Accueil / Romance / From Ex-wife to his Uncle's Obsession / Chapitre 101 - Chapitre 110

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Chapter 101

(Celeste Moretti POV) He laughed anyway. “Go ahead and look at me like that. It doesn’t change anything.” He straightened up, but his eyes didn’t leave me. “My blood runs in your veins whether you like it or not. Funny how that works out.” He pulled up a chair and sat down across from me, elbows on his knees. But his posture wasn’t conversational anymore, it was the posture of someone who had already decided the order of events and was simply deciding where to start. “Here’s how this works,” Lorenzo said. “The money you walked away with from that divorce. I want it.” I kept my voice flat. “The settlement isn’t what you think it is. Any transfer requires me to be free to authorize it. You let me go first.” He shook his head slowly. “That’s not how this goes. You think I’m stupid enough to hand you back and end up with nothing and a pair of handcuffs?” He tilted his head, studying me again. “Besides. The money isn’t the only thing on the table anymore.” He licked his cracked lips

Chapter 102

(Celeste Moretti POV) “Which part?” Vincenzo asked. “The asset split.” I set the document down. “This is a contractual arrangement. I am not entitled to half of what you have built. More importantly, if your company ever runs into serious trouble, I do not want to be exposed to the liability side of that equation.” Vincenzo raised an eyebrow. “You think I am going to go bankrupt?” “I think I am being practical.” He stayed quiet for a moment, watching me with an expression I could not fully read. They went back and forth on it. I was precise, unyielding, and eventually Vincenzo agreed to a revised structure: assets accumulated during the marriage would be split equally, but all debts and liabilities would remain entirely on his side. I took the pen and adjusted the clause myself, writing in calm, deliberate strokes. “Better,” I said. I turned the page. The next clause was standard fidelity language, neither party was to engage in emotional or physical infidelity during the ma

Chapter 103

(Celeste Moretti's POV) "Option two: In the next thirty minutes, you write a full statement. Everything that happened, in your own words, with your signature at the bottom. Carlo will be in the room as a witness." "I'll also read it on camera." I paused. "I keep the statement and the recording. As long as you stay out of my life and don't pull anything like this again, they stay buried. But the moment you cross a line, any line, I hand them to the police without a second thought." Lavinia Conti's face had gone through several shades of pale. "I'm not doing this because I care about you," I said. "I'm doing it because Luca is just getting started, and I won't let your choices be the thing that holds him back. When he's grown and can make his own decisions, I won't be covering for you anymore." For a moment, she just stared at me. Then she started crying in earnest. Not the desperate, pleading kind from before, but something rawer and uglier. "You have no heart," she choked ou

Chapter 104

(Author's POV)The photo went up at 11:47 a.m.Two marriage certificates on the center console. A woman's hand resting beside them, Vincenzo's hand over hers. The caption was nothing—not a word, just the image.By noon, Serena had already left three question marks in the comments and fired off a private message:Uncle Vincenzo. Is this real? Did you actually get married?? Who is she???Sebastian saw it while eating lunch.He set his fork down, picked up his phone, and called Sebastian."Tell me I'm reading this right," Sebastian said. "Vincenzo got married?""You're reading it right.""To who?""Not my place to say.""Sebastian.""You'll find out soon enough."Sebastian was quiet for two full seconds.Then:"This is going to be interesting."Arturo Conti didn't follow social media. He had never once opened it voluntarily.But Serena had cornered him in the hallway, held the screen six inches from his face, and refused to move until he looked.He stared at the photo.He took off his gl

Chapter 105

(Author's POV) "I heard she's been divorced before." "She has." The room went quiet. Stefano kept his expression neutral, but his mind was moving quickly. Vincenzo—the man that half their social circle had privately speculated about for years, the one who had never once been linked to anyone, who moved through every function and dinner and event completely untouched—had gotten married. To a divorced woman. Today. Eleanor was sitting to Guglielmo's left. She hadn't spoken yet. Her hands were wrapped around a teacup, and Stefano noticed her fingers press slightly tighter against the ceramic. Guglielmo leaned forward. "You went off and married some divorced woman without a word to anyone in this family. Do you understand what that looks like? You're dragging the Conti name—" "Into what, exactly?" Vincenzo's voice hadn't risen. But the faint, careless quality it had carried a moment ago was gone. What replaced it was flat and precise. "A divorced woman," Vincenzo said.

Chapter 106

(Author's POV) Later, Tiziana appeared in the hallway outside the sitting room, wearing her most carefully casual expression. "Grandmother," she said, "I heard something about Uncle Vincenzo..." "Did you?" Eleanor picked up her coffee cup. "Is it true that he..." " Tiziana, darling. Your uncle is a grown man who makes his own decisions. Whatever he does is his business, unless he chooses to share it with you himself." She smiled serenely. "Now, weren't you supposed to call your mother back this evening?" Tiziana opened her mouth, then closed it. She left without learning a single useful thing. Eleanor sipped her coffee, content. --- (Celeste Moretti's POV) The morning after we registered the marriage, I woke up with the same strange, untethered feeling I'd fallen asleep with. Like the whole day before had been something I'd watched happen to someone else. I picked up my phone. Four missed calls from Vincenzo. I called back. "Mr. Conti," I said, out of habit. A quiet

Chapter 107

(Celeste Moretti's POV) His grip was easy, unhurried. Like it was nothing. I went slightly rigid. Then I reminded myself that Eleanor was right there, watching us, and that looking like a woman who had never held her husband's hand before would raise more questions than I wanted to answer. I relaxed. I didn't pull away. Eleanor glanced down at our joined hands. The smile that crossed her face was the most openly delighted I'd seen from her all evening. She kissed me on the cheek, said goodnight to Vincenzo with a look that contained an entire paragraph of maternal satisfaction, and got into her car. We stood on the pavement and watched her taillights disappear around the corner. I started to withdraw my hand. The diamond caught the edge of Vincenzo's shirt cuff as I moved. A small, sharp little clink. I froze. "Oh no." I pulled my hand back and cradled it against my chest, inspecting the stone. "I'm sorry, I... this thing is worth a fortune, I can't just be walking a

Chapter 108

(Author's POV) Stefano sat down slowly and stared at the ring she'd been wearing. It wasn't something she'd bought for herself. He knew enough about jewelry to know that piece had a history. Someone had given it to her. He picked up his phone and stared at it. Then he put it back down. Meanwhile, Celeste stepped out of the building into the late morning sun and took a long breath. She looked at the ring on her finger, then at her phone, at the transfer confirmation still glowing on the screen. Her money. Properly, legally, entirely hers. She slipped her phone into her handbag and went shopping. The furniture store she chose was the kind of place with wide aisles and quiet staff who didn't hover. She moved through it slowly, touching things. The grain of a side table. The weight of a lamp base. The texture of a throw blanket. She wasn't buying much. Just a few pieces. Things that were hers. Things she'd chosen. Things she was bringing into a space on her own terms. For a

Chapter 109

(Celeste Moretti’s POV) He had been so cold before the wedding, distant in a way that made everything between us feel carefully measured, like every interaction was being weighed against some invisible contract neither of us had spoken aloud. I had thought I understood what this arrangement would be, something clean and contained, two people sharing space without ever truly crossing into each other’s lives, yet now everything felt different in a way I could not fully name. He was making breakfast, moving around the kitchen with a quiet confidence that did not match the emotional distance I had once associated him with, and he had kissed me in the entryway like it was something natural, something that had always belonged there. The more deliberate he became, the more I started to suspect there was a plan behind his actions, something I had not yet been allowed to see. When the elevator reached the ground floor, the doors slid open and I stepped out, still aware of the strange warmt

Chapter 110

(Author's POV) "That's a reasonable request," he said. "It's not—" Zachary started. "It's a reasonable request," Mr. Zimmer repeated, with more firmness than he'd used in the last hour. "I'll pull the footage." Quentin's confidence flickered. Just for a second. Luca had gone very still. He was staring at his sister. His eyes were red, and his jaw was working like he was trying to hold something in. When Celeste turned and found him looking at her, he dropped his gaze immediately, shoulders curling inward. "Celeste," he said. His voice came out quiet and rough, barely above a murmur. He didn't say anything else. He didn't have to. She crossed the room and stopped in front of him. She looked at the cut on his cheek, the redness around his eyes, the rigid set of his shoulders that said he was furious at himself for being here, for letting her get called, for needing her to show up and fix something again. "Hey." Her voice was low, just for him. "Look at me." He did, rel

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