CHAPTER 1: The Kiss That Changed Everything
CHAPTER 1: The Kiss That Changed Everything
The night before my wedding was supposed to be perfect.
Instead, it became the night my old life ended.
The Moretti estate glittered beneath thousands of lights. Guests laughed beneath white tents. Champagne flowed. Music drifted across the gardens.
And I was looking for my fiancé.
Marco Moretti.
The man I had loved for four years.
The man I was supposed to marry the next morning.
I found him behind the conservatory.
Holding my best friend.
Not comforting her.
Not helping her.
Holding her the way a man holds a woman he belongs to.
I stopped walking.
The world narrowed.
Marco didn't even look guilty.
He looked relieved.
As if hiding had finally become exhausting.
My best friend, Serena, was crying.
Marco brushed tears from her face.
Then he said the words that shattered everything.
"She's pregnant."
Silence.
My heart kept beating, but I felt nothing.
No scream.
No tears.
No dramatic collapse.
Just emptiness.
Four years.
Four birthdays.
Four Christmases.
Four years of believing we were building a future together.
Gone in a single sentence.
Serena finally looked at me.
"I'm sorry."
I laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because there was nothing else left to do.
Marco stepped forward.
"It just happened."
The oldest lie in history.
As if betrayal were weather.
As if people accidentally fell into each other for months.
I stared at him.
Then at her.
Then at the wedding lights glowing in the distance.
Hundreds of guests were arriving.
The Moretti family.
Business partners.
Friends.
Media.
Everyone expected a wedding.
And suddenly I had a dangerous idea.
Across the garden stood Dante Moretti.
Marco's older brother.
The true heir.
The man who spent six months personally designing my wedding dress after hearing me casually describe my dream gown.
The man who always remembered my coffee order.
The man who watched me the way people protect things they never expect to have.
Before I could stop myself, I walked directly to him.
"Dante."
His dark eyes lifted immediately.
One look at my face and he knew something was wrong.
"What happened?"
I grabbed his jacket.
Pulled him down.
May you like
And kissed him.
The entire garden gasped.
