Chapter 2

"Fine. As long as it makes the two of you happy."

My mother-in-law, who'd been coiled tight with fury a moment ago, suddenly broke into a light, breezy smile. She twisted the heavy ring on her right hand, one slow rotation, the way she always did when the numbers were falling in her favor.

"Adriana Rossi, I told you I'm never wrong about people!"

"Once Gemma has the baby, we'll let you raise it! Consider it a reward for being so generous!"

It took me a long moment to catch up. Gemma was pregnant.

I hurried to open the message on my phone.

After I lost the baby, Lorenzo had sent me word telling me to take a good, long look at exactly what kind of animal Salvatore really was.

At the time the child was slipping out of me, and given which side of the blood Lorenzo stood on, I'd assumed he was only trying to drive a wedge between us. I hadn't even opened the attachment.

Now, with trembling hands, I opened it.

It was a ledger. Every hotel Gemma had charged to the Family's laundered accounts over the past year, courier's expenses signed off without a blink.

More than half of those dates lined up exactly with Salvatore's business trips out of the city.

So while I bled through every ordeal just so Salvatore could have an heir to hand the throne, he'd been keeping his courier warm behind my back the whole time.

Only, was the child in Gemma's belly really Salvatore's?

The doctor had told me plainly. Salvatore's chance of putting a child in a woman naturally was zero. In this world, that single fact could unmake a bloodline's claim to everything.

The thought pulled a scornful laugh out of me before I could stop it.

But Regina took it for me forcing down my grief and putting on a brave face.

She caught my hand and gentled her voice.

"Adriana, I know this is hard to swallow right now. For Salvatore's sake, just bear it a little longer. Once he's confirmed successor and the Commission ratifies him as heir to the Falcone throne, you can deal with Gemma however you like."

"You know I hate a kept woman more than anything. But circumstances change..."

She and Salvatore really were mother and son.

Once, Salvatore had told me the man he despised most in this world was the kind who cheated.

He'd sworn to me he would never become the man his father was.

And what came of that?

Now he was doing exactly what the old Don had done, letting the kept woman carry the first child.

And Regina Falcone, the very woman who'd once swallowed all that pain and humiliation herself, was sitting here telling me to just bear it.

She was welcome to play the endless martyr. I couldn't stand another second of it.

Once she'd gone, I got the Counselor on the phone.

"Redraw the terms. I want him walking away from this union with nothing."

When Salvatore came back, Gemma was trailing at his heel.

She wore his suit jacket around her shoulders, her face flushed and rosy, not looking the least bit like a woman who'd been caught in the rain.

Salvatore steered her to stand in front of me and spoke, all contrition.

"Adriana, Mom told me you're happy that Gemma and I are having the baby. Happy enough that even your illness lifted on its own. If I'd known, I'd never have kept it from you!"

But there wasn't a trace of a cheater's guilt anywhere on his face.

It made me sick enough to gag.

At once he softened into concern.

"Adriana, if you're not feeling well, don't push yourself..."

I put the terms of my release straight into his hand.

"Sign this, and I'll be completely cured."

He glanced down at the pages, and his eyes filled with shock. His fingers went to his tie, straightening a knot that was already straight.

"Repudiate the union?"

"I won't agree to it..."

Before he could finish, Gemma sneezed.

His brows knit together in an instant, and his tone toward me turned flat with impatience.

"Gemma got caught in the rain at the club because of you today. She nearly lost the baby."

"If you've got any conscience left in you, don't make a scene at a time like this."

When I went down and lost our child, when the blood soaked my white dress red to the hem, he'd stood over Gemma and called it an accident and told me to be generous.

Now Gemma sneezes once, and I'm the one guilty of some crime beyond forgiving.

Love, and the absence of it, laid itself bare in that single moment.

But some stubborn thing in me made me hold his eyes and ask the question I knew would only humiliate me.

"Salvatore, our baby is gone. Aren't you really, truly not sad at all?"

He paused for a second, his voice dripping with impatience.

"I already told you it was an accident. Why do you keep dragging it up?"