Chapter 2 - THE GROOM IN THE DINING ROOM
The silence that fell over the grand foyer of the Moretti mansion was heavier than stone. Forty of Chicago’s wealthiest, most dangerous guests froze with crystal champagne flutes halfway to their mouths.
I stood between Vanessa Bellini’s eighty-thousand-dollar silk train and Luca Moretti’s broad, black-suited shoulders, my uniform apron still twisted where Vanessa had tried to rip it off me.
Across the room, standing beside the ice sculpture, the man who had just slipped his gold wedding band into his tuxedo pocket didn't run.
Instead, he set his glass down on a silver tray and smiled.
"Marco," Luca said. His voice wasn't loud. It never needed to be. "Come here."
My breath caught in my throat. Marco.
Everyone in the house knew the name Marco Santoro. He wasn't just a guest. He was Luca’s cousin, his chief financial advisor, and the man who managed the legitimate shipping port that kept the Moretti family empire clean in the eyes of the federal government.
Seven months ago, during my first week cleaning the upstairs hallways, Mrs. Gable, the head housekeeper, had warned me: Mr. Moretti is the storm, Sophie, but Mr. Santoro is the ledger. Never touch anything on either of their desks.
Now Marco walked across the marble floor, his hands tucked calmly into his pockets. Up close, I saw the small crescent scar beneath his left jawline—the exact same scar I had noticed fourteen months ago at the Lake Geneva Inn outside Milwaukee, when he had kissed his bride’s knuckles at the altar and whispered that they were finally free.
"Luca," Marco said smoothly, stopping six feet away. "Your maid has had a long evening. Perhaps the heat from the kitchen is getting to her."
Vanessa let out a sharp, trembling breath. "Yes. Thank you, Marco. She’s clearly confused—or trying to extort us because I caught her mishandling my gown."
Luca didn't look at Vanessa. He kept his dark eyes fixed on his cousin’s right hand—the hand buried deep inside his tuxedo pocket.
"Take your hand out of your pocket, Marco," Luca said.
"Luca, forty people are watching," Marco replied quietly, a muscle twitching in his cheek. "Let’s not turn your rehearsal dinner into a circus because a girl who scrubs floors wants five minutes of attention."
"She didn't ask for attention," Luca said, stepping closer to Marco. "She pointed out two blue stitches inside a sleeve before Vanessa even lifted her arm. Stitches she put there fourteen months ago in Wisconsin."
I swallowed hard, my fingers curling into the cotton of my skirt. "At the Lake Geneva Inn, sir. In the cedar chapel by the water. It was raining that afternoon. The hem was soaked with mud before the ceremony even started, and the bride’s mother wasn't there, so I held her train until the music began."
Vanessa’s face went paper-white.
Luca’s jaw hardened. "Was it raining, Vanessa?"
"Stop listening to her!" Vanessa’s voice cracked, losing all its polished socialite warmth. "She’s a nobody! Somebody obviously paid her to ruin tomorrow!"
"Who would pay her?" Luca asked softly. "And how would they know about two threads sewn inside the lining of a dress that stayed in your locked suite?"
Marco exhaled slowly. When he pulled his hand out of his pocket, his fingers were empty. He had left the ring inside the lining of his jacket.
"Alright," Marco said, his voice dropping an octave so the guests behind him couldn't hear. "Enough. Let’s go into the study."
"We'll stay right here," Luca said.
"No, Luca," Marco said, and for the first time, his polite mask slipped, revealing something cold and desperate underneath. "You want to go into the study. Because if this girl keeps talking in front of the commission families, you're going to lose a lot more than a wedding tomorrow."
Luca stared at his cousin for three long seconds. Then he turned slightly toward the crowd.
"Enjoy the dinner," Luca announced to the room, his tone effortlessly commanding. "Give us ten minutes."
Within seconds, the head butler signaled the quartet to play, and the guests hurriedly turned back to the dining room, though their whispers buzzed like hornets.
Luca looked down at me. "Come with me, Sophie."
"You're bringing the maid?" Vanessa hissed.
"She's the only person in this hallway who hasn't lied to me tonight," Luca said.
He led the three of us down the mahogany-paneled corridor into his private study and locked the heavy double doors behind us. The room smelled of cedarwood, espresso, and old leather.
As soon as the lock clicked, Vanessa spun on Marco. "You idiot! Why did you take the ring off in front of her? I told you to leave it in the car!"
Luca stopped dead in the center of the rug.
He didn't yell. He didn't reach for a weapon. He simply looked at the woman who was supposed to become his wife in fourteen hours, and then at the cousin he had trusted since they were boys.
"So it's true," Luca said quietly.
"It was an annulment," Vanessa said quickly, tears springing to her eyes as she reached for Luca’s sleeve. He stepped back, out of her reach. "Luca, listen to me. Marco and I eloped in Wisconsin fourteen months ago. It lasted three weeks! We realized immediately that we were terrible together. We had it annulled quietly so my father wouldn't find out."
"And nine months later," Luca said, each word sharp enough to draw blood, "Marco brought you to my charity gala and introduced you as the daughter of an old shipping partner from Boston. Neither of you thought to mention you had stood at an altar together?"
"You never would have looked at me if you knew I'd been with your cousin!" Vanessa cried. "And by then, I was already falling in love with you!"
I stood near the bookshelf, trying to make myself invisible. Everything Vanessa was saying sounded raw, frantic, and almost believable. If I hadn't been at that hotel in Wisconsin, I might have believed her myself.
Except there was one problem.
A problem that made my stomach twist with cold dread.
"Sophie," Luca said, noticing my face in the reflection of the glass cabinet. "Why are you shaking your head?"
Vanessa glared at me. "Stay out of this! You’ve done enough!"
"Speak," Luca ordered me.
I looked from Vanessa’s tear-streaked face to Marco’s rigid posture. "Ma'am... when you tore the zipper at the hotel in Wisconsin, I had to unlace the corset back completely to fix the track."
"So what?" Vanessa snapped.
"Why were you wearing the exact same wedding gown to marry my cousin after using it to marry me?" Luca asked suddenly, his eyes narrowing as the logic hit him. "No woman wears the gown from her failed marriage to marry another man—especially not when I gave you a blank check for a new one."
Vanessa opened her mouth, stammering. "I—I loved the lace, Luca, it was sentimental—"
"No," I whispered, my voice steady despite the pounding in my chest. "That's not why I'm shaking my head, Mr. Moretti."
Both men looked at me.
"When I unlaced that dress fourteen months ago," I said, looking straight at Vanessa, "the woman wearing it had a six-inch surgical scar across her right shoulder blade. And she was four months pregnant."
The silence in the study became suffocating.
"Last week, when I brought fresh towels to your dressing room, Miss Bellini," I continued quietly, "your back was bare. You don't have a scar on your right shoulder."
Luca’s eyes widened fractionally. He turned slowly toward Vanessa.
"Then I looked closer at you tonight," I said, my throat dry. "Same cheekbones. Same eyes. Same voice. Almost identical."
I looked at Marco, whose face had gone the color of ash.
"You didn't marry Marco Santoro in that dress, Miss Bellini," I whispered. "Another woman did. A woman who looked just like you. And she was carrying his child."
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Luca stepped toward Vanessa, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.
"Where is your twin sister, Vanessa? And why are you wearing her wedding dress?"
