Chapter 1 – THE PINK SUITCASE
For a moment, the library was so quiet I could hear the antique grandfather clock ticking in the hallway.
Luca knelt on the Persian rug, still holding his daughter’s tear-stained letter.
His face had gone completely pale.
“Emily,” he whispered, his voice dangerously low. “Did Vanessa tell you I agreed to send you away?”
Emily nodded, her small hands twisting her mother’s knitted blanket.
“She said you and her talked about it. She said it was for the best, because you needed to start over.”
I watched Luca’s jaw clench. The veins in his neck stood out against his crisp white collar.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t swear.
Instead, he stood up, lifting Emily into his arms as easily as if she were made of glass. He pressed her head against his shoulder.
“Helen,” he said, his voice cold as ice. “Stay right behind me.”
I followed him out of the library.
We didn’t go back to the dining room.
Luca carried Emily straight up the grand mahogany staircase toward the east wing of the mansion. Toward Emily’s bedroom.
When he pushed her bedroom door open, the truth was sitting right on the bed.
A pale pink suitcase.
It was zipped shut. Beside it sat Emily’s favorite stuffed bear, left behind.
Luca stared at the suitcase. He set Emily down gently, holding her hand, and walked over to the bed. He unzipped the luggage.
Inside were Emily’s practical clothes. No party dresses. No toys.
But sitting on top of the folded sweaters was a stiff, dark green blazer with a crest embroidered on the pocket.
It wasn’t something a child would wear to her grandmother’s house.
I recognized the crest immediately.
“Mr. Moretti,” I gasped. “That’s St. Jude’s.”
It was a strict, year-round boarding school in Switzerland. I knew about it because Vanessa had left a brochure on the kitchen island two weeks ago, claiming it was for a friend’s child.
Luca picked up the green blazer. His knuckles turned white.
“She wasn’t sending you to Grandma’s, sweetheart,” he said softly.
Just then, the bedroom door swung open.
Vanessa stood in the doorway, breathless, holding a glass of champagne. Her diamond engagement ring caught the hallway light.
“Luca! What on earth are you doing up here?” she demanded, forcing a light laugh. “Our guests are asking for you. You can’t just abandon your own engagement party because the child threw a tantrum.”
Luca slowly turned around.
He held up the green St. Jude’s blazer.
“When exactly was my daughter supposed to leave for Switzerland?”
Vanessa’s smile froze. The champagne in her glass trembled.
“Luca, darling, I can explain—”
“When, Vanessa?”
“Next month,” she stammered, stepping into the room. “I was going to surprise you. It’s the best school in Europe. Emily needs discipline. She needs a structured environment to get over this… this unhealthy obsession with her mother.”
“You packed her bags tonight,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. “You told an eight-year-old girl her father didn’t want her anymore.”
“I told her the truth!” Vanessa snapped, her sophisticated mask finally cracking. “You are holding on to a ghost, Luca! This house is a shrine to Katherine. I am trying to build a future for us. For our real family!”
Emily shrank behind my legs.
Luca dropped the blazer on the bed. He took two slow, deliberate steps toward Vanessa.
“My daughter is my real family,” he said.
Vanessa lifted her chin. “You need a wife, Luca. Not a housekeeper and a weeping child holding you back.”
“You’re right,” Luca said quietly. “I do.”
He reached for Vanessa’s left hand. For a second, she smiled, thinking he was agreeing with her.
But Luca didn’t kiss her hand.
He gripped her fingers, slid the three-carat diamond engagement ring off her finger, and dropped it into her champagne glass.
It hit the bottom with a sharp clink.
“The engagement is over,” Luca said. “Get out of my house.”
Vanessa stared at the glass in horror. “You can’t do this. My father is downstairs. The entire Chicago syndicate is in your dining room. If you humiliate me tonight, my family will destroy you.”
“Let them try,” Luca whispered.
Vanessa’s face twisted with pure venom. She looked at Emily, then back at Luca.
“You think Katherine was a saint?” Vanessa sneered. “You think she was the perfect mother?”
Luca’s eyes darkened. “Don’t speak her name.”
“I’ll speak it as much as I want!” Vanessa reached into her designer clutch and pulled out a small, silver key. “You think I threw away her letters out of spite? I threw them away to protect you.”
She tossed the key onto the pink suitcase.
“Go open the locked drawer in Katherine’s vanity,” Vanessa said with a bitter smile. “Read the medical file she hid from you. Then tell me I wasn’t doing you a favor by getting rid of her brat.”
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