Rejected By The Don, I Crowned Myself Chapter 04
The sudden shift caught him off guard. But my face gave nothing away, and I watched the tension leave his shoulders.
He signed without reading a single page. I went back to my desk.
I sent the signed annulment papers to my lawyer and dropped the resignation letter with HR. Then I sat down and waited out the clock.
At the end of the day, I stood in the doorway and looked back at the office one last time. Five years. I set my clearance badge down on the desk and walked out.
Tatiana was waiting by my car in the underground parking garage.
I didn’t want to talk to her, but she spoke first. “Told you I’d take everything back the second I walked in the door.”
“If you had any dignity, you’d sign the papers yourself instead of clinging to a man who doesn’t want you.”
I stopped walking.
I matched her tone. “That’s cute. But until I sign those papers, you’re still the mistress. And everyone knows it.”
Her face twisted. Before I could react, her hand cracked across my cheek. “Bitch.”
Nico was standing ten feet away. He’d seen the whole thing.
“Tatiana.” His voice was low. His eyes lingered on the mark blooming across my cheek. Three seconds. I counted.
For one second, I thought he was going to say something to her. Instead, he turned to me. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I’ll make it up to you. The wedding next month is going to be bigger than anything this city has ever seen.”
Tatiana’s lips curled. She looped her arm through his, right in front of me. My whole body went stiff, and the burn behind my eyes was unbearable.
He didn’t wait for me to respond. He took Tatiana’s hand and walked away. The parking garage went quiet.
I stood there until the sting in my cheek faded to numbness. And I finally let myself see the truth,
Nico didn’t care that Tatiana had abandoned him. He knew she’d struck me, knew she’d sabotaged me, knew exactly what kind of person she was.
And he loved her anyway.
Tatiana was right. I had lost. Completely. The first time was three years ago.
She’d texted me out of nowhere, telling me Nico kept her photo in his wallet and that no one was allowed to touch it. I didn’t believe her. That night, I checked. It was there.
I threw it out. It was the first time Nico ever raised his voice at me.
The second time was a year ago.
Tatiana told me that every year on May 6th, her mother’s birthday, Nico would go see her mother in Tatiana’s place.
My mother’s birthday was the same day.
I asked him to stop. I asked him to come home with me, just this once, for my mother. He shook me off and left without a word.
The third time was the wedding. He walked out on me without a second thought.
Today made four.
I pushed it all down and started the car. My phone rang. It was my mother.
At first, all I heard through the speaker wasn’t words. Just sobbing. Then: “Evelyn, your father…”
The world tilted. I didn’t remember the drive. I just remembered my hands wouldn’t stop shaking on the wheel.
When I got there, the bed was covered with a white sheet.
My knees gave out. I hit the floor beside him and reached under the sheet with shaking hands.
“Dad?” The tears came all at once, blinding me. I grabbed the edge of the sheet. “Dad!”
“He was fine. He was fine yesterday. How could this–why-”
My mother was beside me, crying so hard she could barely stand.
“Some woman sent your father a message. She told him you’d been thrown away like garbage and that he should convince you to give up,”
My eyes squeezed shut.
Tatiana.
Nico showed up looking like a man carrying bad news he already knew.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn.” He tried to hold me. I was shaking with rage.
“Tatiana didn’t mean for this to happen. She panicked, she wasn’t thinking-”
I shoved him off me.
I shook my head. My vision blurred out, my voice wrecked. “Why did I ever love you?”
“Get out. Get out!”
His face was drawn. He let out a long, exhausted breath.
“The wedding is already set. One month, and Tatiana leaves. You and I start over.” He paused at the door. “Just take some time. Let yourself breathe.”
He left. I stood in that room with my dead father, and when I opened my eyes, the woman who had loved Nico was gone. What was left felt only cold.
We buried my father the next morning. That afternoon, I bought two plane tickets and left the city for good.
But before I left, I made one stop. I found the event coordinator on the Family’s payroll, handed him
a hundred thousand dollars in cash, and gave him one instruction: deliver three gifts to Nico on the day of the ceremony.
Three surprises. The kind he’d remember for the rest of his life.