Chapter 2 - The Photograph That Shouldn’t Exist
Vanessa recovered quickly.
She always did.
That had once been one of the things I admired about her.
“I already told you,” she said. “I must have heard it somewhere.”
“Where?”
Luca’s voice had changed.
I remembered that voice.
It was the one he used in business meetings when someone had just made the mistake of lying to him.
Vanessa released his arm.
“I don’t know.”
“You knew the hotel.”
“Apparently.”
“You knew there were photographs.”
Her expression tightened. “Everyone knew there were photographs.”
“No.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Three people knew.”
I felt the baby move.
Hard.
I pressed my palm against my stomach.
Luca noticed immediately.
His entire expression changed.
For one heartbeat, Vanessa disappeared from his attention.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Isabella—”
“I said I’m fine.”
His hand lifted instinctively, as though he intended to touch me.
I stepped backward.
That stopped him.
Pain flashed across his face.
Good, I thought.
Then hated myself for thinking it.
Vanessa grabbed her purse.
“I’m not standing here while the two of you interrogate me over something that happened nearly a year ago.”
She turned.
“Vanessa.”
Luca didn’t raise his voice.
She stopped anyway.
“Don’t leave Manhattan.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
Something cold entered her eyes.
Then she smiled.
It was the same elegant smile I had seen hundreds of times.
Except now I finally recognized what had always been hiding behind it.
Calculation.
“You’re choosing her again.”
Luca’s face remained unreadable.
“This isn’t about choosing anyone.”
Vanessa glanced at my stomach.
“Yes, it is.”
Then she walked out.
The bell above the boutique door chimed.
I stared after her.
Seven months of memories rearranged themselves inside my head.
The envelope.
The photographs.
The divorce papers.
Luca’s supposed message.
Vanessa appearing whenever I was weakest.
I suddenly felt sick.
“I need to sit down.”
Luca was beside me before I finished the sentence.
He pulled out a velvet chair.
I lowered myself into it.
“Water,” he told the sales associate.
She hurried away.
“I don’t need you ordering people around.”
His mouth tightened.
“Apparently you haven’t changed.”
“Apparently you have.”
That hurt him.
I could tell.
He crouched in front of me.
Luca Moretti never crouched.
Not for executives.
Not for politicians.
Not for anyone.
Yet there he was, expensive trousers against the boutique carpet, looking at my belly like he was trying to understand how an entire human being had existed without his knowledge.
“Is it really mine?”
I looked away.
He closed his eyes briefly.
“I deserved that.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“What?”
“When did you find out?”
“Three days after I left.”
His face drained.
“You knew before the divorce was finalized?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
“I tried.”
His gaze snapped upward.
“What?”
“I called your office.”
“When?”
“Twice.”
“I never received those calls.”
“I emailed you.”
“I never got an email.”
“I sent a letter.”
His expression hardened.
“To where?”
“Your office.”
“Who received it?”
I already knew the answer before he asked.
My skin went cold.
“Vanessa.”
Luca stood.
For the first time since I had known him, I saw something close to fear in his eyes.
“What exactly did she tell you?”
I swallowed.
“That you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That I was pregnant.”
His breathing stopped.
“She said you knew and wanted nothing to do with the baby.”
The sales associate returned with water.
Luca took it mechanically and handed it to me.
His fingers trembled.
I had never seen Luca Moretti’s hands tremble.
“She told you that?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Luca—”
“I swear to you, Isabella. I didn’t know.”
There was something raw in his voice that made seven months of certainty fracture.
I drank the water.
He walked toward the window, pulled out his phone and made a call.
“Daniel.”
Pause.
“I want every access log from my office for the last twelve months. Email, physical mail, security footage, everything.”
Another pause.
“No. Vanessa doesn’t know.”
He glanced at me.
“And find the original photographs from the Mercer.”
He ended the call.
I stood carefully.
“I’m leaving.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No.”
“Isabella.”
“I have survived seven months without you.”
His jaw tightened.
“I’m beginning to understand that maybe you shouldn’t have had to.”
That silenced me.
I picked up my handbag.
Luca’s gaze dropped toward the white crib.
“You’re buying that?”
“Yes.”
“For our baby?”
The word our nearly broke something inside me.
I looked away.
“For my daughter.”
His eyes widened.
“A girl?”
I instantly regretted saying it.
He stared at my stomach.
“A daughter.”
The wonder in his voice was almost unbearable.
Then his phone rang.
Daniel.
Luca answered.
His expression changed within seconds.
“What do you mean deleted?”
He listened.
“When?”
Another silence.
Then Luca looked directly at me.
“The morning after Isabella left?”
My heart began pounding.
He ended the call.
“What?”
He slipped the phone into his pocket.
“Someone accessed my private email account the night you left.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“And?”
“They deleted seventeen messages.”
I stopped breathing.
“One of them was from you.”
The boutique seemed to tilt.
Luca stepped closer.
But what he said next was worse.
“Daniel also found the original courier record for the Mercer photographs.”
I waited.
“They weren’t delivered anonymously.”
“Then who sent them?”
May you like
Luca looked toward the door Vanessa had walked through.
“They were sent from Vanessa’s apartment.”
