Chapter Three (Vivian)

After last night's headlines, Dante was on his best behavior. He walked into the conference room at ten on the dot.

When the meeting ended, we walked to the head of the family's office, one behind the other.

The moment the door opened, someone threw herself into Dante's arms.

It was Bella. Her eyes were swollen from crying. She clutched his shirt, her voice shaking badly.

"Dante, I'm pregnant... I really don't know what to do..."

Dante turned to look at me. The shock in my eyes was probably the same as his.

He took the test result from Bella's hand, glanced at it, and his face darkened.

Bella sniffled beside him. "If you don't want it, I... I can get rid of it..."

"Have it."

Dante pulled her into his arms without a second's hesitation. "Move into the estate. I'll have someone look after you."

"But..." Bella darted a timid glance at me. "Wouldn't that be awkward?"

"Don't worry about her." Dante gave me a cold look. "Vivian can't have kids anyway. The Moretti line can't just end."

My hand went to my stomach without thinking. Then I curled it into a fist.

He noticed, and disgust rose in his eyes.

"What, you're upset I said you can't have kids?" He scoffed. "In five years, how many times have you even let me touch you?"

In five years of marriage, I had never once stopped taking the pill. He had probably always assumed something was wrong with me.

I said nothing.

Dante took Bella's hand, laced his fingers through hers, and walked past me out of the room.

Everyone in the hallway was looking at me. I couldn't tell whether it was pity or entertainment in their eyes.

I pretended not to notice.

My phone screen lit up. It was a friend of mine, a lawyer in Manhattan: The divorce agreement is in your inbox.

Dante always got things done quickly.

When I got back to the estate that evening, Bella's suitcases had taken over half the living room.

"Bella's getting the master bedroom. You're moving to a guest room."

Dante followed me upstairs. The bedroom door was open. My comforter, my pillows, my clothes had all been thrown on the floor.

I didn't make a scene.

I crouched down, folded my clothes one by one, and carried my comforter to the guest room.

"Vivian, you're awfully generous." Dante blocked the doorway, his jaw tight. "You'll just give it up, like that?"

He held my gaze, and his voice suddenly dropped.

"If you cried a little, if you begged me, maybe I wouldn't keep this baby."

I pushed him out the door and gave him a faint smile.

"Congratulations. You're going to be a father."

He slammed the door so hard the whole wall shook.

And then the enormous estate went as quiet as a tomb.

Early the next morning, Dante called an emergency family meeting.

Both sides of the long table were filled with Moretti capos and company directors. Dante sat at the head and announced two things.

First, twenty percent of the Moretti Group's shares would be transferred into the names of Bella and her unborn child.

Second, he moved to remove me from the board and strip me of all my authority.

"Vivian." He leaned back in his chair, his eyes as sharp as a knife. "The Moretti family's name is Moretti. You're an outsider. You never should have touched it in the first place."

Several of the old men immediately chimed in.

"Ma'am, you've held this seat long enough. It's time to step aside."

"The boss can stand on his own now. Go home and enjoy yourself, ma'am."

"Why should a Ware run the Moretti family's business?"

Everyone was waiting to see how I would hit back.

I only nodded.

I hadn't planned on keeping that seat anyway.

"I'm out." I looked at Dante and couldn't help adding one more thing. "But about the shares, I'd advise you to think it over very carefully."

"Jealous?" Dante sneered. "Vivian, all you ever see is money and power."

"Go home and rest. Stay away from the office for a while."

I looked at him and suddenly found it a little funny.

Every move he was using against me, I had taught him myself.

That night, as the new head of the family with real power in his hands, Dante threw a dinner at a private club on Fifth Avenue.

He walked in holding Bella's hand and left me standing alone in a corner.

The wives who usually fell over themselves to greet me now stood holding their champagne and whispering behind my back, laughing at me for not knowing my place.

I ignored them. I kept my head down and drank one glass after another.

Bella came over with a few other girls and surrounded me, studying me like a broken antique.

"Honey, you're so pathetic," she drawled. "It's bad enough you can't keep your man. Now you don't even have any power."

I didn't want to get into it with her. I stood up to go around them.

In the jostling, the necklace at my throat snapped and fell to the floor.

Lucian had given it to me. A fine platinum chain with one tiny diamond. In all those years, I had never once taken it off.

I crouched down in a panic, searching for it. Laughter erupted all around me.

At last, my fingertips touched the cold diamond.

The next second, a red-soled heel came down on it hard.

The pendant cracked in two, the chain broke into pieces, and tiny chips of diamond scattered across the floor.

"Down on your knees over a cheap necklace. You're embarrassing Dante."

Bella bent down and leaned close to my ear, her voice so soft only I could hear:

"An old woman like you doesn't deserve him."

I stood up and slapped her across the face.

Her eyes went wide, as if she couldn't believe it.

I flexed my wrist and backhanded her again.

Bella's shrill scream echoed through the whole banquet hall.

Dante rushed over and caught her. Bella clutched her stomach and fell against him, her face white.

"Dante... my stomach... it hurts..."

"Vivian, have you lost your mind?"

Dante hauled me up and closed his hand around my throat.

"If anything happens to that baby, I will never let you off!"

He threw me aside.

My stomach slammed into the corner of a table.

For an instant, the pain was so bad I couldn't make a sound. I curled up on the floor. Something warm rushed out of me, ran down my legs, and quickly soaked through the hem of my dress.

I knew what it was.

I had already decided not to keep this baby. But when it was actually slipping out of my body, little by little, I found out how much it would hurt.

I reached out with a shaking hand. My palm was covered in blood, and I was still clutching the broken diamond.

"Dante..." I called his name hoarsely. "Dante..."

But he carried Bella and ran right past me.

The doors of the banquet hall opened in front of me, then closed again.

Not once, from beginning to end, did he look back.

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