Chapter 1 - THE MAN ACROSS THE RESTAURANT
For three seconds, Luca Moretti forgot the entire world existed.
He forgot the maître d’ waiting beside him.
He forgot the reservation.
He forgot the investors he was supposed to meet upstairs.
He even seemed to forget that his wife was standing beside him with her hand looped through his arm.
All he could see were my children.
Our children.
“Mom?”
My daughter’s voice brought me back.
Ava was six years old and observant in a way that frequently terrified me. She could detect tension between adults before most adults realized they were showing it.
She glanced from me to Luca.
“Do you know him?”
My son Noah stopped drawing.
His crayon remained suspended over the paper napkin.
Luca stared at him.
Noah stared back.
It was like watching two photographs taken thirty-five years apart.
Same eyes.
Same eyebrows.
Same serious expression when confused.
I stood so abruptly that my chair scraped against the polished floor.
Conversations around us briefly stopped.
“Nia.”
Luca finally said my name.
I hadn't heard his voice in years.
Some terrible part of me remembered immediately how it used to sound in the dark.
Another part remembered the night he told me he no longer loved me.
I reached for my purse.
“We're leaving.”
Ava frowned.
“But we haven't gotten the chocolate cake.”
“I'll buy you an entire cake somewhere else.”
That convinced her.
Noah, however, still stared at Luca.
Then he asked the question I'd feared since the moment my ex-husband walked through those doors.
“Why does that man look like me?”
Silence.
Not restaurant silence.
Not uncomfortable silence.
The kind of silence where your past catches up with you and puts both hands around your throat.
Luca moved toward the table.
Evelyn tightened her grip on his arm.
“Luca.”
He didn't even seem to hear her.
His eyes stayed on me.
“How old are they?”
I swallowed.
“Don't.”
“How old?”
“That is not a conversation we're having here.”
His jaw tightened.
It was a gesture I knew well.
Luca Moretti could intimidate rooms full of bankers with that expression.
It didn't work on me anymore.
Or at least I told myself it didn't.
“Nia.”
I stepped between him and the children.
“Not here.”
He lowered his voice.
“How old are they?”
My hands were shaking.
Six years of preparing for this possibility, and suddenly I had no prepared speech.
No perfect answer.
No graceful escape.
Ava touched my coat.
“Mom?”
I forced myself to smile at her.
“Everything's okay.”
Luca's face changed.
He knew.
I saw the calculation happen.
The divorce.
The dates.
The children's ages.
My disappearance.
His eyes met mine again.
“Six?”
I said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Evelyn released his arm.
Slowly.
The motion was almost invisible.
But I saw it.
So did Luca.
“Luca,” she whispered. “What's happening?”
He looked at her as if he'd forgotten she was there.
Then he looked back at the twins.
Noah had started putting his crayons into the small paper box the restaurant had given him.
He was nervous.
That broke something inside me.
I didn't care how powerful Luca was.
I didn't care how shocked he felt.
My children came first.
I took Noah's hand.
“Ava. Coat.”
Luca stepped in front of me.
Not aggressively.
But enough.
“Please.”
I stared at him.
I had heard Luca order people around for years.
This wasn't an order.
It was almost a plea.
“Tell me I'm wrong.”
I couldn't.
His chest rose slowly.
Then he asked, “Are they mine?”
A woman at the next table stopped pretending not to listen.
I lowered my voice.
“You don't get to do this in front of them.”
“Then give me five minutes somewhere private.”
“You walked away from me, Luca.”
“I walked away from you.”
His eyes flicked toward the children.
“I didn't know I was walking away from them.”
That landed harder than I expected.
Because it was true.
And because the truth wasn't simple.
“Mom,” Ava whispered, “who is he?”
Luca closed his eyes for half a second.
When he opened them, there was something in them I had never seen before.
Fear.
The mighty Luca Moretti was afraid.
I crouched beside the twins.
“He's someone I used to know.”
Noah studied Luca.
“Like a friend?”
I hesitated.
“A long time ago.”
Luca looked as if I'd slapped him.
Maybe he deserved it.
Maybe he didn't.
That was the problem.
I still didn't know.
Evelyn finally spoke.
“Nia, perhaps we should all sit down.”
I looked at her.
She was exactly as magazines described her.
Beautiful without trying.
Controlled.
Perfectly dressed.
But her face was pale.
“This doesn't concern you,” I said.
Her expression tightened.
“I'm his wife.”
“And they're my children.”
“Possibly his children too.”
Luca turned toward her sharply.
“Evelyn.”
She held up one hand.
“No. Don't.”
Something passed between them.
Something I didn't understand.
Then Evelyn looked at the twins again.
And there was devastation in her expression.
Not anger.
Devastation.
That surprised me.
I expected jealousy.
Instead, she whispered, “My God.”
Luca's phone started ringing.
He ignored it.
Mine buzzed.
The restaurant manager approached carefully.
“Mr. Moretti, would you prefer a private room?”
Of course everyone knew him.
Luca nodded.
“Yes.”
“No,” I said simultaneously.
Every head turned toward me.
“I am taking my children home.”
Luca looked at me.
“And then?”
“Then nothing.”
“No.”
The word came out quietly.
Dangerously.
I straightened.
“You don't control me anymore.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because this sounds suspiciously like the man who spent our marriage deciding which problems could be solved with money.”
His expression flinched.
Good.
I wanted it to hurt.
“You thought I was broken,” I said.
His face changed.
“Nia—”
“You didn't say it, but you thought it.”
“I never—”
“You didn't have to.”
My voice cracked.
I hated that.
“I sat through every test. Every procedure. Every month of disappointment. And eventually you started looking at me like I was the obstacle between you and the family you wanted.”
Luca's eyes darkened.
“I was told—”
“I know what you were told.”
That stopped him.
Evelyn looked between us.
Luca whispered, “What does that mean?”
I shouldn't have said it.
But after six years, the anger was coming faster than I could control it.
“You weren't the only person someone lied to.”
His entire body stiffened.
“Who?”
I grabbed my coat.
“Goodbye, Luca.”
He caught my wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough to stop me.
I looked down at his hand.
He released me immediately.
“I'm sorry.”
I laughed once.
It came out bitter.
“You're six years late.”
“I need to know.”
“No. You want to know.”
“They could be my children.”
“They are children, Luca. Not a company you're acquiring.”
His face went completely still.
That one reached him.
I took Ava's hand.
Then Noah's.
We walked past him.
Ava looked over her shoulder.
So did Noah.
Luca watched them go.
He didn't follow.
I thought that was the end of the scene.
I was wrong.
Outside, snow had started falling lightly over downtown Chicago.
I hurried toward the parking garage while the twins complained about missing dessert.
My hands shook so badly I struggled with my keys.
Then Ava said, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“That man's crying.”
I froze.
I turned.
Through the glass doors of the restaurant, Luca Moretti stood alone.
Evelyn had moved several feet away.
His shoulders were rigid.
But Ava was right.
There were tears on his face.
The sight nearly destroyed me.
I turned back toward the garage.
“Come on.”
We were halfway to the car when footsteps approached behind us.
I expected Luca.
Instead, Evelyn Shaw Moretti appeared.
Alone.
“Nia.”
I stopped.
She was holding something in her hand.
A small cream-colored envelope.
Old.
Bent at one corner.
My stomach dropped before she even spoke.
“I think,” Evelyn said quietly, “this belongs to you.”
I stared at the handwriting.
My handwriting.
I hadn't seen that envelope in six years.
On the front were four words.
For Luca. Personal. Urgent.
My knees nearly gave out.
I looked at Evelyn.
“Where did you get that?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“From Luca's mother's study.”
I couldn't breathe.
Evelyn swallowed.
“She kept it.”
The parking garage suddenly felt freezing.
I stared at the envelope I'd written six years earlier.
The envelope containing the ultrasound picture of two tiny babies.
The letter I had begged someone to put directly into Luca Moretti's hands.
The letter Luca had apparently never received.
Evelyn whispered, “He really didn't know, did he?”
And for the first time in six years, I realized the terrible possibility I'd never allowed myself to believe.
May you like
Maybe Luca hadn't abandoned his children.
Maybe someone had made sure he never knew they existed.
