Author’s POV
Catherine didn’t say another word.
She turned her back on Elena, climbed the narrow stairs to the little attic room that had always been hers, and shut the door behind her.
It wasn’t a slam.
It was quieter than that, and somehow that made it worse.
Downstairs, Elena stood at the foot of the steps, screaming at a door that no longer cared to listen.
“You walk away from me?
After everything I’ve done for you?
You ungrateful, cold-hearted little snake!”
The door didn’t answer.
It never would again.
Elena was still red-faced and shaking when footsteps sounded on the landing.
She spun around, ready to unload another round of fury, and stopped short.
Isabella stood there, arms folded, her pretty face pinched into a scowl dark enough to curdle milk.
Elena’s whole expression melted in an instant, all that rage sliding off her like it had never existed.
She rushed forward, hands fluttering.
“Bella, baby, what’s wrong?
Who upset you?
Tell Mama.”
Isabella pressed her lips together, letting the silence stretch just long enough to make her mother squirm.
She’d learned that trick early, and she used it like a scalpel.
“It’s nothing.” A pause.
A perfectly timed sigh.
“It’s just, Catherine already broke things off with Marco.
Officially.
And yet she still can’t stop throwing herself at him.
Every look, every little touch, she’s still trying to reel him back in.”
Elena’s heart lurched.
She thought of her older daughter’s face, that soft, deceptively innocent face that turned heads on the street.
And that body, all curves in every place a man’s eyes wandered.
She’d always privately thought Catherine looked like trouble waiting to happen.
A honey trap in secondhand clothes.
“Don’t you worry about her,” Elena said quickly, patting Isabella’s arm.
“I’ll line up another match for her.
Somebody new.
I’ll have her out of this house and married off before you know it.”
The sooner the better, she thought.
Before that girl sinks her claws into Marco for good.
Then Isabella remembered something.
Earlier that afternoon, she’d watched Catherine step out of a Rolls-Royce, of all things.
Sleek, black, the kind of car that cost more than this whole house.
“Actually, don’t bother,” Isabella said, brightening.
“I think she’s already got something going with that Mr.
Ricci.
I saw her climbing out of his car this afternoon.
“His car, Mama.”
Elena’s eyes went wide.
“Are you serious?”
“Bone serious.
“She talks all this trash about how you tried to set her up with some old rich creep, but trust me, deep down she’s eating it up.
She wants him.”
“Oh, thank God.” Elena clasped her hands together, relief flooding her face.
“Then I can finally stop worrying about her.”
She practically glowed.
Because in her whole little circle of acquaintances, she didn’t know a single soul with deeper pockets than Mr.
Ricci.
Lorenzo’s POV
The Romano estate smelled like old money and older secrets.
I sat across from my father in the study, and Vincenzo Romano was doing what he did best, staring at me like I was a deal gone sour.
“You’re the heir to this family,” he said, each word cut sharp.
“You marry for the family.
For power.
For alliance.
Some nobody off the street cannot carry the Romano name.
You understand what that name means?
What it costs?”
I said nothing.
I’d learned long ago that silence unsettled him more than argument ever could.
“Your grandfather is off touring the world, blissfully ignorant,” he went on.
“The day Salvatore comes home and finds out you married a stranger, some girl with no blood, no leverage, no protection, he’ll put me in the ground himself.”
A hand settled on his shoulder.
My stepmother, Sofia, all polished pearls and practiced tenderness, leaned in.
“Vincenzo, don’t get yourself worked up.
It’s bad for your heart.” She handed him a glass of water with a soft, practiced smile.
“Lorenzo finally found a woman he actually cares for.
Let the boy be happy.
That’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
I watched her the way you watch a snake you’ve decided not to kill yet.
She wasn’t comforting anyone.
She was celebrating.
A common girl meant no rival family at our back, no daughter of a rival Don to strengthen my claim.
Nothing she’d have to fear.
“You spoil him rotten,” Vincenzo grumbled, taking the glass she offered.
“He’s not my blood, but I’ve loved him like my own for twenty years,” Sofia said, hand pressed to her chest.
“A mother only wants her son to be happy.”
I let out a low, cold laugh.
“Then stop forcing Nico into the company every week.
He creates more messes than I can clean up.
I’m tired of covering for him.”
Nico.
My half-brother.
Sofia’s actual son.
A useless, coke-happy playboy who thought a family name was a personality.
Sofia’s smile froze on her face like frost on glass.
“Watch your tone,” Vincenzo snapped.
“Your mother speaks for you and this is how you repay her?”
I said nothing.
Just let out a slow breath through my nose.
Defending me.
Sofia was thrilled I’d gone and married some ordinary girl.
She’d been dreading exactly one thing for years, that I’d bring home a woman from a family with real power, real connections, someone who’d tie the Romano name to another old bloodline and cut her precious Nico out of the picture entirely.
An unknown girl with no leverage?
That was Christmas morning for her.
He exhaled hard, rubbing his temple.
“Fine.
Book a table tomorrow night.
Dinner.
Sofia and I want to look this girl in the eye.” He fixed me with a hard stare.
“And that Rolls of yours is too loud.
Take the housekeeper’s sedan.
Nothing that screams money.”
I raised a brow.
“And for God’s sake, keep your name buried,” he added, lower now.
“The second she learns who you really are, she’ll cling to you like a knife in the ribs.
No amount of cash pries loose a woman who knows what she’s holding.”
“She doesn’t like rich men,” I said.
I remembered the look on Catherine’s face when she’d spoken about money.
Pure contempt.
It had cut through me in a way I still didn’t understand.
Vincenzo scoffed.
“Every soul on this earth loves money, son.
The ones who claim they don’t are just too poor to admit it.”
I said nothing.
What did I know about the mind of a poor woman?
But I couldn’t shake one thought.
I’d married her, and somehow my life had gotten smaller.
Cheap car.
Fake name—my mother’s, technically, so not even a real lie.
A downgrade I’d never asked for.
Signing that certificate had been reckless, hadn’t it?
I knew nothing about her.
Nothing except that her face, quiet and unguarded, dragged something up from the bottom of my memory.
Someone I’d buried a long time ago.
But an arrow loosed doesn’t turn back.
I wasn’t about to drag her to a courthouse and make her a divorcée for no reason.
Back in my room, I pulled out my phone.
“My family wants to meet you.
Dinner tomorrow night.
Are you free?”
The message sent.
Then nothing.
All night, I checked that screen more times than I’d ever admit.
And Catherine Vitale never wrote back.