All Chapters of My Billionaire's Ex Husband's Secret Heir: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

SASHA :The Moretti family house in Milan had always felt like a museum that somehow still breathed.It was the kind of place built to remind everyone that old money never needed to raise its voice. The ceilings were so high the sound of a spoon touching a plate came out small. Old paintings in gilded frames lined the walls like ancestors who still weren’t done judging. The candles on the long dining table burned with a steady glow. Crystal glittered. Silver gleamed cold. Everything was too perfect for ordinary human hands to touch.And I....was the stain in the room.I sat straight beside Rafael, spine aligned, shoulders loose, smile measured. My black dress fell neatly to my knees, simple and clean. I wore my hair down, smooth and glossy, covering one side of my neck. Small diamond studs. Dusty rose lips and I was trying to remember how to breathe correctly.A server set the next course in front of me. I thanked him in Italian polished enough to make people forget I wasn’t one of th

The front door closed softly behind us, the quiet click echoing through our mansion in Brera, too beautiful, too silent, too expensive to be the home of a broken marriage.The foyer lights glowed softly over pale marble. The white flowers in the console vase were still fresh. Rafael’s coat had been hung up by the staff an hour earlier, before we left for his family’s house.I stood in the middle of it with my throat dry and a thin wave of nausea curling through my stomach, and for the first time since we left the Moretti house, I realized Rafael hadn’t touched me once on the drive home.I turned.He took off his watch first, then set it on the small table by the door with the kind of precision that made me want to scream. His black suit was still perfect. His tie still neat. His face, too.Rafael always looked most dangerous when he didn’t look angry. When everything about him was too calm. Too clean. Like a man who had already made a decision and was now just waiting to see whether y

“Do these earrings make me look like I’m trying too hard?”I tilted my head to the left, then to the right, studying my reflection in the bedroom mirror.The ivory dress fell straight along my body without making a production of it. No sequins, no strange cutouts that required me to stand in one specific position all night, no excess fabric waiting to get caught on the leg of a table. Just heavy silk, a clean neckline, enough of an open back, and a hem that stopped just below my calves.Simple.Which, in woman language, meant the dress cost enough to cover someone’s rent for several months.“You’re wearing diamond drop earrings to a billionaire’s family dinner.” Gabriella, who had been sitting at the edge of the bed answering messages, looked up.“Small diamonds.”“Still diamonds.”“I asked if they looked like too much, not whether I had financial problems.”I tried to slip the hook of the earring through my left ear. For some reason, the hole seemed to have moved since the last time I

Max’s room was lit by a moon-shaped nightlight that washed the walls in pale yellow.I lay on my side on top of the blanket, still wearing the thin slip dress I had changed into after my shower. The ivory gown was already hanging on the closet door, zipped inside a garment bag, as if tonight had only been another event that needed to be sent to the dry cleaner.Max slept facing me.Somehow, he had managed to take up almost the entire bed even though his body was only as long as a few pillows. One leg had escaped the blanket. His dinosaur pajamas had ridden up a little over his round stomach. His black bangs stuck to his forehead, too long again. I had already told him I was taking him for a haircut on Saturday.He refused because, according to him, long hair made him look like “a rock star with fast cars.”I touched the ends of his bangs and brushed them away from his eyes.Max made a small sound without waking, then shifted his face closer to my hand.I stroked his cheek with the back

I left the house twenty minutes later with a second coffee in the cup holder and a key fob I’d briefly failed to find because Max had hidden it inside one of my loafers.He said it was a garage.For keys.I did not ask any further questions because there was a limit to how much four-year-old philosophy the human body could tolerate before nine in the morning.The gate opened automatically as my car rolled down the driveway. The side road was empty now. No dark metallic Range Rover, no suspicious person, no potential new neighbor standing in front of the vacant mansion making poor decisions in white linen.Good.One mystery solved without involving paranoia.I turned on the old R&B playlist I had saved under a very mature name: songs for when people are annoying.Soft bass filled the car. A woman’s voice poured through the speakers, too smooth for Los Angeles traffic, which had clearly been built entirely out of sin and ego. I tapped the steering wheel to the rhythm, humming without act