Chapter 5 - The Woman Alessandro Was Supposed to Marry
Bianca De Luca arrived at breakfast wearing white Chanel and the expression of a woman who had never once been asked to wait outside.
She looked at me.
Then my cereal.
Then Alessandro.
“So,” she said, “this is the pregnant waitress.”
I nearly inhaled a blueberry.
Alessandro lowered his newspaper.
“Bianca.”
“What? Chicago already knows.”
I froze.
“What?”
She slid her phone across the table.
A gossip site displayed a photograph of Alessandro escorting me from Union Station.
VITALI’S MYSTERY WOMAN: SECRET HEIR ON THE WAY?
My stomach dropped.
“How do they know?”
Alessandro stood.
“Marco.”
“I’m already tracing it,” Marco said from the doorway.
Bianca stole a blueberry from my bowl.
I stared at her.
She shrugged.
“I skipped breakfast.”
I had expected Alessandro’s rumored society girlfriend to be cruel.
Instead she was irritatingly charming.
“You and Alessandro were together?” I asked.
Bianca laughed so loudly that Marco coughed.
“Oh, God.”
Alessandro looked murderous.
“Our fathers arranged an engagement when we were twenty-two,” Bianca explained. “Alessandro reacted by disappearing to Japan for four months.”
“I had business in Tokyo.”
“You bought a hotel because you were afraid to tell your father you didn’t want to marry me.”
“I wasn’t afraid.”
“You sent the rejection through a lawyer.”
I smiled into my coffee.
Alessandro pointed at me.
“Do not encourage her.”
Something strange happened then.
I relaxed.
For the first time, Alessandro’s world contained someone who treated him like a human being rather than a monarch.
Bianca eventually became serious.
“The leak came from inside Vitali Holdings.”
Alessandro’s expression changed.
“Who accessed the security logs?”
“Three people. You. Marco.”
“And?”
Bianca hesitated.
“Matteo.”
The room went silent.
That afternoon, Alessandro confronted his uncle.
I watched through the glass wall of his office.
Matteo Vitali was sixty-two, silver-haired and elegant.
He had raised Alessandro.
He had attended every graduation.
Taught him to drive.
Taken him to his mother’s grave.
When Alessandro asked about the photograph from 2001, Matteo did something more suspicious than lying.
He cried.
“Sofia was trying to expose your father,” he said.
“My father?”
“Vittorio was laundering money through construction projects.”
Alessandro’s face became stone.
“And Jonathan Bellamy?”
“He helped her.”
“Why are they both dead?”
Matteo looked toward me.
“Because Vittorio discovered them.”
My blood went cold.
Alessandro stepped between us immediately.
“My father killed Sofia?”
“I couldn’t prove it.”
“And the Bellamys?”
“I don’t know.”
I entered the room.
“You knew my parents?”
Matteo’s face softened.
“Your mother made terrible tea.”
My throat closed.
Almost nobody remembered my mother.
“What was her name?”
“Rebecca.”
Correct.
“What did she call my father when she was angry?”
Matteo smiled sadly.
“Professor.”
Correct again.
I wanted to believe him.
That was precisely why Alessandro did not.
Later that night, I found Alessandro standing in the kitchen.
“You think Matteo is lying.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because grief is easy to imitate.”
“You don’t believe anyone.”
He looked at me.
“I believe you.”
The answer landed painfully.
“You barely know me.”
“I know you kept working while grieving your parents. I know you send Liam half your paycheck when he pretends he doesn’t need it. I know you want to become a trauma nurse because your mother died before the ambulance arrived.”
I stared at him.
“You investigated everything.”
“Yes.”
“That should make me furious.”
“It usually does.”
“It does.”
“But?”
I hated him for noticing the but.
“But you remember everything I tell you.”
His expression softened.
He stepped closer.
“Elizabeth.”
Hearing my real name from him felt different.
Not dangerous.
Like something being returned.
His fingers brushed my cheek.
“May I kiss you?”
The question surprised me.
The man who commanded boardrooms was asking permission for three inches of distance.
“Yes.”
The kiss was slow.
Warm.
Nothing like our desperate night at the hotel.
This was worse.
Because this one contained possibility.
When we separated, Alessandro rested his forehead against mine.
“I’m going to say something you’ll hate.”
“That narrows nothing.”
“You’re not returning to the diner.”
I stepped back.
“There he is.”
“Someone leaked your pregnancy.”
“You cannot fire me from a job you don’t own.”
Alessandro paused.
“I bought the diner this afternoon.”
I stared at him.
“You did what?”
“It was remarkably inexpensive.”
I grabbed a loaf of bread and threw it at him.
He caught it.
Marco entered at precisely the wrong moment.
He looked at Alessandro holding the bread.
Then at me.
“I’ll return.”
“Coward,” I called.
For the first time, Alessandro laughed.
Actually laughed.
It transformed his entire face.
Then his phone rang.
The laughter vanished.
Marco returned holding another phone.
“We traced the leak.”
“To Matteo?” Alessandro asked.
Marco shook his head.
May you like
“To Liam Carter.”
My heart stopped.
