Before I Forget His Name novel · Chapter 7 of 24
Chapter 7: The Bride Who Came Anyway
Giulia sat on the edge of the visitor's chair and kept her coat on.
"I should say the ugly part first," she said. "Nobody was in love."
"I assumed."
"Adriano didn't want the marriage, and I didn't either." She touched the ring on its chain. "My uncle Aldo wanted a Donati inside the Scalise house, and the other families wanted peace on the Brooklyn piers."
"So you were the peace."
"I was the signature." She said it without bitterness. "On our first dinner Adriano told me he would marry me, protect me, and never ask for anything else. He said he was in love with somebody he could not have."
I looked at the blanket.
"He didn't say who," Giulia said. "He didn't have to."
"He told me there was no version of us."
"I'm sure he did." She leaned forward. "He's been hunting for something since last autumn. He won't tell me what, only that he needed a year of Aldo believing the marriage was real."
"Hunting what?"
"Who killed your parents."
The monitor beside me ticked.
I had been told for seven years it was a rival family and a bad night.
"Is that why you ended it?" I asked.
"At six on Saturday morning he called me and said he was calling it off. I told him he was right." She looked at her hands. "I told him to go to the girl who was leaving, and I'd tell the guests myself."
"Why would you do that?"
"Because I'd rather study law for the rest of my life than be the reason somebody doesn't get a goodbye."
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