Rejected By The Don, I Crowned Myself Chapter 07
Then it hit him. He grabbed his phone and called the front’s HR director.
“Did Evelyn resign?”
The answer came fast, too quickly, “Yes, sir. A month ago. You signed the release authorization yourself.”
Nico hung up without another word. It all came back to him then. The stack of waivers she’d handed him that day. The way she’d smiled when she did it.
A laugh tore out of him, rough and involuntary. His chest shook with it, but his eyes were stinging “You were already gone. Even before you left, you were already gone.”
Tears splattered onto the paper. His hands curled into fists on his knees. Hot tears burned down his face, and for the first time, the loss was real.
The apartment felt cavernous. Evelyn used to fill it with things, warm throws, fresh flowers,
personal touches, soft, bright, everywhere.
She’d insisted on matching everything. His monogrammed robe, his coffee mug, everything paired with hers. A set.
Nico had never been soft. Not as a kid, not as a man. But he’d never stopped her. If he was honest, he’d liked it.
His mouth twisted into something that wasn’t a smile. Five years. He’d loved her for five years and hadn’t known it until she was gone.
What he’d felt for Tatiana was never love. It was unfinished business. An old wound he’d mistaken for a heartbeat.
The apartment was silent. The night pressed in. Nico sat with his head bowed, hollowed out, as if nothing left inside him was worth saving.
The seasons turned. One year folded into the next. Time stopped meaning much. It was just light and dark, high tide and low.
Five years gone, just like that. This year’s holidays marked the fifth year since I’d brought my mother to Westcliff, Dante Moretti’s territory.
When I first arrived, I had no idea what came next. I just knew I had to get out. Oakhaven was suffocating me, and if I’d stayed, the grief would have finished the job.
I was never meant to be just a shadow in his world. I’d graduated top of my class in finance at Kingsley. But I chose to play the obedient secretary because I wanted to be near him, and I let everything I could have been gather dust.
Then I met someone. And slowly, piece by piece, he helped me build a life I could actually live in I was standing at the windows, lost in thought, when the office door opened behind me. Footsteps, familiar ones, crossed the room, and then his arms were around me.
“Hey. What’s going on in there?”
I turned into his chest and held on. “Nothing. I was just thinking about how lucky I am that I found you.”
He laughed softly.
“I’d just lost someone too, remember? We put each other back together, Evelyn. If that’s not meant to be, I don’t know what is.”
I nodded against his shoulder, my voice half–buried in his shirt.
“I want to go home for the holidays this year. Visit my dad. I haven’t been back in five years.”
“I spent so long running from that place. But I don’t need to run anymore. Not with you.”
His arms tightened.
“Then we go. Wherever you want, I’m there.”
I closed my eyes and breathed him in, warm and steady, like pine after rain. Maybe the universe owed me one, and this was how it paid up.
“Oh, and what about Celeste-”
“I wanna go!” The door burst open before I could finish. A three–and–a–half–year–old flash of curls came barreling in, and the bodyguard pulled the door shut behind her.
She wedged herself between Dante and me.
“Mommy can’t go without me. I wanna visit Grandpa too.”
My heart softened. “Okay, baby. We’ll all go together. Grandma too.”
We landed in Oakhaven the next day. Five years away, and the city felt like it belonged to some other life.
We went straight to the cemetery.
“Hey, Dad. I’m here. I’m so sorry it took me this long.”
Dante’s hand found mine and squeezed. My throat tightened.
“Mom’s okay. She’s healthy, she’s happy. And Dad, I found someone good. A real one this time. You have a granddaughter now. You’d love her.”
I pulled Celeste Moretti forward. “Say hi to Grandpa, sweetheart.”
She smoothed her little dress and stood up straight. “Hi, Grandpa. I’m Celeste.”
Dante stepped up beside me. “Mr. Romano, I’m Dante. I just want you to know, they’re safe with me.
Both of them. Always.”
The tears were coming now. I kept talking, rambling really, telling him everything, five years of life pouring out in broken sentences.
I didn’t stop until the sun was dropping low. Then I stood, took Dante’s hand and Celeste’s, and turned to leave.
And there he was. Twenty feet away, frozen in place, staring at me like he’d seen a ghost. Nico.