Nine Times Too Late

On the day of my wedding, my fiance, Don James Colombo, left me at the altar again.

"Angelina is in the ICU," he said. "The ceremony will have to wait."

It was the ninth time he had abandoned me for his terminally ill childhood sweetheart.

The first time, she had run away from home, and he could not rest easy. "Angelina is missing, yet you want me to stand here toasting at the wedding? Don't be so selfish, Leticia."

The third time, he said Angelina was in a terrible state and threatening to take her own life — he had to go comfort her.

By the eighth time, James had stopped explaining and simply had the butler notify me the wedding was off.

For him, postponing a wedding was nothing. For me, the Buono Principessa left standing in a chapel, it meant ridicule and one hundred lashes from my furious father.

The lashes split open my skin and left me running a fever that would not break.

James would hold me afterward, apologize helplessly, and promise he would make it up to me after we married.

He promised nine times.

He kept none of them.

So when he left me again for Angelina, I did not cry or make a scene. I packed my bags alone and in silence.

It would be the last time he ever postponed our wedding.

One month later, he would never be able to find me again.

Leticia's POV

James Colombo canceled our wedding again.

After he rushed out, the guests looked at me with the kind of pity people reserve for a woman who has become public entertainment. I stood at the entrance of the estate in a wedding gown that had taken three months to stitch by hand, smiling at every guest as they left.

"It is all right," I said again and again. "Something important came up."

No one believed me.

The Principessa of the Buono family had been abandoned at the altar by the same man for the ninth time, yet I was still making excuses for him.

When the last guest was gone, I sat alone in the empty hall. The train of my gown spread across the marble floor like a flower already beginning to die.

This time, I did not cry.

I went back to the villa and quietly packed my bags.

James came home deep into the night. When he opened the door, his suit still carried the sharp smell of hospital disinfectant.

He paused, then hurried toward me. "I swear this is the last time, Leticia. You know Angelina is seriously ill. She needed me."

I smiled calmly. "I know."

He froze for a moment, as if he had expected tears, accusations, some familiar collapse he knew how to soothe.

"You could have stayed at the hospital with her," I said, turning my back to him. "Can you help me? The zipper is in the back. I cannot reach it."

"Of course." James stepped closer and pulled the zipper down for me.

Then he saw my back.

The scars crossed over one another in ugly ridges. Every old wound, every new lash, every punishment I had taken after he postponed a wedding and left me to face my father alone.

His fingers brushed over them, and his voice turned painfully gentle. "Your father did this to you? I only postponed the wedding. I never said I would not marry you." He took my hand. "This really was the last time, Leticia. I will stay with you tonight."

Once, I would have believed him.

Now I was tired of chasing a shadow that never stopped moving away from me.

I had let him see the scars on purpose. I wanted him to understand what happened to me every time he walked away.

"You are Don James Colombo," I said, tears gathering in my eyes though my voice stayed steady. "You do not have to answer to anyone. But I do. What am I supposed to give my family after another public humiliation?"

"Leticia, I know. You have suffered for me. I love you. I will arrange a new wedding date as soon as possible. Trust me." He wiped my tears and held me the way he always had, gentle enough to make the old me surrender.

I leaned against him and looked up through wet lashes. "To give my family something in exchange, transfer the northern route to me. If I bring that back, my father might not beat me to death."

The northern route was nothing to James. Its income was less than what he spent each month on Angelina's medical care.

So he agreed without thinking. "Of course. I am happy to give it to you."

I took out the papers I had prepared in advance.

Just then, his phone rang. Angelina's name lit the screen. He answered immediately.

"What? That serious? I am coming now."

Before he even ended the call, he flipped straight to the last page of the contract and signed his name in two careless strokes.

He never saw that the final page was not a route-transfer page at all.

It was the agreement dissolving our engagement.

"Darling, Angelina is vomiting blood again. I have to check on her."

He rushed toward the door, forgetting the promise he had made less than a minute earlier to stay with me all night.

At the threshold, he seemed to remember something and looked back.

"One month from today," he said. "We will hold the wedding. I promise."

One month from today.

What a shame, James.

There would be no wedding. I was leaving you for good.