Chapter 10
“Immensely.”
Then Elena squeezed his hand.
“I do.”
After the ceremony, they walked outside together.
Rain had begun to fall.
Exactly like the year before.
Vincent looked toward the sky.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Elena laughed.
Guests rushed beneath umbrellas.
She didn’t.
Neither did Vincent.
Halfway down the cathedral steps, Elena stopped.
“What?”
Vincent turned.
She looked back at the enormous wooden doors.
At the place where her old life had ended.
Then at the man beside her.
“Do you know what the strangest part is?”
“What?”
“I used to think Adrian ruined my wedding.”
Vincent waited.
Elena smiled.
“He didn’t.”
She looked down at the ring on her finger.
“He ruined his.”
Vincent laughed.
Then he kissed her beneath the October rain.
And years later, whenever someone told the story, they always began with the most dramatic part.
The groom who said no.
The five hundred shocked guests.
The feared man walking down the aisle.
The slap that echoed through a cathedral.
But Elena always corrected them.
That was not where the story began.
That was where the lie ended.
Her father had tried to decide her future.
Her mother had helped hide the truth.
Adrian had tried to turn her humiliation into leverage.
And Vincent, for one terrible moment, had made the same mistake they had.
He had spoken as though Elena belonged to someone.
She had corrected him.
And unlike the others—
he listened.
That was why she eventually loved him.
Not because he rescued her.
He hadn't.
Vincent bought her time.
Samantha gave her evidence.
But Elena rescued herself.
She took back her company.
Her name.
Her choices.
Her future.
And when Vincent finally became part of that future, it was not because he claimed her in front of five hundred people.
It was because one year later, in front of only the people who mattered, the most feared man in the city held out his hand—
and asked.
Elena chose to take it.
**THE END**