Chapter 1 – MY HUSBAND BROUGHT HIS MISTRESS TO SUNDAY DINNER

“Let’s try to be friends, Rose.”

Twenty-three relatives watched.

Vivian Bellini wore a fitted red silk dress. My husband, thirty-five-year-old Chicago mafia boss Luca Moretti, sat beside her, looking irritated that I hadn’t accepted her greeting.

“Rose,” he said, “don’t make this harder than necessary.”

I stared at him.

“You’re moving another woman into our home?”

“Temporarily.”

Vivian smiled.

“Luca thought the east wing would be perfect. It’s practically a separate apartment.”

The east wing.

Where my mother had stayed during her final Christmas.

Where I still kept the quilt she’d sewn for me.

Six years of marriage, and my husband was offering those rooms to his mistress.

“Did you ask me?” I whispered.

Luca sighed.

“I shouldn’t have to ask permission to help someone.”

A cousin stared into his wineglass.

Someone quietly put down a fork.

Nobody defended me.

Vivian withdrew her hand.

“I can see why Luca said you were difficult about change.”

Something inside me went cold.

“What else has he told you?”

“Rose,” Luca warned.

I looked around the table.

For six years, I’d prepared Sunday dinners, welcomed relatives who treated me like an outsider, and waited awake when Luca disappeared for days.

I’d learned to accept his silences.

But I couldn’t accept being replaced while everyone watched.

“You can call her a guest,” I said, “but don’t insult me by pretending I don’t understand why she’s here.”

Vivian’s smile sharpened.

“Maybe if you’d made Luca happier, he wouldn’t need so much understanding elsewhere.”

Luca didn’t correct her.

That hurt more than the words themselves.

Then a quiet voice came from the far end of the table.

“Vivian.”

Nonna Adelaide Moretti, eighty-five, slowly placed her napkin beside her plate.

“Take your hand off my grandson.”

Vivian immediately withdrew it.

“Nonna, I didn’t mean—”

“Do not call me that.”

The room went silent.

Adelaide rose carefully, leaning against the table.

“Luca, when did you become a man who invites his mistress to dinner and expects his wife to thank her?”

“Grandmother, please.”

“No. You may frighten half of Chicago, but you will not frighten me.”

She turned toward Vivian.

“Last October, when Luca disappeared for eleven days, who kept this family together?”

Vivian said nothing.

“Who visited his father every morning? Who paid the household employees when Luca’s accounts were frozen?”

I felt my throat tighten.

Adelaide looked at me.

“Rose did.”

Luca lowered his eyes.

“And who sold the little flower shop her mother left her because this family needed money?”

I hadn’t expected her to mention that.

Nobody at the table knew.

I’d told everyone I closed the shop because I was tired.

Adelaide continued.

“She gave up the only thing that belonged entirely to her. And tonight, you’re offering her mother’s bedroom to another woman.”

Vivian’s face flushed.

“I didn’t know that.”

“Then perhaps you should have learned something about the woman whose life you’re trying to take.”

Luca stood.

“That’s enough.”

Adelaide faced him.

“No, boy. You have confused your wife’s patience with permission.”

For the first time, his confidence disappeared.

She reached for my hand.

“Rose, this house has been warmer since you entered it. You are not leaving your place to make his betrayal comfortable.”

Vivian pushed her chair back.

“This is humiliating!”

Adelaide nodded.

“Now imagine having twenty-three people watch it happen.”

Luca finally looked at Vivian.

“You should go.”

She stared at him.

“You promised me Monday.”

“Leave.”

Vivian grabbed her purse.

But I couldn’t celebrate.

He had allowed her to insult me until his grandmother intervened.

I looked at my husband.

“You didn’t defend me because you loved me. You defended me because someone finally made you ashamed.”

He said nothing.

At the doorway, Vivian suddenly turned.

“Rose, before you decide whether to forgive him, ask Luca why he needed you to close your mother’s flower shop.”

I froze.

“What?”

Luca’s face went pale.

Adelaide slowly released my hand.

Vivian looked directly at me.

“Did he really tell you the family was out of money?”

Then she turned toward Luca.

“Or should I tell your wife what you actually bought with hers?”

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