Chapter Six: A NEW CHAPTER

The way he said it made it sound romantic, like another step in our love story rather than a business proposition. And I was good at what I did—I knew that. I had a talent for reading people, for understanding what clients needed before they articulated it themselves, for building relationships that turned into long-term partnerships.

"I don't know," I said hesitantly. "Mixing business and personal life... that can get complicated."

"Not for us," Miles said confidently. "We're solid, Lila. And think about what we could build together."

He was persuasive. He'd always been persuasive. And honestly, the idea was exciting. Working side by side with the man I was going to marry, building something together. It felt meaningful. It felt like the kind of modern partnership I'd always imagined having.

So I said yes. Again.

Within weeks of joining Morretti Development, I'd secured two major contracts—companies I'd connected with through my father's network but cultivated on my own merit. Within four months, I'd brought in connections that were transforming the company's trajectory. The Hartwell Group deal alone was worth millions, a luxury development project that would put Morretti Development on the map as a major player.

I was proud of my work. I'd come in every day energized, excited to prove that I wasn't just Miles's fiancée coasting on her future husband's company—I was a valuable asset in my own right. Miles seemed proud of me too, or so I thought. He'd brag about his talented fiancée at business dinners, tell people how lucky he was to have me.

That should have been my first clue. He never said my name when he praised me. Never mentioned the specific accounts I'd brought in or the strategies I'd developed. I was always just "my talented fiancée," as if my identity existed only in relationship to him. I was an accessory to his success story, a supporting character, not a person with my own accomplishments worth acknowledging.

But I was too busy, too happy, too convinced of our future together to notice. I told myself that once we were married, once I'd been at the company longer, things would change. I'd get the recognition I deserved.

Then Valeria came into the picture—both personally and professionally—and I learned just how wrong I'd been about everything. Miles had mentioned his stepsister in passing during our relationship—casual references that painted a picture of tragedy and duty. How his father had remarried when Miles was twenty, finally finding love again after years of being a widower. How the new wife, Margaret, had come with a teenage daughter from her first marriage. How Miles had been wary at first but had eventually come to care for both of them, seeing them as the family he'd thought he'd lost forever.

And then, six years ago, the unthinkable—a car accident on a rainy highway. His father and Margaret died instantly. Miles, who'd been twenty-two at the time, became the guardian of his sixteen-year-old stepsister overnight. He'd been thrust into a role he wasn't prepared for, responsible for a grieving teenager while dealing with his own crushing loss.

He'd told me this story early in our relationship, his voice heavy with old pain. "Valeria had no one else," he'd said. "Her biological father had abandoned her when she was a baby. My father and her mother were her whole world, and then they were just gone. I promised my father before he died—well, not directly, but I know he would have wanted me to—that I'd take care of her. That I'd be the family she needed."