He Canceled Our Wedding Ninety-Nine Times, So I Joined His Enemy novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Wedding That Happened

The wedding started at four o'clock, and I was in the hall outside the ballroom at five minutes to.

Ines had hemmed the dress herself.

It was ivory silk with a plain neck and long sleeves, cut high across the back, and she had sewn a small panel of lace over my left shoulder blade.

"For the scar," she had said, with a mouthful of pins. "Not to hide it. So it has something to wear."

I had not been able to answer her.

Now she stood in front of me in a green dress, fussing with my veil.

"Don't cry," she said. "You'll swell."

"I'm not crying."

"You are going to."

"I'm trying to hold it until the priest."

Tullio offered his arm.

He wore a navy suit that fit him for the first time in his life, and the round glasses had been mended.

He had been Gabriele's guest for two weeks.

In that time he had eaten Ines's dinners every night, and the suit had been let out twice.

"Your father would've given you away," he said. "I'm a poor second."

"You're the first man who ever spoke up for me in a room."

"That's a low bar."

"It's the only one I cared about."

His glasses fogged, and he took them off and wiped them on his tie.

"Four o'clock," the planner murmured from the door. "Whenever you're ready, Miss Sartori."

I looked at the clock on the wall.

It said four exactly.

I almost laughed.

Ninety-nine times I had stood somewhere waiting for a phone to ring.

My phone was upstairs in a drawer.

Tullio and I walked in.

The ballroom was full.

The old Don sat in the front row with his cane, and the north-side Don beside him, and I saw the south-shore man dabbing his eyes with a napkin and pretending it was the pollen.

The east-docks capo had come in a tuxedo and a gold tooth.

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