Chapter 1

“I’m not going with you to Sicily this time.”

As I spoke, I deleted the pregnancy report from my phone.

Dante paused.

“What changed? You never like letting me travel without you.”

Three days earlier, I had heard a voice message on his encrypted phone.

A little girl’s voice had come through the speaker.

“Daddy, you promised you’d take me and my brother to see the dolphins.”

She sounded at least four years old.

Dante and I had been married for six years.

Everyone in New York knew that Dante Romano adored his wife.

He had once taken a bullet for me. When a rival family kidnapped me, he wiped them out to bring me home. Wherever he went, he took me with him, as if even a few days apart were more than he could bear.

I had believed no one could ever come between us.

Then I heard that little girl call him Daddy.

“I’m just tired.”

I avoided his eyes and pushed away my glass of wine.

Dante placed my favorite dish on my plate.

“Then stay here and rest. I’ll come straight home as soon as I finish dealing with the situation at the port.”

After dinner, I passed his study and heard Dante arguing with his mother in lowered voices.

“Leo is already five,” she said. “He is the only male heir in the Romano bloodline. How long do you expect him to remain hidden?”

“That isn’t your decision to make.”

“Bianca gave you a son and a daughter. At the very least, Leo deserves a formal recognition ceremony so the family knows who he is.”

A brief silence followed.

Then Dante said coldly, “I’ll provide for Bianca and the children, but Elena can never know they exist.”

“How long do you intend to hide them from her?”

“For the rest of her life.”

His mother gave a bitter laugh.

“She hasn’t been able to give the Romano family an heir. Why should those children spend their entire lives hidden because of her?”

My hand moved instinctively to my abdomen.

Six years ago, I had taken a bullet meant for Dante’s heart.

I survived, but the doctors told me I would almost certainly never become pregnant.

After surgery, Dante knelt beside my hospital bed and held my hand.

He told me he didn’t care whether we ever had children.

As long as I lived, he needed nothing else.

A week ago, I had gone in for a routine examination.

Three days ago, the hospital confirmed that I was pregnant.

I had been preparing to tell Dante when I discovered his secret.

The ringing of his phone pulled me back to the present.

Dante answered with irritation in his voice.

“I told you not to call unless it was important—”

A little girl began crying on the other end.

His voice softened immediately.

“Don’t cry. Daddy misses you too.”

His mother moved closer, suddenly delighted.

“Is that my little princess?”

Dante put the call on speaker.

“Grandma!” the girl chirped.

His mother laughed.

I had never heard her sound so warm.

I couldn’t listen anymore.

I walked alone into the rose garden.

Dante had planted every rose there for me.

For six years, he had used an entire garden to prove that he loved me.

Then he used another woman and two children to prove that love had never meant loyalty.

Standing beneath the dark sky, I called the emergency number my uncle had left me.

Before my mother died, she told me that if the Romano family ever betrayed me, the man on the other end of that number would help me leave New York.

The call connected.

He waited silently.

“Two weeks from now, arrange an explosion on a yacht.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

Divorce would never free me from Dante.

As long as I was alive, he would find me, bring me back to the Romano estate, and continue insisting that I was the only woman he had ever loved.

So Elena Romano had to die.

Dante already had another family.

I would return the title of Mrs. Romano, his name, and everything else he had given me.

In two weeks, I would disappear from his world forever.