My Fiancé Confessed to Cheating novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Seat Beneath Me
On the way to the cathedral, Saverio confesses he slept with Graziella in Rosaria's seat, plays their bet over the speakers and demands a year of freedom; when she refuses to marry him, he pushes her out of the car.
"I crossed a line, Rosaria. I fell for Graziella."
The car had barely pulled out of the villa gate.
My veil was still spread across the seat so it wouldn't crease.
Saverio Sciarra pointed at the leather under my dress.
"Last night she sat right there. She wrapped her legs around me and kissed me. We had sex in this car."
The driver kept his eyes on the road.
His ears had gone red.
"I guess I'm like every other man after all," Saverio said. "I finally understand Gaetano. Graziella has more fire in her than you."
Gaetano was my ex-husband.
He was also Saverio's half-brother.
Graziella Mancuso had been my only friend since we were six.
Three years ago I came home early and found her in my bed with Gaetano.
I was six months pregnant.
I lost my daughter on the bedroom floor.
When I went into the dark after that, Saverio was the one who came in after me.
Now he sat beside me in his wedding suit and told me he'd done the same thing.
I closed my fingers around my grandmother's ring.
A thin gold band with a small square emerald.
"If you slept with her last night," I said, "why are you marrying me today?"
Saverio smiled at the dashboard. "You really do know her. You win."
"What?"
He pressed a button on the panel between us.
Graziella's voice came out of the speakers.
"So come to the hotel tonight. You promised me the Family's backing, and I've got a few things ready so we won't get bored."
They had never hung up.
She had heard every word.
Saverio watched the color leave my face.
"We had a bet," he said. "I said you'd slap me. Graziella said you wouldn't have the nerve. She said you'd only ask me why."
"If I won, she'd wear a little maid's outfit tonight. If she won..."
He let it hang and grinned.
Graziella laughed through the speakers.
"Looks like I know her better than you do."
"Rosaria, three years on and you still think weakness is good manners. Your taste in men got better, though."
"The youngest Don the Sciarra Family ever had. He outranks Gaetano. But he was just as easy to take."
The last time I heard that laugh, she was standing at my bedroom window in Gaetano's shirt.
She lit a cigarette while he scrambled for his trousers.
"Don't make this a war," she'd said. "I only borrowed your husband for one night."
Then Gaetano's face went white, and he ran toward me.
There was blood on my legs, pooling on the floor.
The doctor said the cord had twisted.
That night I lost my friend, my husband and the daughter I never got to hold.
"All right, baby," Saverio said to the speakers. "Let me get the wedding over with first. Both Families are waiting at the cathedral."
He ended the call.
Then he turned to me.
"We left early. There's that bakery on the way with the lemon cake you like. Want me to stop and get you a slice?"
A minute ago he'd been laughing with her about my dead baby.
Now he was offering me cake.
"How can you act like nothing happened?"
"You swore on your honor you'd never hurt me the way Gaetano did!"
The tears came, and I didn't wipe them.
For three years Saverio had reached for a tissue before my tears even fell.
This time he picked up the box and dropped it in my lap.
"You can't have it both ways, Rosaria."
"What does that mean?"
"When our Families proposed a marriage, both of us told you we loved you. You picked Gaetano. The warm one."
"You gave him your best years. You only came to me after he threw you away. Don't be naive."
"Then why spend three years making me believe you'd never hurt me?"
"I thought I could get past it. Then we started planning the wedding."
"You remembered every clause of your first contract. The order of the Mass. The seating. You never once had to check."
"I'm a lawyer. I wrote both contracts."
"Every time you did something without thinking, I knew you'd done it with him first."
His voice rose.
"I love you. But your past makes me sick."
"So give me a year. One year to do what I want and sleep with who I want."
"Then I cut them all off, and you're my Donna. After what you put me through, that's fair."
A tear dropped on the back of his hand.
"That's not fair," I said. "You could have told me before we signed the contract."
"You don't get to carry me for three years and wait until I'm ready to marry again. Then do this, and call it your right."
I pulled my grandmother's ring off my finger.
I set it on the armrest between us.
"Saverio, I'm not marrying you."
His eyes dropped to the emerald.
His face went cold.
"The priest is waiting. You don't get to cancel this wedding on your own."
"I just did."
"Then you'll be my lover instead. Either way you're mine."
I didn't look away.
He tapped the glass behind the driver.
The car pulled onto the shoulder of the coast road, beside a wide brown puddle.
Saverio reached across me and unbuckled my seat belt.
Then he shoved the door open.
"I'll tell the cathedral it's postponed. Then I'm going to see Graziella. You decide whether you want to be my Donna or my lover."
He put his hand flat between my shoulders.
"Those are your only choices."
And he pushed.
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