Chapter 1

Dante’s hand stopped on the holster buckle. “Didn’t you say you had something important to tell me?”

I pressed the drawer shut with my knee. My fingers were still shaking. A moment ago, I’d been trapped in that dry dock, my soaked skirt tangled around a broken leg. Evelyn’s footsteps had faded beyond the locked door while the water crept higher.

Now a fire crackled in the hearth, and my twenty-eight-year-old husband stood in front of me, frowning.

“It slipped my mind,” I said. “It couldn’t have been that important.”

He watched me as though he expected me to take it back. I used to follow him to the door whenever he went out late, terrified something would happen to him. I always asked when he’d be home. This time, I set his leather gloves on the console and waited for him to leave.

“You’re not going to ask what happened to her?”

“The clinic can tell you.”

His expression darkened as he picked up the gloves. “Elena, I’m dealing with a problem. I’m not sneaking out to see an old girlfriend.”

“I heard you.”

After another few seconds, he left. I waited until the armored car had cleared the porch before sinking to my knees, one hand braced against the console. My stomach cramped, but I could breathe.

I’m alive. The babies are still here.

In my first life, I’d thought his staying that night meant things would change. But there was always another emergency with Evelyn, another promise that he’d make it up to me. When the children were old enough to notice, he told them their aunt needed help and their mother understood.

Eventually, they stopped asking whether I did.

I can’t give him another forty years.

I dried my palms, searched for a name I’d never forgotten, and called her office.

“Nora Bennett.”

Her brisk voice made my eyes sting. In my first life, I’d wanted to hire her for a divorce.

“Dad always comes home to you,” my son had said. “Can’t you two work it out?”

I’d put her card away. I shouldn’t have.

“My name is Elena Moretti. I want out of my marriage, and I need the papers tonight.”

There was a pause. “Mrs. De Luca?”

“Not for much longer.”

Nora didn’t try to talk me out of it. Once she’d confirmed that we’d registered our marriage in San Aurelio, she asked about money and whether I was safe.

She didn’t ask what I’d done to upset him or whether I’d tried harder to make things work. It took me a moment to answer her questions without defending my right to leave first.

“They have an expedited process for an agreed divorce. If your husband signs, we can file there. Can you get to your passport?”

“Yes.”

For the first time, I opened the private safe in the study without asking Dante. I took my passport, birth certificate, and the old photographs of my mother. Using money I’d earned restoring antiques before the wedding, I booked somewhere to stay. Only Nora got the address.

Dante came home briefly after midnight. The family’s finance officer was waiting with a notary and a stack of trust renewals.

I set Nora’s agreement beside them.

“This is from my lawyer. Read it before you sign.”

His phone lit up with Evelyn’s name. He glanced at my signature, then answered the call.

“Whatever arrangements you want, Elena. Let your lawyer handle it.”

He turned to the marked pages and signed while listening to Evelyn describe another sleepless night. Normally, he questioned every change to the family accounts. He didn’t ask me a single question.

The notary witnessed his signatures and sealed the documents. I checked that he’d signed the filing authorization, then gathered my copies.

Then Dante caught my wrist. “What the hell’s going on with you tonight? I go to help her, and now you can’t even look at me?”

His thumb brushed my pulse, a gesture that used to comfort me. All I could remember was the cold eating through my fingers in the dry dock.

“You’ll come home. I know.” I pulled free. “I just don’t want to spend my life waiting.”

Something interrupted the anger in his eyes. He set down the pen. “If you need a few days to cool off, take them. But don’t talk to me like that.”

His phone buzzed again. He answered it, then paused in the doorway. “Get some sleep. Have my charcoal suit pressed tomorrow. I’m meeting the port commissioners.”

“Ask the housekeeper.”

He turned back. I’d already put my copy of the agreement in my bag.