Twenty-Four Hours To Leave Him

Violet murmured an apology and slipped back into his arms. The tension in Matteo’s jaw eased. She said something I couldn’t hear, and he bent his head with a smile.

I stopped watching and eased the door back to the angle at which I’d found it.

It was our fifth wedding anniversary. I’d finished early at my restoration studio and brought his gift home to our Beacon Hill brownstone. The guard at the gate assumed I’d come back during the workday to surprise my husband. That had been the plan, until I heard a second voice in our dressing room.

I knew the girl. Violet Reed, twenty-four, an events assistant at the Moretti Foundation, was preparing for her final performance at the conservatory. We’d first met two months earlier, when I’d taken paperwork to Matteo’s harbor offices and walked in on him throwing a guest list onto his desk.

Violet had seated representatives of two rival families beside each other at the same dinner.

“This isn’t a campus fundraiser.” Matteo tapped the list. “You put those two together, who do you think draws first?”

She clutched her staff badge, eyes red, struggling to get an apology out. Luca Bellini lounged in the next chair.

“It’s only the first draft, boss. I’ll have the seating fixed before anything’s finalized.”

Luca ran the Morettis’ nightlife operations and changed women more often than he changed watches. I’d never liked him, but Violet looked terrified, and I was relieved he’d stepped in before Matteo’s anger got any worse.

Violet began to cry. Matteo opened his mouth, then spotted me in the doorway. He came around the desk, took the papers from my arms, and asked whether I’d eaten lunch. The man who’d had the whole room holding its breath was gone.

Luca took the opportunity to usher Violet out.

Later, I warned Matteo, “Don’t let Luca drag her into those parties. She doesn’t seem to know how any of this works.”

“What she needs to learn is how to do her job.” He kissed my knuckles. “If she hasn’t figured it out by the end of her probation, she’s gone.”

Her probation was over now. She’d kept her job and found her way into my dressing room.

I put the gift box back in its bag and went downstairs. When the housekeeper asked whether to serve dinner early, I said I still had an errand to run.

My steps stayed steady. I even remembered to thank the guard as he opened the iron gate.

The streetlights were coming on when a text arrived from an unfamiliar number.

[Mrs. Moretti, I saw you outside the door. We should talk.]

I read it and switched off the screen. While I was still trying to hide my humiliation, she was already waiting to enjoy it.