The scent of jasmine hung heavy in the air, sweet and intoxicating. I twirled in my dress, the silk whispering against my skin. Leo, my Leo, stood beaming by the window, sunlight turning his hair to spun gold. Three weeks. Three weeks until I walked down the aisle and became Mrs. Leonardo Rossi.
We’d spent the afternoon taste-testing cakes – a decadent chocolate ganache, a light and airy lemon sponge, a classic vanilla bean. Leo, bless his heart, had smeared frosting on my nose, initiating a playful battle that ended with us tangled on the couch, breathless and laughing. Everything felt perfect. Blissfully, irrevocably perfect.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table. I glanced at the screen – Unknown Number. I almost ignored it, wanting to savor the remaining moments of our idyllic afternoon. But curiosity, that pesky little imp, nudged me.
“Hello?” I answered, a smile still playing on my lips.
Silence.
Then, a voice, a woman’s voice, low and husky, filled with a simmering rage. “Leonardo Rossi?”
“Yes, this is his… fiancee. Who is this?” My brow furrowed.
“Fiancee?” The woman laughed, a harsh, brittle sound that sent a shiver down my spine. “Oh, honey, you have no idea, do you?”
My heart started to hammer against my ribs. “What do you mean?”
“He’s mine. He’s always been mine.”
“You’re mistaken. I’ve been with Leo for five years.” My voice trembled, but I tried to maintain a semblance of composure.
She chuckled again, a cruel, dismissive sound. “Five years? Cute. Try ten. And darling, unlike you, I gave him something he can never forget. Something permanent.”
I could feel Leo’s eyes on me now, concern etching lines on his forehead. He mouthed, “Who is it?” I shook my head, trying to wave him off.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I stammered, my hand gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles turned white.
Then came the words that shattered my world, the words that echoed and reverberated in the hollow chambers of my soul: **“You don’t deserve to wear white – you already have a child.”**
The line went dead. The dial tone screamed in my ear, mocking my sudden, dizzying confusion.
I turned to Leo, my face numb. “Leo… who… who was that?” He looked at me, his blue eyes wide with a fear I couldn’t understand. “She… she said…” The words caught in my throat.
He stepped towards me, reaching out a hand. “What did she say, Mia? Tell me.”
My breath hitched in my chest. I looked at him, the man I thought I knew, the man I was about to marry, the man who was supposedly my everything. And I saw… nothing. A blank canvas. A stranger.
“She said… that you have a child, Leo.” My voice was barely a whisper. “She said… she said you have a child and you never told me.”
He froze, his hand still outstretched, hovering inches from my face. His eyes darted around the room, avoiding my gaze. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it again.
“Mia,” he finally choked out, his voice raspy and low. “I… I can explain…”
Suddenly, a loud, insistent banging echoed through the apartment. Bang, bang, bang. It was coming from the front door.
Leo’s face paled even further. “Don’t open it,” he hissed, grabbing my arm. “Don’t!”
But I was already moving, propelled by a force I couldn’t control. Anger, betrayal, confusion… it all churned inside me like a violent storm. I wrenched my arm free from his grasp and strode to the door.
I swung it open, ready to confront whoever was on the other side, ready to demand answers, ready to unleash the fury that had been simmering within me since that phone call.
Standing there, on my doorstep, was a woman. A beautiful woman, with eyes the exact same shade of blue as Leo’s, and a little girl clinging to her leg, her face streaked with tears.
The woman stared at me, her gaze intense and unwavering. She opened her mouth to speak.
“Mommy, is that Daddy’s house?” the little girl piped up, her voice clear as a bell. She pointed a tiny, accusing finger directly at Leo, who was now standing petrified behind me. “Daddy! Daddy, why aren’t you coming home?”
⬇⬇ Find out what happened next in the comments ⬇⬇
The little girl’s words hung in the air, a tiny, yet devastating hammer blow. Leo stood frozen, his face a mask of guilt and terror. The woman, her resemblance to Leo unmistakable, looked at me, a flicker of something akin to… understanding? … in her eyes. It wasn’t the rage I expected, but a weary resignation.
“Mia,” the woman began, her voice soft but firm, “my name is Isabella. This is Sofia.” Sofia, clutching her mother’s leg, looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes. The sight of the child, so clearly Leo’s miniature, shattered the last remnants of my composure. The anger, the betrayal, the confusion… it all coalesced into a bone-deep ache of sorrow.
Isabella continued, “Leo… he left us ten years ago. He promised he’d come back, but he never did. Sofia… she’s been asking about her father constantly. I finally found his address.” A single tear traced a path down Isabella’s cheek. “I never wanted to cause you pain, but I couldn’t keep this from Sofia any longer.”
Leo, finally finding his voice, stammered, “Isabella… I… I can explain.” But his words were lost in the storm of emotions raging within me. I didn’t want explanations. I didn’t want excuses. I just wanted to understand.
I looked at Sofia, her small hand gripping Isabella’s with an almost desperate strength. The child’s innocent face, mirroring the man I thought I knew, cut me to the core. The sweet jasmine scent, once a symbol of perfect happiness, now felt cloyingly sweet, a suffocating reminder of the lie I’d been living.
My gaze shifted to Leo, and the man I’d envisioned spending my life with dissolved before my eyes. He wasn’t the charming, carefree man I’d fallen for; he was a ghost of a man, a shadow of a father, a liar.
I didn’t scream or shout. I didn’t lash out. Instead, a strange calm settled over me, a calm born from the ashes of shattered illusions. I turned to Isabella, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I… I need time,” I said, my voice thick with unshed tears. “I need to think.”
Isabella nodded, her understanding a balm to my raw emotions. She didn’t try to persuade me, to justify Leo, or to demand anything. She simply held Sofia tighter, her gaze never leaving me.
I looked at Leo one last time. He opened his mouth to speak, but I raised a hand, stopping him. The unspoken words hung between us, heavier than any accusation. He was a stranger to me now, a stranger whose past had irrevocably changed my present and uncertain future.
As the front door closed behind Isabella and Sofia, leaving Leo alone in the silence of our apartment, the scent of jasmine still lingered, a bittersweet reminder of what once was and what could never be. The wedding was cancelled, of course, but that didn’t feel like the greatest loss anymore. The silence was heavy, pregnant with unspoken questions and the echoes of a life irrevocably altered. Three weeks to the wedding had felt like an eternity; the next three weeks were likely to feel like a lifetime. The future stretched before me, vast and uncertain, a path yet to be defined by my own strength and the unexpected choices life had thrown my way. The only thing certain was the bittersweet sting of Jasmine and the lingering sorrow, a quiet, persistent companion in the aftermath of a shattered dream.