He Chose Another Heir Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 01
The day I learned Luca had entered my mother’s adopted daughter’s child into the Rossi family line of succession, I broke off our engagement and left for Paris.
At the airport gate, my phone buzzed frantically. The screen was flooded with his messages.
“It’s not what you think. Let me explain.”
“The dissolution hasn’t been witnessed by both Families. The engagement is still valid.”
“Answer the phone. I’m begging you.”
After we got engaged, he’d never been willing to cross that final line with me—yet he had turned around and acknowledged another woman was carrying his heir.
I stared at the man on the screen, his face perpetually cold.
It was the first time I had ever seen Luca use the word “beg.”
My fingertip hovered over the power button for a full minute.
In the end, I signed the dissolution papers, sealed the black-and-gold signet ring the Rossi family had given its future bride in a courier box, powered off my phone, pulled out the SIM card, and snapped it in two.
When the plane lifted off the runway, I didn’t look back.
It wasn’t until six years later, when my mother fell critically ill, that I returned to this city.
……
I dragged my suitcase out of the arrivals hall, and my path was blocked.
After six years, Luca was noticeably thinner. The chill in his eyes had settled deeper. His sharply tailored black suit gave his shoulders the unyielding line of stone, and the wedding band on his finger cast a cold gleam under the lobby lights.
So they really had gotten married.
The confirmation sparked nothing in me.
He stood dead center at the exit. Rossi family men lined the hall all the way to the driveway, matching shoulder holsters visible beneath their black coats. Passersby gave them a wide berth, not a single person questioning why they were occupying the exit.
When he saw me, his Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Elena.”
I didn’t answer, just dragged my suitcase toward the side to get around him.
He seized my wrist.
His palm was shockingly hot, his grip so hard it felt like it could crush bone.
“The car’s outside.” His voice was rough. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
My eyes dropped to his wedding band.
“No need, Rossi.” I looked up at him. “I’ve already called a car.”
Using his last name severed twenty years of history between us.
His fingers tightened. I fought the urge to flinch.
“Elena.”
He lowered his voice, but exhaustion bled through every syllable.
“It’s been six years. You’ve avoided me for six years. Isn’t that enough?”
I looked straight into his eyes.
I had looked at this face for twenty years.
As a girl, I’d run all over the old streets of the North District trying to keep up with him. As a teenager, he’d driven away every boy who tried to get close to me. After the winter ball on my eighteenth birthday, he’d asked me if I would wear the Rossi family engagement ring.
It hadn’t been a transaction. Both our families were happy to see us together, but back then, we had been in love.
He’d said that no matter what position he rose to, he would protect me for the rest of my life.
I fell for him at twelve, couldn’t hide it by sixteen, and waited to marry him at twenty-two—and in the end, what I got was him personally writing my foster sister’s child into the line of succession.
“Not enough.” I pulled my hand free. “A lifetime wouldn’t be enough.”
His face went white. He opened his mouth to speak again.
I cut him off. “Move. The hospital is waiting for me to sign the medical authorization. It’s in my name—not a De Luca family order, and not a decision you get to make for me.”
He went still, as if only then did he truly accept that I had come back for my mother and no one else.
“Maria’s match report has been sent to the transplant team. Specialists from another hospital are consulting next week,” he said quickly. “The car’s outside.”
I paused for five seconds.
In the end, I got into his car.