The Consequences of That Night

path carved into the hillside, along the edge of the lake. “This marriage is for you, Sam,” she whispered. “I can live without your father loving me. I can live without him being faithful to me. For you, I can live the rest of my life with a numb, lonely heart....”
    Emma stopped in front of the medieval chapel, which was lit by torchlight on the edge of the lake. Such a romantic setting. And every drop of romance a lie.
    Trembling, she walked toward it, nestling her baby against her hip as the veil trailed behind them.
    The twelfth-century chapel had been carefully and lovingly restored to its Romanesque glory. The medieval walls were thick, with just a few tiny windows. The arched door was open.
    Heart pounding, she stepped inside.
    The dark chapel was illuminated by candlelight, its tall brass candlesticks placed along the aisle. She heard the soft music of a lute, accompanied by guitar. As she appeared in the doorway, there was an audible gasp as the people packed into the tiny chairs rose to their feet.
    Emma’s legs felt like jelly. She felt a tug on her translucent silk veil and saw Sam had grabbed it in his pudgy fist, and was now attempting to chew it. She smiled through her tears, then took a deep breath as the music changed to the traditional wedding march.
    Looking at all the faces of the guests, she didn’t recognize any of them as she slowly walked forward, feeling more dizzy with every step. She tried to focus on Cesare at the end of the aisle. She took another step, then another. She was six steps from the altar.
    And then she saw his face.
    Cesare looked green, sick with fear—as if only sheer will kept him from rushing straight past her in a panic. He tried to give her a smile.
    Her footsteps stopped.
    “Stop! Don’t do it! Don’t ruin your life!”
    The man’s voice was a low roar, as if from the deepest reaches of the earth, coming up through the stone floor. For an instant, Emma couldn’t breathe. Her father’s voice from beyond the grave...? Then she saw Cesare glare at someone behind her.
    Whirling around, she saw Alain.
    The slim salt-and-pepper-haired Frenchman took another step into the chapel. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Falconeri has already caused the death of one woman I loved. I won’t let him take another.”
    There was a gasp and growl across the crowd. Cesare gave a low hiss of fury. He was going to come down and smash Alain’s face for doing this, she realized.
    For stopping a wedding that Emma never should have agreed to in the first place.
    “Don’t marry him.” Alain held out a trembling hand to her. “Come with me now.”
    She’d wanted a sign?
    With tortured eyes, she turned back to Cesare.
    “I can’t do this,” she choked out. “I’m sorry.”
    Cradling her baby, she picked up the hem of her cream-colored silk gown with one hand, and followed Alain out of the chapel. She ran from Cesare as if the happiness of her whole life—and not just hers, but Sam’s and Cesare’s—depended on it.
    Which she finally knew— it did.
    * * *
    As a thirteen-year-old, coming home in a strange big city, Cesare had once been mugged for the five dollars in his pocket. He’d been kicked in the gut with steel-toed boots.
    This felt worse.
    As if in a dream, Cesare had watched Emma walk up the aisle of the chapel, a bride more beautiful than he’d ever imagined, with their child in her arms. Then, like a sudden deadly storm, Alain Bouchard had appeared like an avenging angel. Emma had looked between the two men.
    Cesare had been confident in her loyalty. He’d known she would spurn Bouchard, and marry him as she’d promised.
    Instead she’d turned on him.
    She’d abandoned him.
    For a moment, as the chapel door banged closed behind her, Cesare couldn’t breathe. The pain was so intense he staggered from it.
    The chapel was suddenly so quiet that he could hear the soft wind blow across the lake. The deepening shadows of the candlelit chapel seemed relentlessly dark as endless eyes focused on him, in varying degrees of shock, sympathy and worst of all—pity.
    The priest, who’d met with them several times over the past weeks, spoke to him in Italian, in a low, shocked voice. He could barely hear.
    Cesare’s tuxedo tie was suddenly too tight around his throat. He couldn’t let himself show his feelings. He couldn’t even let himself feel them.
    Emma had left him.
    At the altar.
    With Bouchard.
    And taken their child with her.
    He looked at the faces