The Forgotten Sister - 24 | Alone - Wattpad

The Forgotten Sister

by YourTemptationx

The Forgotten Sister

New Reading List

The Forgotten Sister

Romance

I fell in love with Dante Moretti, never knowing he was once engaged to my older sister, Celeste Hart.
It was the kind of secret that changed everything.

Chapter Excerpt :

Lia's POV
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The morning air was good, the sun not yet high enough to bring the heatwave Sicily was known for. It was the only thing keeping me outside on the wide steps of the Moretti Hotel rather than inside the cold of the lobby.  
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My hands wrapped tightly around the cold handle of my suitcase, the metal biting into my palm as if trying to anchor me to the ground.  
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I bit my lower lip so hard I could taste the faint tang of blood, my eyes entirely glued to the black and lifeless screen of my phone.  
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Nothing from him. Not a text, not a missed call, not even a single notification.
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A deep sadness settled over me, weighing on my chest until even breathing felt like something I had to think about.
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Tomorrow I would be back in the constant rush of New York City as I would be unpacking my bags in my cramped apartment, preparing for graduation and looking toward a future at a major newsroom.
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On paper, I had every single thing a twenty-three-year-old could possibly want.
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I had a perfect score on my project. I had a career waiting to be born but as I stood on those steps, the harsh truth wrapped itself around my throat, when you are completely helplessly in love, nothing else in the world matters.
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The distant rumble of an engine snapped me out of my thought.
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My heart slammed into my throat, a rush of adrenaline making my knees go weak as I looked up and silently begged for a miracle, hoping I would see the lines of a Lamborghini coming up the driveway...... But it was just a regular taxi.
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The driver stepped out, offering a polite morning greeting in soft Italian as he took my heavy bags from my hands and stowed them in the trunk.'
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I climbed into the back seat and the door closed behind me.
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As the driver pulled away, driving the taxi through the grand gates and onto the road toward the highway, the reality of leaving hit me all at once. My eyes burned and within seconds my vision started to blur.
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I didn't want the driver to see me falling apart so I reached into my purse and pulled out my black sunglasses.
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I slipped them on just as the tears started to come, hiding behind the dark lenses as I tried to hold myself together.
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Behind the dark lenses, I watched the streets of Palermo pass by, every familiar building reminding me of the man I was leaving behind.
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When we finally reached the airport, the change from the peace of the taxi to the noise of the terminal felt overwhelming because I was feeling so sensitive.
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I took my bags from the driver, paid him with shaking hands and forced myself to walk inside.
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The airport was filled with hundreds of people moving around me, all of them rushing toward somewhere they needed to be.... But I didn't walk toward the check-in desk.
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I couldn't.... not yet.... Instead, I dragged my luggage over to a pillar near the main sliding glass doors and just stood there, waiting until the last possible moment.
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I refused to check in, holding onto the faint and stupid hope that kept spinning in my head.
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My eyes remained locked on the entrance, tracking every tall frame, every dark head of hair that pushed through the glass doors.
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I hoped and I prayed with everything left in my miserable chest that he might appear through the crowd, that his pride would break, that he would come to say goodbye one last time even if it was just to tell me that the promise of the private jet and the red roses at my graduation wasn't a lie.
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Ten minutes bled into twenty......... then thirty.
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The digital departure boards above the counters began to flash in angry red letters, warning that my flight was entering its final check in phase but he wasn't here.
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He wasn't coming.
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I felt a few tears spill over my lower lashes, running down my cheeks beneath the frames of my sunglasses.
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Realizing that I had officially run out of time, I took a deep breath, forcing the lump in my throat down.
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If I delayed even more, I would miss the flight entirely, stuck in a country where I no longer had a place so I turned my back on the glass doors and forced my legs to move, dragging my suitcase toward the check-in counter.
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That's when I hear it, fast footsteps behind me.
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"Miss Hart, wait!!!"

I turn, my heart skipping a beat but It's not Dante.
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A young man, looking flushed and slightly out of breath, hurried toward me with an envelope in his hand.
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He holds it out to me.
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"This... this is from Dante Moretti," he says with kind eyes. "He told me to find you because he said it was important."
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My fingers tremble as I take it.
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"Thank you," I whisper but the man is already walking away, disappearing into the crowd.
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I clutch the letter to my chest then step aside near a bench, breath catching in my throat as I tear the envelope open.
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The paper smells faintly of an masculine cologne, his cologne.
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I looked down at the letter as his handwriting looks rushed.
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My Gattina,
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If you're reading this, it means I missed you. .
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It means I didn't make it in time to look you in the eyes and say the things I should have said long before you packed your bags but that's on me because I hesitated for too long, afraid of how real this became, how you became real to me in ways I never expected.
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I don't know how to write this properly. I've never been good with feelings unless I'm whispering them into your hair at midnight but this, this matters more.... So here I am, trying.
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The truth is simple...I like you. With that slow-burning ache in my chest that doesn't go away when you leave the room. You've crept into everything, my mornings, my damn espresso rituals. You've taken root into my life.
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But I'm not ready yet and not because you aren't right for me. You are so much that it scares me.
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I need time.... I need time to sort through the noise in my life, to clear space for something that finally feels real and not built on convenience or habit or someone else's idea of what love should look like.
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You deserve someone who shows up without hesitation and I want to be that man. I will be. But I have to do it right, not rushed. not half-formed.
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So I'm not asking you to wait.... I wouldn't be so selfish.
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I'm just asking you to remember this wasn't casual for me. That every laugh, every look, every night by the sea, it meant something to me.
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Still does.
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If there's even a small part of you that believes in what we share then let this be a pause, not an ending.
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Wherever you go next, take this with you... I haven't stopped thinking about you and I don't plan to.
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Yours, if you'll still have me,  
Dante
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