What Happens In The Selected Letters Of Florence Kelley, 1869-1931?

She called him at two in the morning, wine-drunk and heartbroken, and told him everything. That her boyfriend of five years had been lying to her face. That she had built his business with her bare hands and he had been quietly cutting her out of it. That she was done being practical about love and intended to date every beautiful man she could find and she meant it. She did not mean to tell him he was on the list. Enoch Wade has been in love with his cousin since he saw her at her 19th birthday party. He has spent six years sending birthday gifts and keeping his distance and being exactly what she needed him to be, safe, reliable and family. The drunk call ends that strategy entirely. By morning she has an employment letter, a plane ticket, and three days to start over in London. What neither of them knows is that the tag that held them apart was never true. Some lines were meant to be crossed. some lines were never lines at all. My Dearest Beautiful Cousin — a forbidden romance

She came to Florence to build her future, to study architecture in Italy, believing that talent and hard work are enough to achieve her dreams. She never expected to lose herself first. In Florence she meets two unforgettable men, charismatic Matteo and kind hearted Rafael. What begins as an exciting student friendship slowly turns into a complicated love story. Matteo offers success and the future Violet always imagined, while Rafael awakens the part of her that dreams beyond ambition. Years later, Violet seems to have the perfect life, everything she once wished for. But appearances can hide painful truths. When Rafael unexpectedly returns from Greece, long-buried secrets begin to surface. Forced to confront the choices that shaped her life, Violet must decide whether it is too late to rediscover herself—and whether true love is about holding on or finally letting go. Set between the timeless streets of Florence and the breathtaking Greek coast, The City Where It All Began is an emotional slow-burn romance about dreams, betrayal, healing, and finding the courage to start over.

My best friend and my husband, Lorenzo Bartoli, fought every time they met. Lorenzo was the Don of the family, while my best friend was his Consigliere. She always fiercely opposed his most ruthless, high-risk decisions. Tempers explode every single time. But there was one rule that they both agreed on without any hesitation. No one was allowed to touch me. Because of them, no one in the city dared to cross me. Until the fifth month of my pregnancy, when I went down to the basement vault to organize Lorenzo's guns for him. I opened the safe to see stacks of letters, hundreds of them, all unsent. I picked one up. The moment I opened the letter, cold dread overwhelmed me. The receiver of the letter wasn't me. [My dearest Sofia…] I quickly scanned downward to the final lines of the letter. [If I don't make it back alive, everything in the Swissie accounts goes to you. As for Vittoria, she's a good woman, but I have never loved her.] With trembling hands, I tore open the rest of the letters like a hysterical woman. Three hundred of them in total. Every single one was addressed to Sofia Finzi. Sofia was not a stranger. She was my best friend.

On the seventh year after the breakup, I receive a package from Clarence Fraser. All 44 pounds of said package consist of the stacks of chat history I have with him in the past. Soon, Clarence's text appears on my phone screen. "Wanna meet up? I'd like to tell you something." I pause momentarily before responding with a "1". That number signifies rejection. Then, I turn my phone off. After wiping my sweat off with a towel, I pick up another crate of fruits and continue promoting them to the customers loudly, as though nothing has happened. It's been so many years, and I don't know why Clarence decides to text me all of a sudden. Similarly, he doesn't know that I've already become someone else's wife a long time ago.

On the day I receive my Distinguished Service Medal, I also receive word that my grandma has passed away. My superior grants me special leave to return to my hometown to mourn her death, so I rush to my ancestral home at once. But when I reach the ancestral graveyard behind the hill, I witness something that makes my blood boil. The graves of my deceased family members have been razed to the ground. Even my parents' graves have been brutally dug up. Their urns are now placed under flower pots filled with blooming red roses. Grandma's coffin has been pried open as well.Her body now lies strewn on the ground and has started to rot. I also see Lucy Stewart, my autistic younger sister. Melissa Abbott, my wife's assistant, orders Lucy around like a maid, forcing her to move heavy construction materials around. Enraged, I grab Melissa by the throat and throw her to the ground. "How dare you destroy my family's ancestral cemetery and make my sister do hard labor! Do you want to end up buried here too?" Melissa coughs up blood before crawling back onto her feet, her expression vicious and scornful. "I'm simply carrying out Ms. Fuller's instructions. She says that your ancestral cemetery is located in a good spot. It's also the perfect size to be turned into a private horse ranch and a garden for her future husband. "Ms. Fuller calls the shots here in Joverton City. Who the hell do you think you are, huh?" Resisting the urge to put an end to her life, I call up Eva Fuller, my wife. "I heard you call the shots here in Joverton City. Well, I shall put that to the test today!"

The most reckless thing I had ever done was turn my back on the Moretti name and leave St. Clair Harbor with Lucian DeLuca when the Commission pushed his family out and he had nothing left. For three years, we lived in a drafty Brooklyn loft and ducked black Chevrolets on winter nights. Then Lucian fought his way back to the East Coast table. Everyone started calling him Mr. DeLuca again,and I became Mrs. DeLuca, the woman he swore he would always protect. Then Clara Voss appeared. She had once saved his life as a night nurse at an underground clinic, and Lucian never forgot it. He bought her a clinic, protected her family, and let her step, inch by inch, into the middle of our marriage. He said he still loved me, but he also said I was spoiled, jealous, and needed to learn my place. So I did. I signed the divorce papers and left New York behind. Mrs. DeLuca was dead. Evelyn Moretti had come back.