PART 2
He Told Everyone I Was His Wife. By Midnight, I Learned Why He Chose Me.
PART 2
"No," Dante repeated quietly.
"He didn't."
The ballroom disappeared around me.
The music.
The conversations.
The glittering chandeliers.
Everything faded beneath the weight of those two words.
"What are you talking about?" I whispered.
Dante didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he looked at the man standing beside him—the one who had whispered into his ear only moments earlier.
"Clear the room."
Within seconds, security moved with astonishing efficiency.
Guests assumed it was because of Daniel's outburst.
None of them realized something far more dangerous had just surfaced.
Vanessa looked offended.
"We're in the middle of a charity gala!"
Dante didn't even glance at her.
"This event is over."
Nobody argued.
When Dante Russo spoke, people listened.
Daniel frowned.
"What game are you playing?"
"No game."
Dante's eyes never left me.
"Ellie deserves the truth."
A knot tightened inside my chest.
"My father's dead."
"So you were told."
The sentence landed like a blade.
"What?"
Dante reached into his jacket and handed me a worn photograph.
An old man stood outside a small bakery, smiling while holding the hand of a little girl with curly brown hair.
The girl was me.
The man...
My breathing stopped.
He wasn't the father whose funeral I remembered.
He looked older.
Thinner.
Alive.
"I don't understand..."
"The funeral happened," Dante said carefully.
"But the body wasn't his."
Daniel suddenly took a step backward.
No one noticed except Dante.
I did.
Dante noticed too.
His voice became dangerously calm.
"You knew that, didn't you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Daniel snapped.
"Really?"
Dante's assistant handed him another folder.
Inside were copies of bank transfers.
Emails.
Property records.
Every document carried one familiar name.
Daniel Hayes.
My stomach twisted.
Daniel had spent the last six months searching for someone.
Not me.
My father.
The father I believed had died twenty years earlier.
"Why?" I whispered.
Daniel stayed silent.
Dante answered for him.
"Because your father disappeared with something worth hundreds of millions."
I stared at him.
"My father was a mechanic."
"No."
"He became one after he disappeared."
The room felt smaller.
Every memory of my childhood suddenly seemed uncertain.
Every answer I'd accepted now felt like another lie.
Daniel finally laughed.
"You really don't know, do you?"
His smile was cruel.
"That's why I dated you."
The confession echoed through the empty ballroom.
"I never cared about your father's money."
"I cared about what he hid."
Every piece of my broken engagement rearranged itself.
He hadn't left because Vanessa was richer.
He had stayed with me because I was useful.
And when he realized I knew nothing...
He replaced me.
I looked at Dante.
"How long have you known?"
"I've been looking for your father for almost seven years."
"Why?"
Dante hesitated.
Then he answered.
"Because he once saved my life."
Silence filled the room.
"And because before he disappeared..."
May you like
"He asked me to protect his daughter."
I forgot how to breathe.
