Chapter one

Chapter One

The first thing I noticed about my husband's phone was that it would not stop vibrating.

Matteo had left it on the kitchen counter that morning when he rushed out for work. He had been in such a hurry that he barely remembered to kiss me goodbye. I had laughed and reminded him that he would probably regret leaving without his phone, but he had already closed the front door before I could say anything else. Now, almost two hours later, the phone vibrated again, drawing my attention to it.

I glanced at the screen without thinking.

Then I froze.

Alessia.

My younger sister's name was displayed across the screen.

I stared at it for a moment before looking away. There was nothing strange about Alessia messaging Matteo. She was my sister, and over the years, she and my husband had become quite close. I had always been happy about that. I thought it was a good thing that the two people closest to me got along so well.

Lately, however, something about their relationship had started to bother me.

They seemed closer than they used to be. They had their own jokes, their own little conversations, and sometimes they would stop talking the moment I walked into the room. Whenever I asked what they had been discussing, they would laugh and tell me it was nothing. I had noticed it, but I had never allowed myself to believe that there could be something wrong.

Alessia was my sister.

Matteo was my husband.

They were the two people I trusted most in the world.

The phone vibrated again.

I looked at the screen.

We need to talk.

I frowned.

Before I could think much about it, another message appeared.

It's about the baby.

My heart skipped.

The baby?

I stared at those words for several seconds, trying to understand what they meant. My first thought was that Alessia might be pregnant. She had been seeing someone recently, although she had never told me much about him. I had even teased her a few times about finally settling down.

But if she was pregnant, why was she telling my husband first?

Why hadn't she told me?

I picked up the phone.

I knew Matteo's password. There had never been a reason for me not to know it. We had been married for three years, and until that moment, I had never felt the need to question what was on his phone.

My fingers hovered over the screen.

I knew I should put it down.

I knew I should wait for him to come home and ask him about the message.

But something inside me would not let me.

I entered the password.

The phone unlocked.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I opened the conversation with Alessia.

At first, I did not understand what I was looking at. I read the messages once, then went back and read them again. My hands became cold as I scrolled further and realised the conversation did not begin a few days ago.

It went back months.

There were hundreds of messages between them.

At first, some of them looked harmless.

I miss talking to you.

Are you alone?

She doesn't suspect anything.

I stopped scrolling.

My heart began beating faster.

I went further down.

The messages became more personal.

I wish you were here.

Last night wasn't enough.

I can't stop thinking about you.

My fingers started trembling.

There were photographs between the messages. There were hotel bookings, private conversations, plans to meet, and messages they had clearly sent when they thought I was nowhere near them. Some of the messages were months old, while others had been sent only days earlier.

I kept scrolling even though every new message hurt more than the last.

There was no misunderstanding.

There was no innocent explanation.

My husband had been having an affair.

And the woman he had been sleeping with was my own sister.

I sat down slowly, unable to feel my legs anymore.

"No," I whispered.

I stared at the screen as tears gathered in my eyes.

There had to be another explanation. Maybe I was misunderstanding something. Maybe the messages were not what they seemed. Maybe someone had taken Matteo's phone and sent them.

I wanted to believe anything except the truth.

Then I saw one message that destroyed the last bit of hope I had been holding onto.

Alessia: I'm pregnant.

Everything inside me went still.

Pregnant.

My sister was pregnant.

I read the message again, even though I already knew what it meant.

Judging from everything I had just read, there was only one possible father.

Matteo.

My husband.

The man I had loved for three years.

The man I had spent years trying to give a family.

The man who had watched me go from one doctor to another because I could not get pregnant.

A tear slipped down my cheek.

Then another.

I pressed my lips together, trying not to cry, but the tears kept coming.

For three years, I had blamed myself for our empty nursery. I had taken medications, gone through treatments, changed my lifestyle, followed every doctor's advice, and done everything I could think of to have a baby. Every month that passed without a positive pregnancy test made me feel more like I was failing my husband.

Matteo never had to say much.

I could see the disappointment in his eyes whenever another month passed.

Sometimes he would ask why other women seemed to get pregnant so easily while we were still struggling. Sometimes he would become distant for days after another failed attempt. I kept telling myself that he was frustrated, not cruel.

I kept telling myself that if I tried harder, things would eventually change.

I had never imagined that while I was fighting to give him a child, he was sleeping with my sister and getting her pregnant.

My chest tightened.

I wiped my tears with the back of my hand and looked at the message again.

I'm pregnant.

Something inside me changed.

The pain was still there, but beneath it was something else.

Anger.

I needed to hear it from her.

I needed to know whether this was really what I thought it was.

I opened the message box and typed.

Is it mine?

My finger hovered over the send button.

For a few seconds, I stared at the words.

Then I pressed send.

The reply came almost immediately.

Of course it's yours. What kind of question is that?

I stopped breathing.

She had not asked what I meant.

She had not denied anything.

She had simply admitted it.

My own sister was carrying my husband's child.

I placed the phone on the table and covered my face with both hands.

A bitter laugh escaped me.

I did not even recognise the sound of it.

How could two people I trusted so completely do this to me?

I thought about every family dinner, every birthday, every time Alessia had hugged me and told me how lucky I was to have Matteo. I remembered every time she had told me that she would always stand by me.

Had all of it been a lie?

My phone suddenly rang.

I looked down.

Alessia was calling.

I let it ring.

A few seconds later, another message appeared.

Please answer me.

I did not.

Another message followed.

We need to talk.

I stared at those words for a long time.

Yes.

We did.

But I was not going to have that conversation over the phone.

I wanted to look into my sister's eyes when I asked her how she could do this to me. I wanted to see whether she would have the courage to say the things she had written in those messages while standing in front of me.

I also wanted to see Matteo's face when he realised that I knew.

I went to the kitchen, got a bottle of Italian wine and a glass, and came back to the living room. I poured myself a glass of wine. I was going to need it for this conversation.

When Alessia showed up at the house in Milan, she let herself inside, walked into the living room, and found me there with my legs crossed, a glass of wine in my hand as I took a sip.

Colour drained from her face as she started to nervously wring her hands and tried to leave.

"Where are you going, Alessia?" I asked.

"Nowhere," she replied before she composed herself and straightened. "I thought you were away at a seminar."

"I didn't tell you that. Where did you learn that from?"

"No, you didn't... but Matteo did."

And that's when, as she bit back her words, she noticed the phone on the table in front of the bottle of wine.

Matteo's phone.

Alessia's whole demeanour changed as she straightened and started looking at me with a look I couldn't decipher, as if she was preparing to face her opponent.

"Bianca, look, you've got this all wrong..." she started, but I interrupted her.

"What do I have wrong?" I asked, taking another sip of wine and looking her straight in the eyes.

"It's not what you think about me and Matteo. It was just once, and I was just so drunk. We all know that things between the two of you have been strained, and he needed somebody to talk to and get his mind off things."

"Alessia, I saw all the messages from three months ago."

Her eyes widened.

"Oh," she said.

"Yes. Oh!"

"Well then, I guess the cat is out of the bag now. Sorry you had to find out this way, but we both know Matteo doesn't love you anymore. It was just a matter of time."

"What made you do this? You do realize that we are blood sisters. We are related. He could have any woman he wanted. Why you?" I demanded.

"You can't stop love, Bianca. When it happens, it just happens. Matteo should have been mine anyway, but you just had to go and steal him from me, didn't you? But you can't stop destiny. We were always meant to be together."

"Are you crazy? What are you saying? Where is all of this coming from?"

This was my sister. She was supposed to be on my side, not betraying me like this. She knew how I had been struggling to get pregnant. All those doctors' visits, all those treatments I had gone through.

Just then, Matteo came into the house. As he closed the door, he said, "I think I forgot my phone."

I didn't know if he was talking to me or himself, but as he came into the living room, he stopped in his tracks, seeing Alessia and me there with his phone on the table.

He could feel the tension in the air.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking at me and Alessia.

She must have subtly given him a signal that everything was out in the open.

"She knows," Alessia confirmed when Matteo widened his eyes at her.

"Did you tell her?" Matteo asked her.

"Of course not. She saw the message I sent you. I thought you were at work."

"Look, Bianca," Matteo said, trying to come toward me.

But I held up a hand to stop him.

"It's not what you think."

"Then what is it? Please explain it to me," I asked him, getting comfortable in the chair and taking another sip of wine from my glass.

"You were always working. We kept fighting all the time. And Alessia was here. She actually listens to me and does what I say. It's hard to believe you came from the same family and grew up together."

When I heard him say that, it was like the two of them didn't realize what they had done, as though they thought it was justifiable.

But I didn't want to show them how much it hurt me.

"Is that why you decided to get her pregnant?" I asked him.