Chapter 2
I stumbled backward as the bedroom door swung open.
Vanessa stood there in my silk robe.
My robe.
Her hair was messy, her lipstick smudged, and a cruel smile played on her lips when she saw me.
“Sarah,” she said, not even pretending to be surprised. “You’re up early.”
I couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t look away from her neck.
Love bites.
Fresh and angry against her pale skin.
Behind her, Luca sat on the edge of our bed.
Shirtless.
His hair was disheveled, his eyes were glassy, and he was staring at his hands like they belonged to a stranger.
He didn’t look up.
He didn’t say my name.
He didn’t move.
That silence hurt worse than any scream.
“Luca?” My voice came out as a broken whisper.
Still nothing.
Vanessa stepped toward me, closing the door slightly behind her so only she was visible.
“Go back to the guest room, Sarah,” she said softly, like she was comforting a child. “You’re not feeling well. Remember?”
“Get out of my house.”
“Your house?” She laughed. “Sweetheart, nothing here is yours anymore. Not the house. Not the money. And certainly not your husband.”
I shoved past her.
I had to see him.
I had to hear him deny it.
Luca finally looked up when I entered the room.
His amber eyes were clouded. Confused.
“Sarah?” he said, like he was seeing me through a fog. “What are you… how did you…?”
“How did I what?” I screamed. “Walk in on you fucking my sister in our marriage bed?”
He flinched.
Actually flinched.
But he still didn’t deny it.
“I didn’t… I don’t remember…” He pressed his palms to his temples. “My head… everything is spinning.”
“Of course you don’t remember,” Vanessa purred from behind me. “You were so eager, baby. You said I was better than her in every way.”
Luca’s head snapped toward her.
“I never said that.”
“Didn’t you?” She pouted. Then she turned to me, triumphant. “He did, Sarah. Over and over again. For months. While you were busy playing the perfect little wife, he was in my bed telling me he’d leave you any day now.”
Months.
The word echoed through my skull.
I looked at Luca.
“Is it true?”
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
“I… I don’t know. I can’t think straight. Something’s wrong with me.”
“Coward,” I spat.
I turned and ran.
I didn’t pack.
I didn’t leave a note.
I just ran.
Out of the bedroom, down the marble stairs, past the confused guests who stared as I tore through the ballroom in my black silk dress, tears streaming down my face.
I didn’t stop running until I reached the highway.
Three days later, I took a pregnancy test in a gas station bathroom in Ohio.
Positive.
Two pink lines.
I sank to the dirty floor and cried.
Not for me.
For the babies growing inside me.
They would never know their father.
They would never know the life I’d left behind.
And that was better.
Better than growing up in a house of lies.
Better than having a father who chose my sister over his own wife.
I changed my name.
Well, not legally. Not yet.
But I told everyone in Gray Hollow my name was Sarah Cole.
No Moretti.
No reminders.
I worked at the bakery downstairs for six months until my belly got too big.
Mrs. Pike, the owner, never asked questions.
She just left extra cinnamon rolls on my doorstep and said, “Family’s what you make it, honey. Not what you’re born into.”
The twins came two weeks early.
Lena Marie first. Screaming like she owned the world.
Ash Daniel followed three minutes later. Quiet. Watchful. Already protecting his sister even then.
I held them both against my chest and made a promise.
No one would ever hurt us again.
Not Luca.
Not Vanessa.
Not anyone.
Three years passed.
Three years of safety.
Three years of flour on my clothes and bedtime stories and the twins’ laughter echoing through the tiny apartment.
And then he knocked.
Now I pressed my back against the closed door, listening.
Waiting for him to leave.
But he didn’t.
I heard the faint scrape of leather as he sat down on my porch step.
He was staying.
“Mama?” Ash tugged on my sweater. “Why is the sad man sitting outside?”
I knelt down so I was eye level with him.
“He’s just waiting for someone who isn’t coming, baby.”
“Is he cold?”
I glanced at the window. The rain was coming down harder now.
“Probably.”
“Can we give him a blanket?”
My heart cracked.
My son. So kind. So much like his father in every way that mattered.
And every way that terrified me.
“No, sweetheart. He has to go home.”
“Where is his home?” Lena asked, joining us.
“Far away.”
“Does he have kids?”
I froze.
How do you answer that?
How do you tell your four-year-old daughter that the man outside is her father? That he doesn’t know she exists? That he broke my heart so badly I ran across three states to escape him?
“I don’t know, baby.”
I stood up and herded them toward the kitchen.
“Come on. Let’s finish making cookies. The sad man will be gone soon.”
But I knew he wouldn’t.
Luca Moretti was the most stubborn man alive.
When he wanted something, he moved mountains to get it.
And now he knew.
He knew about the twins.
He knew where I was.
And nothing on this earth would make him leave until he got what he wanted.
May you like
I just didn’t know yet if what he wanted was forgiveness…
Or revenge.
