He Canceled Our Wedding Ninety-Nine Times, So I Joined His Enemy novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Note

I came down to the kitchen at six, because I could not stay in that room one more minute.

Ines was already up, kneading dough at the long table.

She looked at my face and slid a cup of coffee toward me without a word.

Gabriele was standing at the window with his arm in a clean bandage.

He had not slept either.

"About last night," I began.

"Sit," he said. "Please."

I sat.

He opened a drawer in the dresser, took out a folded sheet of paper and laid it in front of me.

The paper was cream and soft at the creases from being unfolded many times.

I knew my own handwriting at once.

Dear Don Lombardi, it said. Thank you for your offer. I am happy where I am and I will not leave my Don. Please do not write to me again. R. Sartori.

I had written it the week after I took the bullet.

I remembered the pen, a heavy black one, and how my hand hadn't shaken.

"Ines kept it in the drawer," Gabriele said. "I told her to throw it out, and she wouldn't."

"It is no business of mine to throw out a letter that important," Ines said, to the dough.

"I had already cleared the seat," Gabriele said. "I told my table a woman was coming. I told them she'd be better than any man in the room. A month passed, and I received this."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not asking you to be sorry. I'm telling you what it cost, so you'd know why I stood at that gate." His voice was low and even. "I did not think you'd come. I thought if I left the seat empty for five years you might remember it was there."

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