Chapter 3

After I became his mistress, he brought up my mother constantly.

“Lucia,” he’d say, “you think I’d be with you if I didn’t have to get back at her?”

I’d stay silent and take the humiliation quietly.

At noon I’d make his favorite pasta. At night I’d be his gentle lover.

I’d pre‑order the jazz vinyl he wanted. Maintain every suit, every watch, every cufflink, every tie.

I was practically his full‑time housekeeper.

My days were filled with him. Every morning I opened my eyes, there he was.

He took me on business trips, too.

I’d silently and efficiently manage everything for him.

Sometimes, while reading documents, he’d suddenly pull me onto his lap.

He’d bury his face in my hair and sigh softly: “So nice.”

Outside the window, Manhattan rain.

I’d almost believe we were in love.

I thought he must have feelings for me.

Why else would he kiss me in my sleep?

So soft and light on the corner of my eye—like a mark on my heart.

Why else would he call me obsessively every night I wasn’t there and demand we video‑chat to sleep?

Why else would he take me to Paris?

He held my hand down the Champs‑Élysées. A passerby asked in French what we were to each other. He glanced at me, blushing faintly, and said:

“C’est ma copine.”

“She’s my girlfriend.”

When he wasn’t thinking about the past, we were happy.

We could hold hands, hug, kiss, like any normal couple in the world.

But when the past came back—everything shattered.

“Lucia! Do you know how dirty this is? If I didn’t give you thirty grand a month, would you even stay?”

“Your mother never deserved to be a teacher! She ruined a girl’s reputation! She destroyed someone’s life!”

“Your parents don’t love you, don’t you know that? Why don’t you fight back? What I hate most about you is your spinelessness!”

When he got worked up, he’d pull me toward the bed.

I’d take his rage in silence, tears streaming down my face.

Afterward, he’d always apologize. “If only you weren’t her daughter,” he’d whisper.

Yeah.

Being my mother’s daughter was my original sin.

I thought if I atoned slowly, one day we’d reconcile.

Then Valentina Ross came back.

Valentina was gorgeous, bold, confident.

The total opposite of me.

I was meek, soft, always tiptoeing.

She was bright, generous, fearless.

After the school scandal, she transferred and studied art. Now she was a moderately famous painter in New York.

Some said her fame was bought by her husband—a gallery owner twenty years older, whom she married after graduation.

Then he cheated, and she filed for divorce immediately.

The divorce was brutal.

He hired the most expensive law firm in Manhattan, trying to leave her with nothing.

So she came to Enzo.

That night I’d already made dinner.

Enzo took her call, dropped his fork, and walked out.

I waited until ten.

The pasta was cold, the cream sauce a stiff film.

At midnight, Enzo came back. Reeking of alcohol. Lipstick stain on his shirt collar.

“Were you with her all that time?” I tried to ask, but my voice shook.

He slumped drunk on the sofa, his blue eyes hazy. “She was crying in my arms the whole time. I couldn’t push her away.”

I looked at that beautiful, innocent face of his and felt a wave of tenderness.

I held his face and said, seriously: “From now on, your arms are only for me. Okay?”

I really did love him.

We’d lived together for five years.

I fell in love with Enzo Vitale.

I knew I didn’t deserve him, but I couldn’t stop.

Taking advantage of his drunkenness, I said those words with all the courage I had.

But Enzo sobered up.

His eyes sharpened, and he looked at me with a hint of disgust.

“Lucia,” he said coldly, “don’t forget that I give you thirty thousand a month. Do normal couples need that kind of money? We were never a normal couple.”

He paused, like a knife slowly cutting into my chest.

“Don’t try to have both the money and the feelings. You don’t deserve it.”