That illusion shattered the moment the guests left.
When we were alone, he leaned close and murmured in a voice so cold it made my blood freeze. “You used your mother’s death to secure this marriage. Are you satisfied? The woman I love is not you. I agreed only because my mother insisted. In public, I’ll act as your husband. In private, my heart belongs elsewhere.”
He kept his word. In front of the family, he treated me with measured courtesy. He provided everything a Don’s wife was supposed to have. But our marriage was nothing more than a carefully staged arrangement.
When Sofia was born, he did not smile. He stood beside the hospital bed and said indifferently, “Now neither my mother nor I owe you anything.”
I believed that once he held his daughter long enough, his heart would soften. I thought time would bring him home to us.
Instead, time proved how naïve I was.
After Sofia’s birth, I was the only one who remained trapped in that illusion.
The marriage bought with one life would now collapse because of another.