Chapter 2

After I returned to Milan, my secretary brought me a file.

As I went through it page by page, the truth gradually came into view.

The first time I asked to return to Sicily with Matteo, his mother was suddenly hospitalized with a heart attack, so I stayed behind to look after her. According to the file, the entire thing had been staged with the help of her doctors and nurses.

The second time I wanted to go with him, one of the Vitale family’s operations in Milan came under attack, and I remained there to negotiate on the family’s behalf. Only now did I learn that the confrontation had been deliberately provoked by Matteo’s right-hand man, Sal, who had led his men into another family’s territory.

The third time I planned to accompany him, my father was summoned by the prosecutor’s office. I stayed in Milan to find him a lawyer and deal with the investigation, never knowing that he had deliberately drawn the authorities’ attention to himself.

They had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep the truth from me.

I closed the file and told my secretary, “Call them all in.”

When they arrived, I pushed the folder across the table toward them.

“Why did you hide this from me?”

Matteo’s mother set down her teacup without the slightest trace of panic at having been exposed.

“For the Vitale family,” she replied calmly. “If the other Families found out that Matteo had a son hidden away, what do you think they would do?”

I stared at her.

“So you kept this from me for six years.”

“We were doing what was best for you, too. Knowing too much would only have interfered with your ability to manage the family.”

She met my gaze without flinching.

“Besides, stopping you those three times was Matteo’s decision. He told us to keep you from going until the time was right, and then he would explain everything himself.”

Six years of deception and three carefully arranged obstacles were reduced, in their telling, to nothing more than choosing a better time for me to learn the truth.

Not one of them had ever thought to ask whether I wanted that choice made for me.

So Matteo had been behind all of it from the beginning.

His mother sighed.

“I never told him that losing the baby left you unable to have another child. If you adopt his son, you’ll have an heir. You know perfectly well that the family recognizes only you as their Donna.”

That was all they needed from me: a Donna capable of holding everything together.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll think about it.”

Two days later, Matteo returned to Milan with Chiara and Stefano.

I was standing outside the villa when they arrived. Matteo’s mother had come down before me and was already waiting beneath the portico.

The moment the car stopped, she hurried forward and lifted Stefano out, fussing over him affectionately. “There’s my good boy. Let Grandma have a look at you.”

Matteo stepped out from the other side of the car and came straight toward me.

He opened his arms, pulled me against his chest, and rested his chin on top of my head.

“Vera, once everything with the boy is settled, I’ll take you to Norway. We haven’t been away together in so long. You’ve always wanted to see the fjords, haven’t you?”

“Okay,” I answered calmly.

He held me for a while before his mother called from the portico, “Matteo, Stefano wants you.”

The boy stood beside Chiara, clutching the fabric of her dress as he watched us from a distance.

Matteo glanced at me.

“I’ll go see him.”

He walked over and lifted Stefano into his arms, while Chiara stood beside him holding his suit jacket.

The three of them looked like a family, while I felt like a stranger who had walked into the wrong house.

I turned away, went back to the study, and began drafting the divorce papers.

My secretary stood beside me, her expression uneasy.

“Are you really drawing up divorce papers?”

She hesitated before adding, “But… will the Boss actually sign them?”

I looked down at the Donna’s ring in my hand.

“He trusts me. All these years, he’s never bothered to read the documents I put in front of him to sign. He won’t read them this time either.”

If my husband had already given his home to someone else, there was no reason for me to stay.

This time, I would use the very trust he placed in me to make him sign away our marriage with his own hand.