Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Knew My Husband's First Wife
At 2:17 the following morning, I learned that my husband had been married before.
Not from Dante.
Not from his mother.
Not even from the anonymous woman who had called my hospital room.
I learned it from a marriage certificate issued in Connecticut seventeen years earlier.
Dante Alessandro Moretti.
Sofia Elena Vale.
The bride's maiden name made me sit upright.
Vale.
Vanessa Vale.
I stared at the document until the letters blurred.
Emma sat beside me at the kitchen island of her apartment in Greenwich, her laptop open between two untouched cups of tea.
"Maybe they're related," she said.
I looked at her.
"That's supposed to make me feel better?"
"No. I'm trying to understand."
So was I.
The marriage certificate was real. We had found it through public records after the anonymous call, along with a divorce decree filed eighteen months later.
But there was something unusual about the divorce.
The case had been sealed after the final judgment.
The public record showed the marriage had legally ended.
Nothing more.
"Why didn't he tell me?" I whispered.
Emma looked at me with an expression I couldn't bear.
"Because he didn't want you to know."
I closed the laptop.
That was the simplest explanation.
And perhaps the cruelest.
I had told Dante everything about myself.
My first boyfriend.
My mother's breast cancer scare.
The miscarriage I suffered two years into our marriage.
The terrible weeks afterward when I couldn't walk past the nursery without crying.
He had held me through all of it.
And somewhere inside him, an entire previous marriage had remained locked away.
My phone vibrated.
Dante.
The eleventh call since midnight.
I ignored it.
Emma glanced at the screen.
"He's not going to stop."
"He can call my attorney."
"Have you hired one?"
"Not yet."
"Then maybe we should start there."
She was right.
I opened my contacts and found a name I hadn't called in almost three years.
Margaret Shaw.
My grandfather's former corporate attorney.
Margaret was seventy-one, sharp enough to frighten federal prosecutors, and allergic to sentimentality.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"Isabella Bellamy."
She had never called me Moretti.
"Margaret, I need help."
"With your husband?"
I went still.
"How did you know?"
"Because I've been expecting this call for three months."
Margaret arrived at Emma's apartment at eight that morning carrying a battered brown leather portfolio.
She refused coffee.
She refused breakfast.
She asked for the divorce agreement.
Then she read for twenty-three minutes without speaking.
Finally, she removed her glasses.
"Who drafted this?"
"Dante's attorneys."
"Names."
I gave them to her.
She wrote them down.
Then she looked at me.
"Do not sign anything. Do not send your husband messages discussing assets. And do not accept any private settlement without independent review."
"Why?"
"Because this isn't an ordinary divorce agreement."
"I figured that out."
"No, sweetheart. You haven't."
She turned to Schedule C.
"This acknowledgment would have given Northstar evidence to argue that you personally ratified the collateral arrangement."
"But the properties belong to a trust."
"Correct. And whether anyone can pledge them depends on the trust instrument, the authority of its trustees, and the documents actually executed. Your signature on this agreement wouldn't automatically transfer ownership."
"Then why do they want it?"
"Because litigation becomes considerably more expensive when someone can wave a signed admission in front of a judge."
I thought about Dante's expression when I opened the envelope.
His relief.
His impatience.
His insistence that I sign.
"Was he trying to steal from me?"
Margaret didn't answer immediately.
"That's what we're going to establish."
She opened her portfolio.
Inside was a faded photograph.
My grandfather stood on a dock beside a younger man.
A man with dark hair, broad shoulders, and familiar eyes.
Dante.
I stared.
"How old was he?"
"Twenty-two."
"Why was he with my grandfather?"
"Because your grandfather helped him establish his first legitimate freight company."
I looked up.
"Dante told me he built everything himself."
"He built a great deal. But he didn't build it alone."
Margaret hesitated.
"Your grandfather trusted him once."
"Once?"
"Until a shipment disappeared and an employee was killed."
The apartment seemed suddenly too quiet.
"What employee?"
Margaret slid another photograph across the table.
A young woman stood beside a loading dock.
Dark hair.
Warm smile.
One hand resting on a clipboard.
"Sofia Vale," Margaret said.
My husband's first wife.
I stared at her.
"She died?"
"No."
I looked up sharply.
Margaret's expression was grave.
"That's the problem. She vanished for eleven months after the shipment disappeared. When she returned, she filed for divorce and refused to testify in the insurance investigation."
"Where is she now?"
"We don't know."
I looked again at the photograph.
There was something familiar about her face.
Not the hair.
Not the smile.
The eyes.
I reached for my phone and found Vanessa's company biography.
Then I placed the two pictures side by side.
The resemblance was unmistakable.
"She's Vanessa's sister."
Margaret nodded.
"Older sister."
My stomach tightened.
"And Vanessa works for Dante."
"Yes."
"Did he hire her because of Sofia?"
"That's one of the questions."
I sat back.
The woman Emma had seen kissing my husband was the younger sister of his first wife.
And neither of them had ever mentioned Sofia to me.
At noon, Dante appeared outside Emma's apartment building.
He didn't come upstairs.
He sent one message.
I'm outside. I won't come in unless you ask me to.
I watched him through the window.
He stood beside his black sedan, alone.
No security men.
No briefcase.
He looked exhausted.
For a moment, I remembered him painting the nursery ceiling because I had complained that the contractor's blue was too dark.
I remembered how he had fallen asleep with one hand resting against my stomach.
I remembered loving him.
Then Margaret's phone rang.
She listened for several seconds.
Her expression hardened.
"Are you certain?"
Another pause.
"Send me the filing."
She ended the call.
"What happened?" I asked.
Margaret looked toward Dante's car.
"Northstar filed an emergency action this morning."
"Against whom?"
"Bellamy Heritage Trust."
I swallowed.
"What are they asking for?"
"A court-appointed receiver over the disputed commercial properties."
My hands went cold.
"They can't do that."
"They can ask. Whether they succeed is another matter."
"On what basis?"
Margaret looked directly at me.
"They're claiming the trust has been improperly managed and that its assets are at risk."
"That's absurd."
"Yes."
She paused.
"And they attached an affidavit from your husband."
I stared at her.
"What does it say?"
Margaret's voice softened.
"That your pregnancy has made you emotionally unstable and unable to make sound financial decisions."
Outside, Dante looked up toward the window.
I stepped away.
He had not merely broken my heart.
He had put my competence on trial.
Then Margaret turned the final page of the filing.
Her face changed.
"Isabella."
"What?"
"The affidavit wasn't signed yesterday."
She held out the page.
"It was signed nineteen days ago."
Three weeks before my baby shower.
Three weeks before he pretended our son kicking beneath his hand might bring us back together.
May you like
And beneath Dante's signature was the name of the person who had witnessed it.
Vanessa Vale.
