Chapter 3
I had never imagined Luca Moretti inside my Brooklyn apartment.
The place was too small for him.
That sounds ridiculous, but it was true.
Luca belonged in rooms with twelve-foot ceilings, limestone fireplaces, quiet employees, and windows overlooking Central Park.
My apartment had crooked floorboards, a radiator that hissed like it was angry with the world, and a kitchen so narrow I could open the refrigerator only if the oven door was closed.
I loved it.
Eventually.
At first, I hated every inch because it represented everything I had lost.
Then it became the place where I learned to sleep alone.
The place where I felt my daughter kick for the first time.
The place where I assembled a secondhand bookshelf by myself at midnight because I refused to call anyone for help.
The place where I became Isabella again.
Not Isabella Moretti.
Just Isabella.
When Luca entered behind me, he looked around slowly.
His eyes stopped on the baby things.
A folded stroller near the wall.
Boxes of diapers.
A stack of tiny white onesies on the sofa.
A sonogram attached to the refrigerator with a magnet.
He walked toward it.
I saw his hand move.
Then stop.
He did not touch the image.
“When was this taken?”
“Twenty-two weeks.”
He stared at it.
I looked away.
Vanessa had not come with us.
Luca had told his driver to take her home.
She argued.
He ignored her.
Now it was only us.
For the first time since the divorce.
It felt more intimate than it should have.
I walked toward the bedroom.
“The floorboard is in here.”
Luca followed.
My bedroom contained a queen bed, one dresser, a reading lamp, and the bassinet I planned to place beside the bed after the baby arrived.
I crouched near the radiator.
Immediately, Luca stepped forward.
“Don't.”
I looked up.
“You're not supposed to be crouching like that.”
Despite everything, the familiar irritation in his voice almost made me smile.
Almost.
“I’m pregnant, Luca. I’m not made of glass.”
“Move.”
“You don't live here.”
“Isabella.”
I moved.
Some habits survived divorce better than love.
He knelt and pressed the board where I pointed.
It lifted.
Beneath it lay the cream envelope.
For months, I had hated knowing it was there.
I had almost thrown it away six times.
Once I carried it to the garbage chute.
Then I brought it back.
Maybe part of me needed proof that I had not imagined the cruelty.
Luca took it carefully.
He recognized the stationery immediately.
“It’s from my desk.”
I folded my arms.
“That doesn't help your case.”
“No.”
He opened the envelope.
The separation papers came first.
He scanned them.
Then the letter.
I watched his eyes move across the page.
Once.
Twice.
His jaw clenched.
“This isn't mine.”
“It has your signature.”
“It resembles my signature.”
He turned the page toward me.
“Look at the L.”
I didn't understand.
“What?”
“When I sign my full name, the lower stroke crosses beneath the M. It always has.”
I looked.
The signature looked exactly like Luca’s to me.
But when he signed legal documents, I had rarely studied the letters.
He pulled out his wallet, removed a card, and flipped it over.
There was a handwritten signature across the back.
The difference was small.
So small I might never have noticed it.
The letter's signature stopped beneath the o in Moretti.
His real signature extended farther.
“This proves someone copied your name badly,” I whispered.
“It proves I didn't sign this.”
I stared at the paper.
My knees felt weak.
I sat on the edge of the bed.
Luca remained standing.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Then I asked the question I had been afraid to ask since Madison Avenue.
“What were you going to say that night?”
He looked at me.
“When?”
“The phone call.”
His eyes changed.
I continued.
“I heard you in your study. You said, ‘If the evidence is real, our marriage is over.’”
Luca closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the anger had gone out of his face.
“You walked away.”
“Yes.”
“The next sentence was, ‘But I don't believe it is.’”
I stopped breathing.
He looked at me.
“I was talking to my attorney.”
My hands began to tremble.
“He had checked the foundation calendar. There was a scheduled project meeting at the hotel.”
I stared at him.
“He was confirming the attendee list.”
My throat closed.
“There were eleven other people.”
“I know.”
The words were almost unbearable.
“You knew?”
“By the following morning.”
I stood too quickly.
The room swayed.
Luca stepped toward me.
I lifted a hand.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
“You knew the photographs were misleading?”
“Yes.”
“Before I left?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
“When I went upstairs that morning, you were gone.”
I laughed.
It came out broken.
“So you knew the truth and you let the divorce happen?”
“No.”
“Then explain it.”
“I tried to call you.”
I stared at him.
“My phone was off.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I called until your voicemail filled.”
I swallowed.
“I never saw...”
“You changed your number three days later.”
My chest tightened.
I had.
My attorney suggested it after reporters began calling about rumors of our separation.
“Why didn't you come to me?”
“I did.”
“What?”
“I went to the apartment your attorney listed.”
I stared at him.
“I had moved.”
“Yes.”
I had stayed in a hotel for four nights before finding Brooklyn.
Then I moved again after photographers found the first building.
My attorney handled communications.
Luca looked toward the window.
“I was angry too, Isabella.”
There was no defense in his voice.
Only admission.
“You left in the middle of the night. Your ring was beside the sink. Your lawyer contacted mine before I found you.”
“I thought you wanted me gone.”
“I thought you had decided I was not worth speaking to.”
The truth settled between us.
Ugly.
Complicated.
Painful because neither of us was innocent.
Vanessa had manipulated us.
But she had not created every weakness she used.
She found cracks.
We made them.
“You still doubted me,” I said.
“Yes.”
Luca did not hide from it.
“For almost a week.”
“Yes.”
“You asked me to prove I hadn't betrayed you.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“That broke me.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
His eyes met mine.
“You are right.”
Silence.
Then he said, “But Isabella, I never wanted you to leave without speaking to me. I never wrote that letter.”
I covered my mouth.
For months, I had imagined Luca deciding I was disposable.
Now I had to confront something more painful.
Maybe he had failed me.
Maybe I had failed him.
And maybe someone we trusted had stood between those failures and made sure we never found our way back.
I looked at the letter.
“Why would Vanessa do this?”
Luca said nothing.
That bothered me.
“You have an answer.”
“I have suspicions.”
“About what?”
He walked toward the window.
“After you left, Vanessa was there constantly.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“I noticed.”
“She said she was worried about me.”
“Of course.”
“I never...”
He stopped.
I looked at him.
“Never what?”
His eyes returned to mine.
“Nothing happened between us.”
I believed him.
I hated that I believed him so easily.
“She wanted something to happen?”
Luca did not answer immediately.
“That is what I need to understand.”
I looked down at the letter.
“You don't need to understand her feelings. You need to understand what she did.”
He nodded.
“Then help me.”
I stiffened.
“No.”
“Isabella...”
“I spent seven months putting myself back together. I am not becoming part of one of your investigations.”
“This isn't business.”
“No. It’s worse.”
He looked at my belly.
“I need to know how far this went.”
I followed his gaze.
My anger rose again.
“You need to know?”
“Yes.”
“I needed to know seven months ago whether my husband believed me.”
The words landed.
Luca said nothing.
I picked up the letter.
“And I needed you to come after me before I was eight months pregnant.”
His face tightened.
“That is something I will regret for the rest of my life.”
I almost told him regret was not enough.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Vanessa.
He declined it.
Three seconds later, a message appeared.
He read it.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
The message contained one sentence.
I only tried to make you see what she would eventually do to you.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at Luca.
“She just admitted it.”
“Not completely.”
“She admitted enough.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“She thinks she can still control the story.”
I stared at Vanessa’s message.
Then I remembered something.
Something small.
Something I had forgotten because it had seemed meaningless at the time.
The morning after the Mercer meeting, Vanessa had called me.
She asked whether the presentation went well.
I had said yes.
Then she asked, casually, whether Evan Cole had attended.
I hadn't thought anything of it.
He was a consultant on the project.
But now...
“Luca.”
“What?”
“She knew Evan was there.”
His face sharpened.
“When?”
“The morning after the meeting.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Could she have known from the calendar?”
“Maybe.”
I shook my head.
“No. The general calendar showed the project meeting. Consultant attendance was in the internal agenda.”
Luca’s eyes changed.
I knew that look.
He had found the thread.
But this time, I reached it first.
“The photographs weren't random,” I said.
“No.”
“Whoever arranged them knew exactly when Evan and I would be there.”
“Yes.”
“And Vanessa knew enough about the Mercer meeting to recognize the location months later.”
Luca looked at the letter in my hand.
Then at me.
I felt cold all over.
May you like
For the first time, the question was no longer whether Vanessa had interfered after our marriage began collapsing.
The question was whether she had started the collapse herself.
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