The Rejected Principessa Returns novel Chapter 19

Chapter 10

I burst out laughing, the sound harsh and unforgiving.

His face darkened instantly.

There it was. One simple test, and he failed. Miserably.

And he had the audacity to claim undying love for me?

He caught himself, trying to salvage the performance. “No, that’s not what I meant! I meant… do you still have feelings for me? I want to fix this. Let’s tear up these papers. Emily, please-”

“I mind,” I said calmly, cutting him off with finality.

The act dropped. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. He had nothing left.

I offered a cold smile. “Relax. Let’s just get this over with. Impress me enough today, and I might introduce you to some of my other… well-connected friends. They’re a bit older, of course, but their bank accounts are bottomless, and they know how to have a good time. A man in your position could do worse, no?”

His face flushed a deep, humiliated red.

After everything, he still had the capacity for shame. Interesting..

But I think, finally, the message was received.

We finalized the divorce.

As I walked toward my waiting car, he chased after me, the card clutched in his hand. “Wait! What does she like? Her hobbies? Her favorite restaurant?”

I fabricated an answer on the spot.

Told him I was late for an appointment and that he should just call her and find out for himself.

The moment my car door closed, my phone rang. It was Lewis. Furious, sputtering.

“Emily! What the hell is this?! I called the number! A woman answered and asked if I wanted a ‘half-and-half’ or ‘the full treatment’! She said it was three hundred for a quick visit, eight hundred to stay the night! What kind of game are you playing?!”

I blinked, feigning innocence.

“Ohhh, that card? I have no idea. Must have been stuck on my windshield. I just passed it along. Thought you might appreciate the humor.”

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I continued, my voice sweetly mocking. “Don’t be so angry, Lewis-frown lines are terribly aging. And, well… in the circles you’re so eager to join, the wealthy ladies prefer their companions to be distinguished, not…

desperate.”

He was still cursing, a torrent of vile, impotent rage, when I hung up mid-sentence.

Then I blocked his number on every possible channel.

After graduation, I stood at a crossroads: take a formal role in the Andolini family business or go abroad for

further studies.

I weighed the options and chose the latter. A life of intrigue and shadow wars held no appeal. Let Andrew and Sophia manage the endless schemes and betrayals of our world.

I was going to live my life, on my terms.

While waiting in the first-class lounge at the airport, I saw a familiar, though altered, figure.

Victoria.

She wore large sunglasses and a scarf half-covering her face, clinging to the arm of a wrinkled, elderly man who had to be pushing eighty. She was calling him “baby” in a sickly-sweet tone.

She spotted me and, unbelievably, detoured to approach.

“Heard from Lewis lately?” she asked, her voice raspy.

I said nothing, my expression blank.

She smirked, a brittle, broken thing. “Well, someone gave that pathetic bastard some brilliant career advice. He’s officially a paid escort for bored, rich socialites now. I told him we could just get married, live a simple life. He said I was ‘bad for business’ and went crawling to those dried-up hags.”

She adjusted her sunglasses, a gesture of false composure.

“You should thank me, you know. If it wasn’t for me, that trash would have dragged you down with him for

years.”

Then she turned and strutted away, a hollow echo of her former power.

I raised an eyebrow and glanced down at my phone. A video was playing, sent to me by a “friend.” It showed Lewis, in a private club, doing a clumsy striptease for a circle of laughing, wealthy older women.

Tsk. What a spectacular fall from grace.

I opened my encrypted group chat with a few of my more mischievous, well-heeled acquaintances and typed

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It was, without a doubt, the most profoundly humiliating moment of her professional life within the

underworld.

And then Lewis arrived.

Victoria, her eyes red-rimmed and her composure in tatters, went straight to him, her words a frantic, hushed torrent. He spent a few moments trying to soothe her, his posture stiff, before he detached himself and

started making his way toward my corner of the room.

Andrew, who had been watching the entire scene, furrowed his brow. “Do you want me to have my men

escort him out?”

I shook my head, a strange calm settling over me.

“No need. I’d like to hear what he has to say for himself. You go ahead and mingle. If I need anything, I’ll

signal.”

Andrew understood immediately and melted back into the crowd without another word.

Lewis took the seat opposite me. His features were still classically handsome, those sharp eyes that could

once mesmerize me still held their intensity.

But now they were shadowed by a deep weariness he couldn’t disguise. The pressure was clearly taking its

toll.

“Emily,” he said, his voice softer than I’d heard it in a long time. “It’s been a while.”

“Mm.”

Of course, he had no idea I’d watched him from the upstairs window, pacing outside my family’s gates like a desperate salesman just the week before. “So this is your new path?” he asked, a hint of disgust in his tone.

I blinked, feigning innocence. “What path?”

“Degrading yourself. Becoming some powerful man’s mistress.”

So that was his assumption. He saw me sitting with Andrew and jumped to the most sordid conclusion.

I raised a brow. “Hmm?”

He gave me a bitter, cynical smile. “You gave up being Signora Corleone just to become Andrew Andolini’s dirty little secret? You think this is a victory?”

I shrugged, deciding to play along with his delusion. “It’s not a bad arrangement. Could certainly be worse.”

His tone hardened, slipping back into the commanding Don. “Enough of this foolishness. We can tear up that

Chapter 8

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