Chapter 3

By the time I returned to our lakeside apartment, my feet were full of tiny cuts. I sat on the bathroom tiles and washed them with alcohol. The sting burst under my skin, but after enough pain, a person learned not to flinch.

When I finished bandaging my feet, I looked around the home I had lived in for six years. There had once been my curtains, my white roses, and the floor lamp Luca and I found at a flea market. Now Ava's rabbit statue sat in the living room, her chosen ties hung in the closet, and the bedroom smelled like her cedar diffuser.

Every time I said it made me uncomfortable, Luca would lean back and say, "Vivian, don't be petty. She's just my assistant." Yet whenever I got jealous, satisfaction flickered in his eyes, as if my pain fed his fear.

As he wished, I finally stopped being petty. I was giving away the title of Mrs. Bellandi too.

I opened my suitcase and packed the few things that were truly mine: my passport, my documents, a few plain outfits, and my mother's emerald bracelet.

It was the only thing she had left me. After my family went bankrupt, my mother sold every last symbol of dignity to pay off our debts. The bracelet had come from my grandmother, and on her deathbed my mother still wanted it back. Later, Luca found the buyer and spent thirty million dollars at a private auction to bring it home.

He fastened it around my wrist himself and said, "Stop crying. You look awful." But what I heard was, [Vivi, I brought back what your mother left you. From now on, I'll protect you in her place.]

So even if I took nothing else from this marriage, I had to take that bracelet.

Just as I closed the suitcase, the door opened. Luca came in smelling of whiskey, his black shirt open at the throat, half his weight leaning on Ava's shoulder. Ava held him like a hostess bringing her husband home.

When he saw my suitcase, he let go of her at once. His pupils tightened.

[Vivi, you're packing? You're really leaving? I was wrong. I shouldn't have taken Ava to dinner. I only wanted you jealous. I only wanted to know you still loved me. Don't go. Please don't go.]

Panic filled his eyes, but his voice came out cold. "Think carefully, Vivian. If you leave me, plenty of women would kill to be Mrs. Bellandi. But once you leave me, who the hell is going to want a woman like you?"

I looked at him and laughed softly. "Then go find one of those women."

Luca's fists tightened. The next second, as if I had shoved him past reason, he put an arm around Ava's waist.

"Fine. I'll marry Ava. She's smart, sweet, and useful. She can handle the South Harbor books. Most importantly, she won't be like you, six years as Mrs. Bellandi and still unable to give me a child."

My breath stopped.

Everyone knew children were the wound no one should touch. Six years ago, Luca had a trauma episode and ran into the rain. I went after him and fell into the freezing lake by the docks. I survived, but pregnancy became almost impossible. I drank endless medicine, went through five rounds of IVF, and cried through too many nights. Luca knew better than anyone.

Still, he aimed the sharpest knife at the place that hurt most.

My eyes burned. "Luca, you're a bastard."

Panic crossed his face, and he almost stepped toward me, but Ava slid her arm through his and sighed. "Vivian, Luca isn't exactly wrong. The Bellandi family needs an heir. Any other man would've given up on this marriage years ago, but Luca endured it for six years. Now you're asking for divorce and moving out? That's a little selfish, don't you think?"

Luca stopped. I watched the panic in his eyes sink under familiar coldness. He believed Ava again, or maybe in that moment, Ava simply mattered more. She could steady the South Harbor books and a room full of Capos. If she got scratched, he worried about the family. If my heart was ripped open, he called me difficult.

"Looks like I've spoiled you too much," Luca said.

He seized my suitcase and ripped the zipper apart. Clothes, documents, and medicine bottles spilled across the floor, and his gaze landed on the emerald bracelet at the bottom.

My face went cold. "Don't touch it."

Luca picked up the bracelet and looked down at me. "Need me to remind you? I paid thirty million dollars for this."