His Greatest Sin

My marriage to Dante, the Moretti heir, was meant to be a union of power, an alliance of empires. But for me, it was also the real deal.

Then his adopted sister, Clara, showed up at a party. She was wearing his custom leather jacket, straddling his prized Ducati, and she looked right at me with a smirk. "Dante says," she purred, "that I suit these precious things better than you do."

My smile froze. Dante had her on a plane overseas so fast it was like she'd never existed.

Five years later, the night before our wedding.

I found him staring at the design for our wedding rings. He'd changed the engraving. The "Amor Aeternus"—Eternal Love—was gone.

In its place: "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

My sin, my greatest sin.

I took off my veil right then and there. "The wedding," I said, my voice like ice, "is off."

The night before my wedding, my fiancé, Dante, changed the engraving inside our rings from "Amor Aeternus" to "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

My sin, my greatest sin.

His missing adopted sister was on his mind, not his bride.

So I took off my veil. "The wedding's off," I declared.

"Isabella Rossi, do you take Dante Moretti to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till death do you part?"

The priest's voice echoed through Trinity Cathedral. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, bathing me in color. Everyone who was anyone in Verona was there, watching.

I looked at Dante. His handsome face, flawless in the golden light. I saw the hope in his eyes, the nerves, and that familiar, sickening trace of guilt.

Last night flashed in my mind. I'd gone to his study to surprise him, only to find him bent over the design schematics for our rings.

The original "Amor Aeternus" was crossed out.

Replaced by that new line of Latin: Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

My sin, my greatest sin.

Five years. The guilt had never left him. Her shadow still loomed over everything between us.

"Isabella?" the priest prompted gently.

I lifted my head and looked out at the crowd. My father, Don Rossi, his eyes filled with expectation. The Moretti council, sitting ramrod straight, waiting for the answer that would end a decades-long war between our two families.

Dante reached for my hand.

I took a step back.

"I don't."

Silence. A dead, ringing silence.

Then, the clatter of a fallen chair, gasps, a rising tide of whispers.

"Isabella!" Dante's voice was pure shock.

I turned to the guests, my voice clear and firm. "I will not be marrying Dante Moretti today."

Then, I tore the marriage contract in my hands. The pieces fluttered down like bitter snow.

Instantly, bodyguards from both families were on their feet, the outlines of guns stark beneath their black suits. The air crackled with danger.

My father's voice cut through the tension like a razor.