Chapter 4

I opened the tiny clasp on the back of the brooch. Along the inner rim, in fine script, were Evelyn’s name and Dante’s initials.

Three years ago, he’d brought home Mom’s restored portrait, mounted in that brooch. He’d told me the nightingale would keep me company when he couldn’t be there. He’d put the person I missed most inside a gift ordered for someone else, without even having her name removed.

“Forget it, Elena.” Evelyn’s voice trembled. “I shouldn’t hold on to things I’ve lost. Especially things that were taken from me.”

Dante frowned at her. “Nothing was taken from you. I decided who to marry.” Then his eyes went back to the brooch on my collar.

Before he could ask again, I unpinned it and walked to the fireplace. I used a letter opener to pry off the backing, letting Mom’s portrait slide into my palm. The edges had yellowed, but her smile was just as I remembered. I tucked it into my passport holder.

“You can have the setting. She doesn’t get what’s inside.”

Dante reached for it, but Evelyn caught my hand first. “Please don’t be angry. I never meant—”

She let go. The brooch hit the stone floor, and her narrow heel came down over its glass window with a sharp crack.

“Why would you smash it?” She stumbled back, cradling her bandaged wrist. “Do you really hate me that much?”

Dante stepped between us, his expression hard. “You know she’s hurt. Why the hell would you shove her?”

I stared at him. He’d been standing right there. But the second Evelyn cried, I was the one who had to explain myself.

“I took the portrait out.” I opened my empty hand. “Why would I break a setting I don’t even want?”

He looked at my palm, breathing hard. “Can’t you say one decent thing to me anymore?”

“I’ve said plenty, Dante. You just don’t listen.”

His jaw tightened. He stared at my suitcase for a long time before stepping aside. “Fine. You want to leave, go. I won’t have anyone stop you.”

I wheeled my suitcase past the nightingale’s broken silver wing. I’d just reached the porch when his phone sounded. He murmured the clinic’s name, then his voice changed. “A follow-up for twins?”

I stopped before I could help it.

“Elena.” He came after me and held out the screen. “That’s your name. You’re pregnant?”

The old clinic’s appointment reminder had still been copied to his number. Before I could answer, he read it again, then once more, as though he needed to make sure the words hadn’t changed.

“Two.” His lips parted, and the tension slowly left his face. “We’re having two babies?”

He smiled. Then he straightened his collar for no reason, his hands suddenly awkward. “Is that what you were going to tell me? We’ll clear out the rooms on the north side. If you don’t want strangers looking after them, I can—”

He reached toward my stomach. I stepped back, and his hand stayed suspended between us.

He’s already given my room away. A minute ago, he was telling me to go. Now he’s planning where our babies will sleep, as though the rest of it can simply be forgotten.

I kept walking. Through the porch glass, I saw him lower his head to make a call. My phone vibrated in my bag, and I rejected it. It was ringing again when Nora’s car turned into the drive. I went straight to her.

Dante came down the steps. “I know you’re still angry. At least let me take you wherever you’re staying. You shouldn’t be doing this alone.”

Nora handed him a sealed envelope. “Mr. De Luca, San Aurelio’s registry has issued the confirmation of dissolution. This is your copy, with the full agreement and the signatures attached.”

He stopped. “What are you talking about?”

“Your marriage to my client has legally ended.”

“I never agreed to that.”

He ripped open the envelope and turned to the last page. Whatever he’d been about to say died in his throat.

There was his own signature, witnessed by the notary on the night he’d been too busy to read.

I watched his hands begin to shake around the papers.

“Those are the arrangements you told me to handle.” I opened the car door. “You signed them, Dante. You’re the one who let me go.”