The Don’s Discarded Bride Chapter 01
At my bachelorette party, my foster sister held up a box of condoms with a playful grin and asked Adrian Moretti, “Future husband, when was the last time you…?”
I was about to tell her to stop.
Then Adrian replied without hesitation, “Last night.”
I thought he was joking. By old family rules, the bride and groom seeing each other before the wedding was bad luck.
But the very next second, he pulled a marriage certificate from his inner suit pocket and laid it in front of me.
“We spent the whole night in the new home you decorated,” he said. “Used half that box.”
“We even stopped by City Hall this morning to register. That’s why I’m late.”
I threw my bouquet at him, eyes burning as I demanded, “Who is she?”
He smiled faintly and flipped open the license.
“See for yourself.”
When I saw the name beside his, I felt ice water poured over my head.
My foster sister leaned close to my ear, her smile still sweet.
“Clara Rosino,” she whispered. “Either be his mistress like your mother, or give Adrian to me. Your choice.”
My mind went blank. I stared from Adrian to Laurel Hayes.
One was the heir to the Morettis, one of New York’s five ruling mafia families—my fiancé since childhood, the man I’d loved for eight years. The other was the girl I’d rescued from the Appalachians and raised as my own sister.
The night before, they’d been together in the home I’d painstakingly decorated. To make it worse, they’d gone to City Hall and gotten married on the very day of my wedding.
The Rosino-Moretti alliance had been sealed by our fathers ten years earlier. Vincenzo Rosino and Salvatore Moretti had used our engagement to lock their power in Brooklyn and Queens.
Today, Adrian had shattered that deal.
The truth hit too fast; I could barely breathe.
“What day do you think this is?” I trembled.
He nodded, casual as commenting on the weather.
“I know. Our wedding day. The eighth year we’ve been together.”
He knew everything.
I’d imagined our wedding a hundred times—St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, overflowing with white roses, the pews lined with men in black suits, my father and Uncle Salvatore smiling as they raised a toast at the head of the table.
I never pictured this humiliation.
He still knelt before me, the same shy pose from his confession at the family Christmas dinner eight years ago.
But his eyes held none of that old warmth.
“Why today?” I asked.
He carefully slipped the license back into his pocket.
His boutonniere stabbed my eyes, ridiculous and cruel.
“No reason,” he said. “Laurel wanted it. So it’s done.”
My lips trembled. Tears fell, staining my white dress.
All because she wanted it. Adrian had betrayed eight years, a decade of family ties, and my dignity—on my wedding day.
He pulled a handkerchief, reaching to wipe my tears.
“Don’t cry. You’ll ruin your makeup. You said you wanted to be the most beautiful bride.”
His fake pity cut me like a dull knife.
In that moment, I remembered all those times I’d secretly taken work as a bridal model in Manhattan to afford his gifts—a scandalous act for a Rosino heiress, one that would have brought shame on the family if it ever got out.
Every time he picked me up, he’d called me his beautiful bride.
I’d worn a hundred wedding gowns, but none had mattered like this one.
Now he’d turned my dream wedding into a joke.
I slapped him hard.
“Adrian Moretti, you bastard.”
He gritted his teeth and said nothing.
Then Laurel dropped to her knees, as if she were the victim.
“Clara, I’m sorry I ruined your wedding,” she sobbed. “But when love hits… we couldn’t control it.”
She looked fragile, but her eyes glinted with triumph. I saw her true face at last.
“Laurel Hayes,” I said. “I raised you for ten years. I was more than your sister—I was your mother.”
“When you couldn’t find a job after community college, I begged Father to make an exception and bring you into Rosino Enterprises. I took you under my wing and taught you everything myself.”
“When your so-called family tried to sell you off to settle your brother’s gambling debts—debts owed to Moretti loan sharks, no less—I was the one who cleaned up that mess for you…”
Before I could finish, Adrian snapped, “Enough, Clara.”
“Laurel’s sensitive. Must you throw this in her face?”
His gaze softened with protectiveness, raw and unapologetic.
“Sensitive?” I laughed bitterly. “Sensitive enough to climb into your bed?”
Adrian flinched, then defended her.
“It wasn’t her fault. Someone drugged me at the family bar. We… slept together.”
“I was her first. I had to take responsibility. I couldn’t let her be nothing to me.”
His words turned my blood to ice.
I stared at him in disbelief, then laughed.
“Adrian Moretti, you married her. Then what about me?”
He frowned, serious and logical.
“I’ve thought about it, Clara.”
“We’ve been together eight years. This wedding is for everyone. If you stay quiet, no one has to know we aren’t legally married.”
Absurdity crashed over me.
I barely recognized this calm, self-righteous man.
In his mind, he could give a wedding to one woman and a license to another.
Laurel spoke up meekly, as if making a promise.
“Don’t worry, Clara. I won’t fight you for Adrian.”
I felt sick.
“Don’t ever call me that again.”
“And this wedding?” I said loudly. “It’s over.”
