Chapter 9 - THE RECIPE FOR FAMILY
Six months later, the winter snow had finally melted off the iron gates of the Moretti mansion, replaced by the bright green buds of late April along Astor Street.
And down in the big sunny kitchen, there was flour on the floor again.
“Claire, look!” Lily called out from her wooden stool beside the marble island. “It didn't lean sideways this time!”
I wiped my hands on a linen dish towel and walked over from the stove to inspect the two-layer lemon sour cream cake cooling on the wire rack.
Wait—I wasn't wearing a black uniform apron anymore.
Two weeks after the federal indictment of Judge Arthur Bellini, Vanessa, and Matteo made the front page of the Chicago Tribune, Luca had called me into the library.
He hadn't offered me hush money or a bonus.
Instead, he had handed me the deed to my mother’s house on the South Side—marked PAID IN FULL, with a brand-new furnace already installed in the basement—and a folder from St. Jude’s Hospital showing the newly endowed Hannah Miller Memorial Pediatric Wing, funded entirely by the Moretti Foundation so that no child’s medical record could ever be buried or altered again.
When I had tried to cry and thank him, Luca had simply slid Sarah’s burgundy medical journal across the desk and asked me if I would take over as the full-time estate manager and Lily’s governess—at triple my old salary—so Lily would never have to come home to a house without someone who truly loved her.
Now, standing in the warm April sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows, I smiled down at the eleven-year-old girl holding a piping bag of yellow buttercream.
“Your mother would be very proud of those corners, sweetheart,” I said, kissing the top of her head where a smudge of powdered sugar sat in her dark hair. “Wait until your dad gets back from the harbor office.”
“I’m already back,” a deep, familiar voice said from the doorway.
We both turned around.
Luca stood in the entrance of the kitchen, wearing a charcoal-gray suit without a tie, the top button of his white shirt undone.
He looked ten years younger than the haunted, stone-faced man who had sat at the engagement table six months ago.
The shadows under his dark eyes were gone, and when he looked at Lily—and then across the counter at me—a genuine, warm smile touched the corners of his mouth.
Behind him, Marco carried in a large, flat crate wrapped in brown paper and set it carefully on the breakfast table before stepping out with a polite nod.
“What’s that, Daddy?” Lily asked, hopping down from her stool and wiping her frosting-covered fingers on a napkin.
“Something I had restored at a woodworker’s shop in Evanston,” Luca said, walking over and lifting the brown paper off the crate.
First, resting on top of the package, was the oak recipe box.
The splintered brass hinges and the broken lock that Vanessa had pried apart had been painstakingly repaired with gleaming new brass hardware, and the wood had been polished with lemon oil until the grain glowed like honey.
Inside, taped neatly inside a protective plastic sleeve at the very front of the box, was the torn index card for LEMON SOUR CREAM CAKE — LUCA’S FAVORITE.
“My box!” Lily beamed, running her fingers over the smooth brass latch. “Wait—what’s underneath it?”
Luca lifted out a heavy gold frame and held it up.
Inside the frame were two photographs mounted side by side on cream velvet matting.
On the left was a beautiful portrait of Sarah smiling in the rose garden when Lily was five years old.
And on the right was the photograph from my wallet—the one of my sister Hannah and me laughing in the sunshine on Navy Pier with our waffle cones.
Beneath both pictures, engraved on a small brass plaque at the bottom of the frame, were the words:
THE WOMEN WHO KEPT US SAFE.
My breath caught in my throat, and a hot tear spilled down my cheek before I could brush it away.
For five years, I had carried my sister’s memory around like a secret bruise in a city that had forgotten her name.
Now, Luca Moretti had placed her right beside his wife in the heart of his home.
“Daddy helped me pick the frame,” Lily said softly, walking over and slipping her small hand into mine. “Because if Aunt Hannah hadn't helped Mommy, I wouldn't be here. And if you hadn't brought my cake upstairs, Vanessa would have thrown Mommy’s box in the trash.”
Luca walked around the marble island and stopped right in front of me.
He reached out and gently wiped the tear from my cheek with his thumb, his hand lingering warm against my jaw.
Over the past six months, through long evenings of helping Lily with her fourth-grade fractions in the library and drinking late-night coffee together at this very kitchen counter while the snow fell outside, the line between boss and governess had quietly, unmistakably blurred into something much deeper.
“I think Lily forgot to mention the second part of why she’s making her mother’s cake today,” Luca said softly, his dark eyes holding mine.
I blinked up at him, my heart doing a sudden, nervous flutter in my chest. “I thought we were celebrating Lily getting an A on her history project.”
Lily giggled and covered her mouth with both hands.
“Tell her, Lily,” Luca said, never taking his eyes off my face.
“Mommy’s card says you only make the lemon sour cream cake when something really good happens in the family,” Lily said, bouncing on her toes. “And Daddy said today is a really good day because he’s finally brave enough to ask you to go to dinner with him tonight—as a real date, not for work!”
My cheeks turned bright pink as I looked from Lily’s grinning face back up to Luca, one of the most feared and powerful men in Chicago, who suddenly looked almost boyishly nervous waiting for my answer.
“A date, Mr. Moretti?” I teased softly, my heart fuller than it had been in years. “Aren't you worried about what Chicago society will say if you take the girl from the kitchen to an expensive restaurant?”
Luca’s hand slid down to take mine, his fingers lacing firmly through mine right over the flour-dusted marble counter.
“I stopped caring what Chicago society thinks the night a very brave woman walked into my dining room with a crooked lemon cake,” Luca said quietly. “And besides—after dinner, we’re coming straight back here for dessert.”
Lily cheered and grabbed the yellow piping bag again.
“Wait!” she said, leaning carefully over the smooth white frosting on top of the cake. “I have to change the writing on this one so everyone gets a piece!”
Luca kept his arm around my waist, pulling me gently against his side as we both leaned in to watch his daughter squeeze the shaky yellow icing across the top of the cake.
This time, the cake wasn't crooked at all.
May you like
And written across the top, in bright, sunny letters that filled the whole circle, were four new words:
FOR DADDY AND CLAIRE.
