Chapter 8 – WHAT BIANCA WAS REALLY HIDING

“All of it?” Marco repeated.

Bianca nodded.

The dining room had grown cold. Somewhere in the kitchen, the refrigerator motor switched on and off.

It was such an ordinary sound that I remember it clearly.

After everything we’d heard, the truth arrived without music or shouting.

Just a tired woman admitting she’d spent money she had no way to replace.

Marco opened the agreement again.

“Where did it go?”

Bianca looked at the table.

“Payroll. Rent on the office. Money we owed after the Palmer House event was canceled.”

Marco frowned.

“You told me your company had recovered from that.”

“I thought it would.”

“How bad is it?”

She rubbed her forehead.

“Bad enough that I haven’t taken a salary in four months.”

Anna watched her.

For the first time, I saw something besides anger in her face.

She knew what it was like to become trapped inside a problem and feel too ashamed to tell anybody.

But understanding shame wasn’t the same as excusing what someone did with it.

Marco turned another page.

“Why didn’t you come to me?”

Bianca looked up sharply.

“Because I didn’t want to become another person you had to rescue.”

“That would have been my decision.”

“And how long before you started thinking of me the way you used to think of Anna?”

Anna stiffened.

Marco stared at his fiancée.

“You think that’s why I helped my sister? Because I looked down on her?”

“No. I think you loved her so much that you forgot how to live when she was sick.”

His expression changed.

Bianca’s voice shook.

“I watched you carry that fear around. Every time she didn’t answer, every time you thought somebody had seen her somewhere, your whole face changed.”

Anna looked down.

“I know,” she whispered.

Bianca turned toward her.

“When I met Marco, he was finally making plans again. We were building something together. Then Christmas came, and you wanted to see him.”

Anna stared at her.

“Because he was my brother.”

“I know that now.”

“You knew it then.”

Bianca couldn’t deny it.

She folded her hands.

“The first lie wasn’t about the house.”

Marco went still.

Bianca continued.

“I told you Anna didn’t want to come for Christmas because I didn’t want another holiday spent worrying about whether she was all right.”

Anna’s mouth opened slightly.

“You told me he didn’t want to see me.”

“I thought if you stayed apart, things would be easier.”

“For whom?” Marco asked.

Bianca looked at him.

“For me.”

Nobody spoke.

It was a terrible answer.

But it was an honest one.

Bianca wiped her cheeks.

“Then my business started falling apart. Westbridge approached Romano Events about locating an older residential property they could convert into an upscale guesthouse. I thought of Hawthorne Street.”

Anna looked toward her mother’s recipe tin.

“A guesthouse.”

Bianca nodded.

“They wanted the building and the land. The plans included gutting most of the interior.”

Marco stared at the architectural drawings.

“You knew what that house meant to us.”

“Yes.”

“And you thought we’d agree to destroy it?”

“I thought if the offer was good enough, you’d see the sense in it.”

Anna shook her head.

“So you made sure we couldn’t talk.”

Bianca looked at her.

“By then, you and Marco were already apart. I convinced myself I was doing what was necessary.”

Marco’s voice became dangerously quiet.

“Tell us exactly what you intended Anna to sign.”

Bianca looked toward the cream-colored envelope.

“The declaration was meant to explain why she wanted help managing the property. The limited authorization would have allowed me to act for her on the transaction.”

“Without her understanding you intended to sell?”

Bianca’s eyes filled again.

“I planned to explain it after the preliminary agreement was ready.”

Anna gave a broken laugh.

“You were going to explain it after I’d given you permission to make the decision for me.”

“Yes,” Bianca whispered.

Marco leaned back.

The truth was worse than a simple theft.

Bianca hadn’t needed to own the property.

She’d needed Anna to surrender the authority to stop her.

And the allegations about alcohol, old debts, and poor judgment were all intended to make that surrender seem reasonable.

Anna touched the paper marked VOLUNTARY ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

“You told me I stole money from Marco.”

Bianca nodded.

“There was no money.”

“You said he was paying it back.”

“I needed you to believe there was a debt you could help settle.”

Anna’s voice cracked.

“You made me think I couldn’t remember something terrible because I’d been drinking.”

Bianca looked at her.

“I was wrong.”

Anna shook her head.

“That doesn’t describe what you did.”

There was a long silence.

Then Marco picked up the district notice.

“And the school?”

Bianca closed her eyes.

Anna watched her carefully.

“Did you send it?”

“Yes.”

The word seemed to cost Bianca something.

But it cost Anna far more.

“Why?”

“I thought if you believed people were questioning your judgment again, you’d be more willing to let someone handle the financial decisions.”

Marco stood.

“You went after her job?”

“I didn’t think they’d dismiss her. I thought they’d ask questions.”

“You told them she’d been drinking around Christmas,” Anna said.

“I knew you weren’t at a family gathering. I used the story because Marco believed you were having trouble then.”

Anna looked away.

For several seconds, she said nothing.

Then she slipped the bronze coin into her palm.

“Ten years,” she whispered.

Marco looked at her.

“Annie.”

“Ten years of getting up and going to work. Ten years of going to meetings when I needed them. Ten years of being honest when it would have been easier to lie.”

She looked at Bianca.

“And you thought you could take all of that away with one letter.”

Bianca didn’t defend herself.

Marco slowly removed his engagement ring from the small chain he wore beneath his shirt.

He’d kept it there while working rather than risk losing it.

He placed it beside Bianca’s ring box, still lying near the abandoned dinner arrangements.

“The engagement is over,” he said.

Bianca looked up.

“Marco—”

“No. I won’t marry someone who made my sister afraid to trust her own memory.”

Bianca began crying.

Not theatrically.

She simply covered her eyes.

Marco’s expression was sorrowful but firm.

“We’ll deal with Westbridge and the money through the proper channels. You’ll have to correct the report you made about Anna.”

Bianca nodded.

She seemed too tired to argue.

Anna stood.

“I want to go home.”

Marco immediately reached for his coat.

“I’ll drive you.”

She shook her head.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

He stopped.

For the first time, he seemed to understand that helping his sister didn’t mean taking charge of her.

“All right,” he said. “What would you like me to do?”

Anna looked at him for a long moment.

Then she picked up his blue envelope.

“You wanted to give me the house because you thought it would make up for everything.”

“No,” he answered. “I wanted you to know you belonged.”

Her eyes filled.

“Then you need to understand something.”

Marco waited.

Anna laid the letter back on the table.

“The worst thing Bianca took from me wasn’t the house.”

He looked confused.

Anna’s voice broke.

“It was eight months of believing my own brother was ashamed of me. And you let her speak for you.”

She reached for her coat.

“I don’t know how to forgive that yet.”

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