Chapter 3

Dante walked through the entrance in a dark tailored suit.

Sofia followed him, smiling as though she were the mistress of the mansion.

Marco came last, carrying his leather folder.

Dante’s gaze immediately dropped to my stomach.

“What happened to you?”

I didn’t answer.

“You’re thinner. Have you been eating?”

He turned toward the housekeeper.

“Didn’t I tell you to prepare her meals?”

“Sir, Mrs. Vitalino had…”

“Enough. Shut up and make Sofia her favorite herbal tea.”

He looked back at me.

“Elena, if you want to punish yourself, that’s your decision. But you’re carrying my heir.”

My fingers tightened around the medical report.

He was standing right in front of me. Looking at the body that had carried our dead child.

And he still believed I was pregnant.

“Dante,” I said quietly. “Our baby is gone.”

His expression hardened.

“We’ve discussed this.”

Sofia stepped forward.

“Elena, please don’t upset him again. Your stupid lies sound insane!”

She was already wearing the house slippers she kept beside our front door.

As though she lived here.

“Actually,” she continued sweetly, “Dante came home because he wants to give you another chance. I talked him into this.”

Marco opened his folder.

“The Don is prepared to cancel the accumulated penalties, provided Mrs. Vitalino meets the agreed conditions.”

I looked at Dante.

“So that’s why you’re here?”

He didn’t seem embarrassed.

“Apologize to Sofia in person. That’s why I’m here.”

Sofia lifted her phone.

“Don’t worry, Elena. I’ll record it, so everyone can see that we’re friends again.”

Before I could object, she snapped a photograph.

I was pale, exhausted, and still wearing loose clothes from the hospital.

Within seconds, she uploaded it to the Vitalino family’s private social network.

Comments appeared almost immediately.

“Is that really the Don’s wife?”

“She looks like a servant.”

“Sofia would make a much better Donna.”

Dante glanced at the screen.

For a brief moment, his expression changed.

Then Sofia slipped her arm around his waist.

“They’re just joking, Dante.”

He nodded and put his arm around her.

“Elena, you’ve been away from family duties long enough. If you can’t control yourself, perhaps you should step down from your responsibilities. Sofia was right. I should have done this years ago.”

I looked at him in disbelief.

My position within the family. My access to its legitimate businesses. Everything I had worked for. Everything he had promised when we were in love.

He was threatening to take it all away.

“And where are your prenatal reports?” Dante demanded. “I want proof you’ve attended your appointments.”

I drew a breath.

“For the third time, our child died the night you didn’t come.”

Sofia laughed.

“Oh, Elena. If the baby’s really gone, why do you still have this?”

She was holding something in her hand.

A tiny gold pendant. My mother’s pendant.

And suddenly, I forgot everything else.

“Give it back.”

My voice came out sharper than I intended.

Sofia lifted the pendant higher.

“Why are you so upset? It’s only jewelry.”

“Give it back, Sofia.”

The pendant was a little golden star, set around a pale green stone.

My mother had commissioned it shortly before she died.

She wanted her future grandchild to have something that would always remind them they were loved.

She had spent the last of her savings on it. Savings she should have used for her treatment.

I had begged her not to. But she’d smiled.

“Elena, I may never get to meet your baby. Let me leave something beautiful behind.”

Three days later, she passed away.

Dante knew what that pendant meant to me.

He had personally placed it in the safest vault inside our mansion.

Only the two of us knew the combination.

Until now.

“How did you get that?” I asked Sofia.

She smiled.

“Dante trusts me with all kinds of things.”

I reached for it.

“Give it back! Right now!”

She pulled her hand away.

“Dante, look! She’s acting hysterical again. If she’d really lost the baby, why would she be so desperate to keep this?”

Dante stepped between us.

“Elena, calm down.”

“That’s my mother’s pendant!”

“Sofia’s only looking at it.”

“She took it from our private vault!”

He caught my wrists.

“Enough.”

Sofia laughed. Then she held the pendant above the marble floor.

“Maybe it’s bad luck anyway. Wearing jewelry from a dead woman...”

“Don’t!”

I reached for it.

Her fingers opened.

The pendant fell. A sharp crack echoed through the room. The green stone shattered against the marble.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. Then I dropped to my knees.

I gathered the broken pieces with trembling hands.

Blood appeared across my palms where the sharp fragments cut my skin. I barely felt it.

My mother’s last gift. The final thing she’d left for my child.

Destroyed.

Sofia crouched beside me.

“Oh, Elena. There you go again, getting upset over nothing.”

I didn’t look at her.

Dante finally released a tired sigh.

“Sofia was careless. I’ll have it repaired.”

I raised my head.

“She destroyed it deliberately.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“She dropped it while looking right at me!”

Dante rubbed his forehead.

“Elena, it’s jewelry. It can be replaced.”

I looked at him.

“Replaced? Just like our baby?”

He went still.

Then his face hardened.

“Don’t start.”

I slowly closed my bloodied hand around the broken pendant.

Dante called for the family doctor.

Once my hand was bandaged, he ordered Marco to collect the pieces.

“I’ll have the best jeweler in New York restore it,” he said. “Just wait.”

Wait.

That word again.

I looked at him for a long moment.

Then I nodded.

“Fine, Dante.”

My voice was barely a whisper.

“I’ll wait.”

But this time, I wasn’t waiting for him to return.

I was waiting for the last reason to stay to disappear.

Three days later, I had finished packing. My passport was inside my handbag. A one-way flight had been booked.

Then Sofia posted another photograph.

“Dante said beautiful things should belong to the woman who deserves them.”

She was wearing a magnificent collection of custom gold jewelry.

A bracelet. A necklace. Several rings.

My phone began to ring.

It was Marco.

“Mrs. Vitalino, I have some news regarding your mother’s pendant.”

I stared at Sofia’s photograph.

“The pendant has been melted down and redesigned as a gift for Miss Bellini,” Marco said.

My heart stopped.

“What?”