Matteo Bellandi Buried the Wrong Woman

For five years, I let my husband’s mistress take whatever she wanted.

My birthday. His time. His attention. The tenderness that used to belong to me. I even told myself I could survive watching my own son choose her over me, because a damaged family still had to be better than none at all.

It wasn’t.

This year, my husband took his mistress away for their birthday trip, and my son ran straight into her arms and called her Mom.

That was the moment I finally understood something I should have learned five years ago: no matter how much of myself I gave to that family, I would never be the one they chose.

So I filed for divorce.

None of them believed I could really walk away.

My husband thought I was bluffing.

His mistress thought she had won.

My son did not even look back.

None of them believed I could really walk away.

Then a call came from overseas: Matteo Bellandi’s wife was dead.

This time, I left them with nothing but my ashes.

At dinner, my son swung his legs under the table and asked, “Mom, are you celebrating early again this year?”

Matteo Bellandi did not even look up from his plate. “Not this year. Sofia’s turning twenty-five, and I promised to take her to Malta for diving lessons. I’ve got to go with her these next few days.”

For five years in a row, I had stepped aside and let that woman have the day.

Leo lit up at once. “I want to go too! Dad, can you take me with you?”

Matteo nodded, then looked at me. “Elena, text me your birthday wish. Whatever you want, I’ll make it happen.”

I looked at him and suddenly felt too tired to keep pretending this was still a family dinner.

While I cleared the table, Matteo leaned against the kitchen island and called Sofia.

“Leo wants to come too. That gonna be a problem?”

Her laugh came through the speaker, sweet and sticky. “What, if I say yes, you’re not coming? Or were you planning to get up to something bad?”

Matteo chuckled and flicked the silver mug rack I had put up that morning. “Something bad, huh? Keep talking. See what happens when I get there.”

While they flirted back and forth, I lowered my eyes to Leo, who was sitting on the rug with his tablet.

“So you really want to go? You’re not staying to celebrate my birthday?”

He did not even glance up. “Going with Dad and Aunt Sofia is way more fun.”

I did not ask again. I went back to the bedroom and started packing their clothes one piece at a time.

When I folded the third shirt, I remembered the first time Matteo took me out of the city at eighteen. Back then, he was still running errands for the family, still broke, still trying to act bigger than he was. He had borrowed a beat-up car from