’s husband walked into the room holding her hand.
Adrian saw immediately the sapphire brooch pinned to her husband’s chest.
It was like ten thousand needles stabbing into his heart.
That dense, spreading pain. Nowhere to hide.
But he forced himself to hold it together.
He just followed quietly behind his parents.
Stealing glimpses of her happiness.
He didn’t speak a single word that day.
Didn’t even dare to look at Gianna too closely.
His hands on his knees had long since clenched into fists so tight.
The skin of his palms nearly torn.
But he felt nothing.
He was almost impressed with himself.
How he’d kept that calm smile the entire time.
Only when Gianna was leaving.
Did he realize his face had gone completely numb.
When Gianna was about to go, she called out to him.
She called him brother. Like she had when she first came to this house as a child.
He heard it clearly. Saw it clearly.
Gianna no longer held any romantic feelings for him. None at all.
Her last words to him that day were.
“Brother, I hope you’ll be as happy as I am someday.”
He nodded.
But in his heart, he laughed bitterly.
He couldn’t. But he couldn’t tell her that.