Chapter 1

Every time Don Vincent Moretti brought a young woman back to the estate, he handed me a plane ticket.

"Go have some fun for a few days, Eva. Clear your head." He set the ticket down in front of me. "By the time you're back, she'll be gone."

There was a time when I would have ripped the ticket to shreds right in front of him, crying, demanding to know why he had to humiliate me like this.

I'd thrown things. I'd run away. I'd begged him in a whisper not to bring other women into the home we shared.

All it ever got me was punishment, each time worse than the last.

The worst was when he froze my mother's medical account at the Moretti private hospital and forced me to bow my head and apologize to that woman in the hospital corridor.

This time, he pushed another ticket across the table.

"Wherever you want to go. Fill it in yourself."

I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene. I picked up the pen and wrote, calmly: Port Haven.

The place where we'd met. Where we'd fallen in love.

Vincent glanced at it and smiled with satisfaction. "See? If you'd been this cooperative from the start, things would've been so much easier."

I tucked the ticket away and smiled back at him.

He thought I'd finally learned to compromise. What he didn't know was that I had already signed the agreement to leave him.

This time, I was going to Port Haven to bury every memory of loving him—one by one.

And then I was going to leave him forever.

The next morning, I went to the office as usual.

Three days until I left New York.

Vincent drove. Chloe Lane sat in the passenger seat. I sat in the back.

This car—I'd been with him when he picked it out. He'd held my hand and adjusted the passenger seat to exactly where I was most comfortable.

"This seat is yours from now on," he'd said. "No one else is allowed to sit here."

Later, more and more women sat in that seat. And I went from breaking down and demanding answers to quietly opening the rear door myself.

At a red light, Chloe suddenly turned around. "Eva, did you get the ticket Boss gave you last night?"

"All taken care of."

Vincent glanced at me through the rearview mirror. "She's actually being reasonable for once. Don't provoke her."

His tone wasn't exactly warm, but there was a trace of protectiveness I hadn't heard in a long time. My heart still clenched, traitorously.

Before, all he had to do was lean even slightly in my direction, and I could feed on that sliver of sweetness long enough to forget all the pain that came before.

Chloe pressed her lips together. "I was just worried about Eva. She's going to Port Haven all by herself. I'd hate for anything to happen on the way."

"She's not a child." Vincent paused, then looked at the mirror again. "Text me when you land."

I didn't answer.

He frowned. "Did you hear me?"

"I heard you."

"And don't stay too long. The group has a new project next month. We'll need the manpower."

He said it as though it were the most natural thing in the world—as though I would simply be gone a few days, come back, keep working for Moretti Holdings, keep cleaning up Chloe's messes, keep living in that estate where there was no place for me.

Chloe laughed softly. "Boss, you're so reluctant to let Eva go. Why don't you just go with her?"

Vincent's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "I don't have time."

He paused, then added, "She knows that."

Yes. I knew.

I knew his meetings mattered more than my birthday. His clients mattered more than my illness. A single phone call from Chloe would always matter more than me.

Two years ago, I'd had a fever of a hundred and two and called him to take me to the hospital. He said he was in a meeting and told me to stop making a fuss.

I sat alone in the infusion room until midnight. When I got home, I found him carrying Chloe out of the car because her stomach hurt. He saw the bandage on the back of my hand and all he said was, "What were you doing at the hospital now?"

But if Chloe so much as furrowed her brow, he'd cook porridge himself and sit by her bedside.

The car pulled up in front of Moretti Holdings.

Chloe unbuckled her seatbelt. Vincent casually plucked a strand of hair caught on the belt for her.

The gesture was practiced and effortless.

I looked away, pushed open the door, and got out.

Behind me, voices drifted over in low murmurs.

"Why is she riding with Don Moretti again?"

"She's obviously hitching a ride on purpose, trying to make people think they're together."

"Chloe has the patience of a saint. If it were me, I'd have kicked that woman out ages ago."

Vincent clearly heard them. His steps faltered for just a moment.

I stopped too, watching his back.

All he had to do was say one sentence—that I was his wife—and every whisper would vanish.

But in the end, he only gave me a cold glance. "It's work hours. Don't stand around the entrance drawing attention."

I suddenly remembered seven years ago, the first time he'd held my hand as we walked down the old streets of Port Haven. When someone stared at me a beat too long, he'd pulled me into his arms immediately.

"What are you looking at?" he'd said, proud and loud. "This is my girlfriend."

Now, after seven years by his side, I had become the person who couldn't be seen in the light.

I walked into the office and spotted a printed sheet of paper taped to my desk.

It read:

"Homewrecker. Get out."