My Ex Ruined My Career, But His Regret Came Too Late

I ran into my ex-husband while choosing a piano for my daughter. Our blood-bound union had been severed for seven years.

The associate recognized him and hurried over, all bright teeth and deference. "Don Marchetti. Back again to choose a new piano for your wife? A woman blessed to belong to a man like you."

Salvatore Marchetti looked past the associate, his gaze landing squarely on me. After a beat, he said, "Choose one for her as well. Put it on my account."

I smiled and shook my head, letting him know I'd already made my choice.

But he went ahead and pressed a black card into my palm. "Your dream was always to own a Steinway. But on what you make now, you could scrub the floors of this whole territory for the rest of your life and still only get close enough to touch one. How would you ever afford it?"

"Adriana, it's been seven years. Stop being stubborn with me."

My mind went blank for a moment.

A world-class Steinway? I already owned one.

And him? I'd let go of him a long time ago.

——

"You're overthinking this. I'm not being stubborn."

I stepped past Salvatore and said quietly to the associate, "I'll take the one we discussed. Please have it delivered to this address."

He clearly didn't believe me. His gaze was dark and heavy as he watched. His thumb moved once against his wedding band, a small circling motion I doubted he even knew he made.

A moment later, he snatched the slip of paper from my hand. "Harmony Academy?"

His brow furrowed. "Adriana, I know the man who runs that place. I'll put in a word. Have them give that kind of work to someone else."

"You're already scrubbing floors, and that's already—"

His voice faltered. The rims of his eyes had gone red. "Adriana, if things have been this hard for you, why didn't you come to me?"

I blinked.

Janitorial work?

I glanced down instinctively and caught my reflection in the polished lacquer of a piano. The shirt I'd thrown on today was a little faded.

It did look a bit like a cleaning uniform, now that I noticed.

Of course.

In Salvatore Marchetti's eyes, I had always been someone barely scraping by, someone the world had used up and set aside.

But I had no interest in explaining myself. I offered a faint smile. "I'm buying the piano myself. There's no need to trouble him."

Then I walked to the counter and paid.

Tonight was the night my daughter had taken first place on the prestige circuit, the National Youth competition the Families all watched.

I needed to get home and celebrate with her.

Autumn had come early to Riverton that year, sharp and sudden.

I hadn't even reached the lot before I was hugging my arms against the chill.

When I looked up, a dark figure stood in my path.

Salvatore shoved a purchase order into my bag.

He was breathing hard, and there was a stubbornness on his face I'd never seen before. "Adriana, I returned the piano you just bought. I exchanged it for the Steinway. The one you always wanted."

His fingers trembled, and his thumb dragged once more across the gold band, as if it burned him.

"I still remember. Your dream was to play your own concert on one."

"Consider this piano a gift from me. Please. Stop resenting me. Can you do that?"

When I heard those words, I slowly pulled off my gloves.

I hadn't said a single word. But the moment his eyes fell on my hands, scarred, every finger ruined, he went silent.

After all, he knew better than anyone that I could never perform in a concert again.

Eight years ago, I had been the most talked-about name on the circuit, the crown the Rizzo bloodline meant to raise before all the Families.

But the night before the finals, he stole my original compositions and handed them to his protégée, Bianca Conti, to make her a star of the underworld's cultural circuit. And when she deliberately poured boiling water over my hands, he did nothing to stop her.

My fingers were scalded beyond recognition, flesh raw and ruined. And still, he shielded Bianca behind him. "Adriana Rizzo! It's one competition. Did you really have to fight Bianca for it?"

He dragged me to the hospital. "You want the win? I'll arrange another next year."

"But this time, you step aside for Bianca."

I cried the entire night. Stubbornly, I peeled the blood-soaked bandages from my hands.