Chapter 2

When Vincent walked into my study, Sofia's perfume was still on him.

He hadn't even showered first.

He sat down across from me and slid a document over.

"The Ferraro family in Sicily — they're coming to Chicago next month," he said. "Old Don, old-school, no heir. No alliance without one."

I looked at the document. Didn't reach for it.

Vincent leaned forward and softened his tone. What passed, for him, as softening.

"Elena. Seven years. In this whole family, you're the only one I trust."

He paused for two seconds, as if he were giving me time to absorb the weight of what he'd just said.

"Give me a child. Once the Ferraros see an heir, the alliance locks in. And you become the official woman of the Maro family. Public position. Everyone will acknowledge you as the lady of the house."

He finished and looked at me, and there was even something like anticipation in his eyes.

As if what he'd just handed me wasn't a breeding notice but a blessing from heaven.

I set down my pen. "Let me think about it."

Vincent leaned back, watched me for a moment, then smiled. It was the smile of a man indulging a subordinate having a tantrum — sitting back and waiting for her to see sense on her own.

"Of course," he said. "Of course you can think about it. I just don't want to wait too long."

He stood. At the door he turned back.

"By the way, Sofia's staying at the main house tonight."

Not a question. Not really a notification. He just set it down in the air between us, the way you'd remind a servant there was a guest staying over.

"Get some rest. Look after yourself."

The door closed.

The hallway was quiet for less than two seconds. Then I heard Sofia: "Vincent, did Elena really say I could stay here?"

Vincent said, "If you want to stay, you stay. You don't need her permission." He added something after that but his voice was too low for me to catch.

Sofia laughed — the easy, unguarded laugh of a girl being charmed.

Then she said, serious: "No, no. I have to get Elena's blessing. Otherwise it doesn't count as really moving in."

Vincent didn't answer this time. I heard the rustle of cloth. Then kissing.

He asked me to give him a child.

Then turned around and went to another woman.

To him there was nothing wrong with this. He probably thought it was a reasonable arrangement — Sofia handled the nights, I handled continuing the bloodline. Division of labor. Business and pleasure, kept neatly separate.

To him I was probably no different from the Maro family lawyer, the accountant, the housekeeper. Just someone who took care of things for him.

I sat in the study and stared at the document he'd pushed across.

A Ferraro family tree. Terms for the marriage alliance. Requirements for the heir. Clause by clause, clean and precise — the family lawyer's work.

Even for the matter of getting me pregnant, Vincent had the lawyer draft it up first, then came to inform me.

I flipped the document facedown on the desk, stood up, went into the bathroom, turned off the light, and stood there in the dark for a long time.

What he didn't know was that I'd been pregnant before.

Four years ago, I found out. Only one thought in my head: tell him.

I went across half of Chicago to his office. The door was pushed to, not shut. I could hear everything.

Vincent and his first mistress, on the desk.

Her heels were on the floor. One by the door. One had rolled under a filing cabinet.

I heard Vincent laugh and say, "You're a lot more fun than Elena."

I pulled the door gently closed, went downstairs, got in a cab, went to a private clinic on the south side of the city, one that had no connection to the family at all.

Signed in alone. Went onto the table alone. Took a cab home alone.

That night Vincent came back and asked where I'd been.

Shopping, I said.

He made a small sound and went back to his files. Didn't ask again.

After that, every three months I drove out of the city to a clinic for a long-acting contraceptive shot. Not through the family's medical system. Not with the family's private doctor. No record that could ever be traced.

Four years. No one knew.

I turned off the bathroom light, went back to bed, lay down.

And Vincent was with Sofia.

Exactly like four years ago.

I put my hand on my stomach. There was nothing there.

That child from four years ago — to this day he doesn't know it ever existed.

When I was ten, Vincent saved me. He crouched down and put his hand out to me, and I remember thinking he was glowing.

After I went back to the Maro house with him, whatever he told me to do, I did. By now I couldn't tell anymore whether what I felt for him was love or just habit.

A person who couldn't tell the difference between love and habit had no business putting her life in anyone else's hands.

The next morning, Vincent was still there.

That was unusual. Normally he was gone before dawn, or he just wasn't at the main house overnight at all. But this morning he was at the head of the table. Black coffee. Half a slice of toast. Phone facedown on the tablecloth.

I sat across from him.

He took a bite of toast and looked up at me.

Not the usual glance and away. He held my face for several seconds, the way you'd reread an old file you thought you'd archived.

"You've lost weight," he said.

"A lot going on."

"Is that it."

He put down the toast, wiped his hand, turned the phone over.

The screen flashed on and off, but I'd seen it — there was a sheet of paper under the phone. Just one corner showing. White. With the letterhead of the family's private doctor.

Medical report format.

Vincent was watching me with something new in his eyes, some kind of assessment. "Elena." He picked up his coffee and took a sip, and his voice was cold. "When you're done with breakfast, come to my study."