He Chose His First Love. I Took Back His Throne

A month before my due date, I slipped while taking a shower, and my Apple Watch immediately alerted my husband, Don Dante Romano. Yet I lay on the cold bathroom floor for an hour, and he never came. He was at the Valenti family's private racetrack, racing with his first love, Victoria Valenti. My watch kept sending alerts, but he stayed with her until she finished her last lap. On the morning our daughter turned one month old, I started packing our bags. I had already gotten back in touch with the people who had worked for my father in LA. The christening party in seven days wasn't going to be a fresh start for the three of us. That was the final deadline I'd given him. When it came, I would leave with my daughter and take back the throne I had once handed him. I didn't need a husband who always put me last. Chapter 1 A month before my due date, I slipped while taking a shower in the estate bathroom and couldn't get up. The Apple Watch on my wrist detected the fall and automatically alerted my husband, Dante Romano. But I lay on the cold marble for an hour, and he never came. In the end, it was a maid who heard me and had the guards break down the door. A young guard rushed me downstairs on his back while our driver raced to the hospital, leaning on the horn the entire way. Even those who normally wouldn't dare address me by my surname abandoned all decorum to save my life. When Dante finally showed up, he was drenched in sweat. He saw the blood between my legs and lost all composure at my bedside, right in front of the doctors and guards. His voice trembled uncontrollably. "Bianca, I'm sorry. I'll never leave you alone again." Our daughter, Lia, came early, but thankfully we were both all right. When the doctor brought Lia over from the incubator, Dante was too nervous to hold her. He kept asking if I was still in pain. It wasn't until a nurse showed him how to support her head and neck that he finally took her in his arms. He didn't put her down all night. Over the next month, Dante had every bathroom floor in the estate torn out and replaced with nonslip tile, and runners laid on every staircase. He canceled family meetings and handled Lia's nighttime feedings himself. If she so much as coughed, he'd get out of bed to check on her, then check again. When he bathed Lia, he tested the water himself. When he changed my dressings, he wouldn't even let the nurse touch the tape. When the baby cried before dawn, he always got to the crib before my personal maid, Rosa Ferri. My mother-in-law, Carmela Romano, couldn't stop telling everyone how completely Lia had her father wrapped around her little finger. I didn't contradict her. Dante's love and care for Lia and me were genuine. But before I stepped into the shower that day, he had texted me. Victoria needed a co-driver at the last minute, and he would be home as soon as she finished her run. He still hadn't come back by the time they rushed me to the hospital. Every minute our unborn daughter and I waited for him, he raced toward the finish line with another woman. Five years ago, Dante was just an underground racer who drove for other people. My father was against the marriage, but I was the one who handed Dante the De Luca port deals and my family's vote on the Commission. I'd stood by him every step of the way as he rose to power. He'd promised me that no matter how powerful he became, being my husband would always come first. And for years, he'd kept that promise. No matter how many people demanded his attention, all it took was one call from me. That hour was the first time I realized he'd changed. On the morning Lia turned one month old, I started packing up my things and hers. When Rosa saw me slip the birth certificate into a folder, she asked quietly, "Donna, are you and the Don taking Lia to LA?" "Just me and Lia." Her expression froze, and she looked past me. Dante stood in the doorway, holding a glass of warm milk for me. He went to the crib first to make sure Lia was still asleep, then came back and pressed his hand to my forehead. "Is there something you need to take care of out there? I'll go with you." "No." Before my father died, he entrusted me with the family business. But once Dante became Don, I'd let him handle everything on my behalf. I'd never seen a reason to separate his authority from mine. Now I was taking it back. When Dante spotted the lawyer's business card on the table, his expression changed. He pulled a handwritten invitation from his inside jacket pocket, with all three of our names on it. "The christening is in seven days." He pressed the invitation into my palm. "Give me seven days. I'll never forget what happened that day." I knew he meant it. When he paced the room at night with Lia in his arms, he truly couldn't stand to hear her cry. But he had taken the race just as seriously. So seriously that he forgot he had a wife. I put the invitation back on the table. "The divorce papers will be delivered along with the document stripping you of my family's voting rights." Dante looked at me for a long time. In the end, all he did was tug my shawl tighter around my shoulders. "You're still recovering. Get some rest. We'll talk when you're feeling better." He turned and told Rosa not to leave me alone for the next few days and to let him know right away if my mood changed. I gripped the folder until my knuckles went white. I wanted a divorce, but he dismissed it as a new mother's mood swing. Hurried footsteps sounded outside the door. A guard rushed in with news. Victoria's red race car had clipped the guardrail on its way back to the pits. A damaged brake line was later discovered, and her family was convinced someone had tried to assassinate their sole heir. Dante immediately arranged a safe house for her. "The safe house on the north side will be ready tonight," he told the guard in front of me. "Send a doctor and the racing team over there. And keep the Donna out of it." But half an hour later, the estate gates opened. Carmela personally brought Victoria in, her leg wrapped in bandages. "It's not safe out there." She walked right past me and told the staff to get a room ready. "Until they find whoever did this, she's staying here." Dante stood behind his mother, frowning, but he didn't object. Chapter 2 The room Carmela wanted cleared out was the first-floor nursery suite. The staff had just started moving Lia's sterilizer when I blocked the doorway. "Put it back." Dante came down the stairs and told everyone to stop at once. "This is Bianca and Lia's room. Nobody touches it." For a moment, the tightness in my chest eased a little. But Carmela slapped the room key down on the table. "Upstairs is too far from the exits. This is the only room where the guards can cover both the garage and the door. Do you want the Valenti heir to die on our doorstep?" Victoria stayed silent, leaning against the wall as she pretended to leave. "Never mind. I'll find somewhere else to stay. At least that way, the baby won't be in danger if the killer comes back." Carmela's eyes filled with tears at once. "Someone just tried to kill her, and you want to throw her out? Bianca, you're a mother too. How can you be so heartless?" A lump formed in my throat. I'd nearly been permanently disabled after that fall in the bathroom, and my C-section incision still ached every day. Yet somehow, Victoria was the one everyone felt sorry for. Dante was quiet for a moment. Then he pulled me aside. "Just two nights. I'll keep watch myself. No one will touch your things or Lia's." He sounded like he was begging. And yet, I was the one who had to give in. As the staff carried Victoria's luggage into the hall, she turned back to me. "Thank you. I know you just had a baby and you don't like having outsiders in the house." With one thank-you, she'd made herself look gracious and me look petty. That night, Victoria's leg began to swell, and the doctor ordered her to keep an ice pack on it overnight. She gave Dante the ice pack with a faint smile. "You used to get the ice packs ready for me after every race." Dante took it without hesitation and wrapped it in a towel, his movements practiced and familiar. The next day, when I went to get breast milk for Lia, I found that the entire month's supply I'd stored in the freezer had been moved to the fridge. All of it had thawed. Rosa picked up a bag and looked it over. She quietly told me it couldn't be refrozen. Lia couldn't drink nearly that much in a day, so the rest would have to be poured out. I held on to the fridge door as a sudden pain shot through my incision. I'd spent that whole month shaking with pain every time I pumped. Lia was born early and was so fragile that I hadn't let myself waste a single drop. Dante quickly bought the best formula money could buy. "I looked at the dates and thought it was from the last couple of days." He took my hand. "You can always pump more. I'll take care of everything else." Anger knotted my stomach. "Why didn't you even ask me?" He opened his mouth, but he had no answer. "So Victoria needed ice for her leg, and you thought it was fine to take out a month's worth of my breast milk without asking me?" "No," Dante said at once. "I just didn't think it would go bad. I'll have someone buy another freezer." He could always find the fastest way to fix things. Another freezer couldn't give me back a month of aching breasts, a tight, burning incision, and sleepless nights spent pumping. I pulled my hand away and texted my lawyer. "Have the Commission approve my divorce petition as soon as possible. As of today, Dante no longer votes on behalf of the De Luca family." My hands were still shaking when I sent it. In the end, there had to be a line between what was his and what was mine. Chapter 3 After just one bottle of formula, Lia started throwing up over and over. Late on the third night, her fever spiked to 102°F, and her cries had grown hoarse. I carried her to find Dante. When the study door opened, Victoria was standing in front of him, favoring her injured leg, with blood on the hem of her pants. "My other car lost control too," she said. "It had barely left the garage when the brakes stopped working." Dante was already reaching for Lia. Then Victoria swayed, and his hand stopped in midair and went to steady her instead. "Lia throws up when she smells medicine." I fought to keep my voice from shaking. "Dante, her fever is 102. Take us to the hospital now." He glanced down at the baby. Lia's face was bright red with fever, and her little hand clutched weakly at my collar. I thought he would at least take her from me. Instead, he called the family doctor and sent him to check Victoria first. Then he had the armored car brought around for her and sent every guard on the estate to line the route to the hospital. "I'll have a car and driver take you." He tucked Lia's blanket around her. "She's still crying, so it can't be that serious. Victoria may have just survived another assassination attempt." I went cold all over. "So her leg matters more than your daughter's life?" "Don't say that." Dante frowned. "You know how to take care of Lia better than anyone. You'd never actually let anything happen to her." Once again, he assumed I'd handle everything. And that meant the doctor, the fastest car, and every last guard could all go to another woman instead. I climbed into the regular sedan with Lia. She twitched in my arms, and I was so scared my fingers went numb. I kept calling her name the whole way. The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror and asked if he should push through the traffic. I looked at the traffic closing in behind Dante's convoy and could only tell him to hurry. The ER admission, the blood tests, the fever medication, the overnight observation. I signed every form myself. Alone. The doctor said that if the fever stayed this high, Lia could get dehydrated. He told me to watch her breathing and temperature all night. I didn't dare close my eyes. When a nurse asked where the baby's father was, my throat closed up. All I said was that he had something more important to do. When the needle went in, Lia cried so hard she could barely breathe. I held down her tiny arm, and that was when I finally cried. I wasn't afraid I couldn't handle it. I was afraid Dante trusted me so much to handle everything that one day, it would cost our daughter her life. He didn't show up until after dawn. He had brought a thermos of my usual hot porridge. He touched Lia's forehead first, then asked the doctor to go over her test results again. When he heard it was only an infection, he relaxed. "Victoria was in real danger last night. If that crash had been just a little bit off—" "Enough." I opened the hospital's emergency contact page and deleted his name right in front of him. I put in Rosa and the family doctor instead. The color slowly drained from Dante's face. "Bianca, I'm her father." "Not last night." His hand froze in midair. For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes. But it came too late, and that only made me angrier. When Lia needed him most, he'd already decided she would be fine without him. I picked up Lia, who had fallen into a deep sleep once the fever broke, and walked past him. At noon that day, he received the divorce papers along with a formal notice that he was no longer authorized to act for the De Luca family. Chapter 4 Dante kept petitioning the Commission to deny my divorce. I was still nursing, after all. No wife could leave her husband at a time like that. The next day, he warmed a glass of milk for me as usual, rocked Lia to sleep, and even wrote down every feeding and temperature reading himself. He didn't argue or question why I'd taken back my voting rights. Instead, he simply tucked the pen and divorce papers into a drawer, as though all he had to do was wait for my mood to pass and everything would go back to normal. That afternoon, Salvatore Conti flew in from LA. He was my father's most trusted confidant and had watched over me since I was a child, staying by me after my father's death. I thought he would at least ask first whether Lia's fever had gone down. But the moment he sat down, he said, "Dante tells me you've been emotionally unstable since giving birth and want to take the baby away." I set down my cup and met his eyes calmly. "You've got it wrong. What I want is a divorce." "Your father left you in my care before he died. I can't stand by and watch you tear your family apart when you're at your weakest." "If my father were still here, he'd ask me why first." Salvatore avoided my eyes. He had already put my plans to go back to LA on hold, and he'd had the luggage that was on its way to the airport carried back up to my room. I rushed into the hallway and saw my two suitcases sitting outside the bedroom door again. My chest tightened. "Who gave you permission to touch my things?" Dante came over, as patient as ever. "Once you're feeling better, I'll take you wherever you want to go. But it's not safe right now." "Since when do all of you get to decide what's safe for me?" I looked from Dante to Salvatore. "I've told you I don't want to stay. Is anyone even listening?" My voice woke Lia, and she started crying in her crib. Dante had her in his arms in an instant, patting her back like he'd done it all his life. He looked so much like a good husband and a good father that it made my eyes sting. When I needed him most, he had put me last. Salvatore didn't answer right away. After a long silence, all he did was tell me to at least wait until Lia's christening was over. I finally understood. It wasn't that they hadn't heard me. They just didn't respect me. I stopped telling anyone when I really planned to leave. "Fine," I told Dante. "At the christening, give me back the authority my father passed to you, in front of everyone." He agreed right away. But that night, I overheard him telling his secretary to rearrange the seating for the party. He planned to announce to all the families that I would run the Romano family alongside him. Chapter 5 Lia's christening party was held at the Romano estate. A family portrait was displayed at the entrance to the ballroom. In it, Dante was holding Lia, and I was leaning on his shoulder, as if that hour and everything after had never happened. When I entered the ballroom with Lia in my arms, Victoria was already seated to Dante's right. That seat was meant for his wife. Carmela smiled as she explained, "She's representing the Valenti family. You and Lia can sit at the family table. It'll be easier for you to take care of her there." Every guest's eyes were on me, and my face burned. Dante immediately stood and asked Victoria to move. Then he announced that from now on, the Donna would have full authority over her own affairs within the family, equal to that of the Don. When the applause started, I didn't sit down. "Where are the authorization papers? I don't want authority equal to yours. I want the authority I gave you back, along with every De Luca family document." He took my hand and lowered his voice. "I'll give them to you after the party. Don't embarrass us in front of the other families." His thumb brushed over my knuckles, a familiar gesture he'd always used to soothe me. Whatever hope I'd still been holding on to died right there. He thought giving me a little public recognition would make everything right again. When it was time for the family photo, Carmela took Lia out of Rosa's arms and handed her to Victoria. "Let's take a picture together in a minute." I reached for Lia, but Carmela stepped aside, keeping her out of my reach. "It's just one picture. Why do you have to be so petty?" Dante was surrounded by guests raising their glasses to him. He looked up, saw Lia in Victoria's arms, and only gestured for me to wait. Victoria had already carried Lia onto the connecting walkway. I went after her right away. "I'm just showing her the cars over there." She looked back and smiled at me. "Her father helped me win a lot of races back in the day." "Give Lia back to me." As Victoria reached the stairway landing, Lia suddenly slipped from her arms. The world went silent. I lunged forward and caught my daughter, but my back slammed against the metal steps, sending us tumbling down the staircase. My right wrist bent backward, and the pain made everything go dark. My C-section incision felt like it had been ripped open, and warm blood soaked through my dress. Lia started wailing in my arms. I looked up and saw Dante rushing up the stairs to steady Victoria, who was complaining of dizziness. He had seen Lia and me fall. And he still chose her.