Chapter 3

Matteo was eager for me to adopt Chiara’s son, so the very next day he had his right-hand man, Sal, prepare the adoption papers.

He seemed to believe that once I had an heir, I would settle back into my place in the family and carry on as I always had.

Apparently, this was the explanation he thought he owed me.

Sal placed the papers in front of me. “Once you sign, Stefano will legally become your son.”

I stared at the document without reaching for the pen.

Without warning, Chiara dropped to her knees in tears.

“Donna, I’ll give up my son’s claim to the inheritance. Please adopt him. All I ask is that you let me stay by Matteo’s side.”

The boy immediately began to cry and threw his arms around her neck. “Mamma, please don’t leave me.”

Matteo crouched beside them and gathered mother and son into his arms.

“She’s not leaving you. Papà is here, and no one is going to separate you from your mother.”

A crushing sense of helplessness rose inside me. They were both children, yet mine had been taken from me before he had even been given the chance to see the world.

That was when I noticed the silver pendant around Stefano’s neck.

I had chosen that necklace myself while I was pregnant, and the name of my dead child was engraved on the back.

After I lost him, I had ordered everything locked away in the nursery at the end of the hall, and the necklace had never been taken out again.

“Where did you get that necklace?”

Something in my expression frightened Stefano. He edged behind Matteo and timidly pointed toward the stairs.

I rushed upstairs and ran down the corridor to the room at the very end, but when I pushed open the door, everything inside had changed.

Not a single thing belonging to my child remained.

Matteo arrived moments later with Stefano in his arms. His expression shifted the instant he saw the room, and when he turned the pendant over and read the engraving on the back, all the color drained from his face.

S.V.—Stefano Vitale.

“Vera, I never meant to have them change this room—”

“I know.”

He hadn’t done it deliberately. He had simply forgotten who the room had once been prepared for and whose name had originally been engraved on that pendant.

Somewhere along the way, he had even forgotten that he had once had another child.

Matteo immediately bent down and removed the necklace from Stefano’s neck.

The boy thought he had done something wrong, and tears spilled down his cheeks.

“Papà, I’m sorry.”

Matteo instinctively pulled him close. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He wiped away Stefano’s tears with practiced tenderness.

There had been countless nights when I had wondered what Matteo would look like holding our child in his arms, and now I finally knew.

The child he was holding simply wasn’t mine.

“Forget the adoption.”

I picked up the papers and tore them in half in front of everyone.

Matteo’s mother was the first to speak. “Vera, what is that supposed to mean?”

Beside her, my father lowered his voice in reproach. “Do you have to humiliate me along with everyone else?”

“Stefano already has a mother,” I replied coldly. “She’s alive. Being his mother is not my responsibility.”

With that, I left the room.

Matteo followed and caught my wrist at the end of the corridor.

“Vera, I know I haven’t treated you the way you deserved all these years.”

I said nothing.

A moment later, Chiara came out with Stefano and stopped at the other end of the hallway, quietly crying.

“This is all my fault. I should never have fallen in love with a man who belonged to someone else.”

Matteo turned to look at them.

He stood in the middle of the corridor with me on one side and Chiara and Stefano on the other, and when his eyes returned to mine, the light in them had dimmed.

“If you don’t want to adopt Stefano, I won’t force you. But what happened to our child is in the past, Vera. At some point, we have to move forward.”

His gaze drifted briefly toward Chiara and the boy.

“They haven’t had an easy life these past six years either.”

There was a weary plea in his voice, the sort of patience one might use to coax an unreasonable wife into seeing sense.

Whatever warmth was left in me slowly faded.

“I understand,” I said with a numb nod.

Matteo looked startled, and an inexplicable unease seemed to settle over him, but I gave him no time to question it.

“We can put the adoption aside for now. Stefano is still young, and there’s no need to force this on him.”

I paused before adding, “Chiara should be formally acknowledged as well. Three days from now, I’ll hold a reception for her and introduce her to the family properly.”

I sounded completely sincere.

At last, Matteo relaxed and reached for my hand.

“Vera, thank you.”

I pulled my hand away.

“There’s no need.”

Without looking at him again, I went downstairs to collect a package that had just arrived.

Inside were the finalized divorce papers from my lawyer.

In three days, I would place them in front of Matteo and let him sign his name.