chapter 2
585 Words
"Marco Moretti, our engagement is over."
Marco snapped his head up to look at me, his eyes brimming with disbelief.
For a moment, a flicker of panic crossed his eyes, but it was swiftly replaced by arrogance.
He sneered coldly: "End? You're about to marry a cripple, a worthless member of a failed family. What gives you the right to tell me it's over?"
"Go ask in any corner of New York—who doesn't know about this scandal? Elena Costello, what choice do you have but to marry me?"
"You're the daughter of the Costello family's strategist. Are you really going to marry that piece of trash called Luca Falcone?"
His tone was calm, yet every word he uttered was laced with venom.
I stared at him in silence. At that moment, all the emotions of the past seven years were consumed by fire, leaving behind only cold, ash-strewn ground.
I unclasped the platinum necklace from my neck. The pendant bore a crest designed with the initials of our family names, set with a pink diamond he'd procured from South Africa.
I handed it to him.
He hesitated, reaching out to take it. But the instant his fingertips touched the chain, he jerked his hand away. The necklace clattered against the polished marble floor with a sharp, jarring sound, a corner of the diamond in the pendant chipping off.
I stared blankly at the necklace lying on the floor.
Marco said coldly, "Who are you trying to fool? If you don't want it, you should have thrown it away."
This necklace was his own design from years ago. To secure that flawless pink diamond, he'd nearly come to blows with a Russian at the auction. He'd been convinced that a token of their love must be utterly unique.
After I acquired the necklace, I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral to pray for our future.
When he saw my knees, red and swollen from kneeling so long, his eyes had filled with tenderness. He had cherished that necklace more than his own life.
Yet now, he'd simply tossed it aside.
Marco probably wanted to see me utterly distraught, but I merely smiled with a sense of release.
"We're even now."
I turned and walked away.
He seemed to want to follow, but Isabella took his arm, her voice tinged with just the right measure of timidity and concern: "Marco, Miss Elena seems rather upset. You ought to go and soothe her."
"Ah, it's all my fault. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be in such a predicament."
"Soothe her?" Marco's voice hardened. "She's merely in a temporary rage. In a few days, she'll be begging me on her knees. Otherwise, come seven days' time, she'll have no choice but to marry that cripple!"
Isabella’s voice carried a barely perceptible edge of provocation: “What if she’s stubborn enough to marry the cripple rather than admit she was wrong?”
He let out a cold sneer. "Then let it be so. It suits our purposes perfectly."
I quickened my pace, as if by fleeing this place I could spare my heart from further torture by his words. Yet tears still betrayed me, streaming down my cheeks.
Back home, I threw myself into my mother's arms and wept uncontrollably.
With a pained expression, she stroked my hair. "Elena, whatever you wish to do, Mummy will support you."
I wiped away my tears, my gaze hardening. "Mother, I wish to marry the man from the Falconi family."
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