Chapter 2: What the Glass Kept Hidden
Luca's voice was still in my ears as I stood on that cold pavement.
"I never gave Vanessa anything for you."
My legs felt wrong.
I pressed one hand against my stomach and tried to breathe.
"The letter," I said.
"It had your signature."
"Isabella, I never wrote you a letter.
I never asked you to leave."
"You were talking to your adviser.
I heard you say the marriage was over."
Something moved across his face.
"That conversation was about my father's company.
Not us."
The pavement seemed to tilt.
All those months.
The Brooklyn apartment.
The bathroom floor.
The pregnancy test I faced alone.
Every single one of them built on a letter he never wrote.
Luca stepped closer, his voice dropping.
"Who else knew about those photographs?"
I shook my head slowly.
"Almost no one.
You.
Your adviser.
And—"
I stopped.
Vanessa had been in the house the night the photographs arrived.
She had been there when I found them on Luca's desk.
I had assumed Luca had shown her.
I had never once asked why she already knew.
Luca read my face.
"Stay here."
He turned back toward the boutique.
Through the glass, I watched Vanessa see him coming.
For the first time, she looked afraid.
Her hand moved to her bag.
She was reaching for her phone.
---
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What Luca found on Vanessa's phone that afternoon exposed a plan years in the making — and Isabella was never supposed to survive it.
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