Chapter 2 - The Cold Truth
The silence in the kitchen did not just linger; it suffocated.
Isabella didn’t move. Her spine stayed rigid, her chin tilted at that practiced, aristocratic angle she used whenever she felt challenged by someone she considered beneath her. But beneath that polished veneer, the cracks were already forming. Her knuckles were white where her hand rested on the edge of the breakfast table, and the smooth, effortless color had drained entirely from her cheeks.
“Luca,” she started, her voice dropping into that sweet, melodic cadence she used when speaking to high-society donors and board members. “She is a child. Sofia is tired, and she repeats things she doesn’t understand. You know how active her imagination is.”
Luca did not blink. He didn’t turn around to look at Sofia, and he didn’t break eye contact with Isabella.
“Sofia doesn’t lie,” Luca said. The words were flat, heavy, and lethal. “She never has. Especially not about fear.”
“I didn’t say she was lying! I said she was mistaken!” Isabella’s voice climbed half an octave, losing its rehearsed composure. She stood up quickly, her chair scraping sharply against the hand-cut Italian floor tiles. The sound was like nails on slate. “Emma dropped a basket of laundry. She startled herself. The heavy fire door in the corridor drifted shut on its own draft. I happened to be standing on the stairs. I came down to see what the noise was. That is all. Sofia saw me near the door and assumed the worst.”
I stood frozen against the marble counter, my throbbing hand pulled tightly against my ribs. Every beat of my heart sent a sickening wave of heat pulsing through my crushed knuckles. The pain was nauseating, making the edges of the room blur slightly, but fear kept my head upright. I knew Isabella’s family. I knew the power the Rossi name carried in this city. A single word from her father could ruin someone like me—erase my references, cancel my mother’s care facility payments, wipe out any chance I had of ever working in an honest household again.
Sofia took a timid step forward, her tiny fingers clutching the worn ear of her stuffed rabbit. “The door didn’t drift, Daddy. Miss Isabella pushed it. Hard. Emma cried.”
Isabella swung around, her glare sharp enough to cut. “Sofia, that is enough—”
“Isabella.”
Luca said her name once. He didn’t shout. He didn’t raise his voice by even a decibel. But the sheer, predatory gravity in his tone made the entire room drop ten degrees. Isabella stopped mid-breath. Her mouth stayed slightly open, her chest rising and falling in shallow, indignant heaves.
Luca slowly turned his back on his fiancée. He walked toward Sofia, sinking down onto one knee so he was level with her wide, frightened eyes. The change in his posture was staggering. The man who terrified the city’s corporate elite reached out with rough, calloused hands, gently tucking a stray lock of dark hair behind his daughter’s ear.
“Go upstairs to your room, sweetheart,” Luca said softly. “Mrs. Gable is in the library. Ask her to read you the story about the sea captain. I will come tuck you in shortly.”
Sofia looked at him, then shifted her gaze toward me. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Is Emma going to be okay?”
“Emma is going to the hospital,” Luca answered quietly. “I am taking her myself.”
My breath hitched. “Mr. Moretti, no—I can take a cab. You don’t need to—”
Luca rose to his full height. He stood well over six feet, broad-shouldered and imposing, his presence filling the vast, vaulted kitchen. When his dark eyes settled on me, any protest I was preparing died in my throat.
“You are not taking a cab,” he stated. It wasn’t an offer. It was a command issued from a man who did not expect to be contradicted twice.
Behind him, Isabella made a sound of utter disbelief. “You’re taking the maid to the hospital? Have you lost your mind, Luca? We have the charity foundation dinner in three hours! The car is scheduled to pick us up at seven! My father is hosting the opening remarks!”
Luca didn’t look at her. He walked over to the hook by the pantry, pulled down his dark wool coat, and draped it over his arm. Then he stepped into my personal space. The scent of him—cedarwood, faint tobacco, and cold evening air—hit me immediately.
He reached down and gently took my left wrist—the uninjured one. His grip was firm, grounding, yet careful not to jostle the damaged hand I cradled against my chest.
“Walk,” he said quietly to me.
“Luca! Don’t you dare walk out of this house with her!” Isabella shrieked, the mask completely shattering now. Her voice echoed off the high plaster ceilings, shrill and desperate. “If you leave me here for a servant, my father will hear about this before you reach the front gates!”
Luca stopped at the arched kitchen exit. He paused, not turning around, but tilting his head just enough for Isabella to see the sharp, unforgiving line of his profile.
“Tell your father whatever you like,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “And when you speak to him, tell him to start looking for another firm to underwrite his port expansion. Because our engagement is officially under review.”
Isabella gasped as if she had been slapped. The air went out of her lungs in a choked rattle.
Luca didn’t wait for another word. His fingers tightened gently around my wrist, guiding me through the long, quiet corridors of the Moretti manor, leaving the sound of Isabella’s choked fury far behind in the shadows.
***
The sleek black SUV glided through the iron estate gates and out into the rain-slicked city streets.
The silence inside the vehicle was thick, broken only by the steady rhythm of the windshield wipers and the low purr of the engine. Luca drove with one hand on the steering wheel, his jaw set like stone, staring out into the dark, wet pavement ahead.
I sat in the passenger seat, trying desperately not to let him hear my breathing. Every bump in the road sent a jolt of fire through my hand. I had wrapped a clean dish towel around the bandages before leaving the kitchen, but a fresh bloom of dark crimson was already soaking through the terrycloth.
“Why didn’t you scream louder?” Luca asked suddenly.
I jumped slightly, the sound of his voice cutting through the hum of the tires. “What?”
“When she shut the door on you.” He glanced at me sideways, his gaze heavy and analytical. “The laundry room is in the north basement. But Sofia heard you. Which means you cried out, but you didn’t keep screaming. You didn’t call for help. Why?”
I looked down at my lap, watching the red stain spread across the white cloth. “Because I know who she is, Mr. Moretti.”
“She is my fiancée,” he replied coldly. “She is not God.”
“She’s a Rossi,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “And I’m just the girl who manages your kitchen and watches your daughter when the nannies quit. If I accuse her, nobody believes me. If I fight her, I lose my job. If I lose my job, my mother gets evicted from her assisted living home by the end of the month.”
Luca didn’t answer right away. His knuckles tightened on the leather steering wheel until the skin stretched taut over his tattoos.
“You think I would let someone hurt you under my roof and throw you out on the street?” he asked, a dangerous edge in his voice.
“I didn’t know,” I confessed honestly, turning my face toward the rainy window. “Men like you… you protect your family. You protect your alliances. Isabella is part of your world. I’m not.”
Luca pulled the vehicle up to the private emergency entrance of St. Jude’s Medical Center. He shifted into park, turned off the ignition, and unbuckled his seatbelt. Before he opened his door, he reached across the console, his fingers brushing against the side of my chin, forcing me gently to turn my head and look at him.
His eyes were intensely dark, carrying an ancient, unresolved darkness that went far deeper than a broken door or a failed marriage contract.
“Listen to me, Emma,” he said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, intimate register that made my skin prickle. “No one hurts someone under my protection. Not a rival. Not a business partner. And certainly not the woman wearing my ring.”
May you like
He pulled his hand away and stepped out into the rain. Before I could process what he had said—or the heat that had flared in my chest when his skin touched mine—he was opening my passenger door, lifting me effortlessly from the seat, and carrying me straight into the glaring white lights of the hospital.
***
