Chapter 2 - The Three Questions
The next morning, Dominic woke up furious.
Not because I had left.
Because I had left quietly.
There had been no screaming.
No broken glass.
No desperate accusations.
No scene.
He hated scenes he couldn't control.
At nine in the morning, my phone had thirty-two missed calls.
By ten, there were six messages.
By eleven, Dominic himself appeared outside the townhouse.
I watched him through the curtains.
He stood alone.
No bodyguards.
No driver.
No cigarette.
That caught my attention.
Dominic never came anywhere alone.
I opened the door.
He looked at me for a long moment.
“You really did it.”
“Yes.”
“You moved out.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“I told you.”
“You said you were leaving.”
“I did.”
His jaw tightened.
“You know that's not what I mean.”
I leaned against the doorway.
“Then tell me what you mean.”
He looked irritated.
Then strangely uncertain.
“You don't get to disappear from my life because you're angry.”
I almost smiled.
“I'm not angry.”
“That makes it worse.”
I said nothing.
He stepped forward.
I stepped back.
“Don't.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Don't what?”
“Come inside.”
For seven years, that house would have been his automatically.
Now he had to ask permission.
The change seemed to hit him harder than any insult could have.
He stared at me.
“Who is he?”
I frowned.
“What?”
“The man you're seeing.”
I almost laughed.
“You think there's another man?”
“You stopped answering your phone.”
“Because I didn't want to talk to you.”
“You've never done that.”
“Then perhaps you should ask yourself why.”
He looked away.
For a moment, I thought I saw something behind his anger.
Fear.
Then it disappeared.
“Come back.”
“No.”
“You don't know what you're doing.”
“I do.”
“You'll regret this.”
“I already regret seven years.”
He flinched.
I closed the door.
That evening, I returned to the questions.
They had started on our first anniversary.
A beautiful woman named Elise had sent Dominic a diamond bracelet.
She believed she was going to become his wife.
She came directly to me.
She told me Dominic had promised her a future.
I didn't fight her.
Instead, I invited her to lunch.
Then I asked three questions.
What does Dominic do when he cannot sleep?
What is the one thing he refuses to forgive?
And what did he say to me the first time he proposed?
Elise answered confidently.
She was wrong every time.
She laughed at the questions.
I told her to ask Dominic herself.
Three months later, she disappeared from his life.
The next woman answered one correctly.
She lasted six months.
Another knew his habits.
She lasted four weeks.
Another knew his favorite whiskey.
Two days.
The questions weren't about facts.
They were about understanding him.
Because Dominic could buy almost anything.
But he could not fake intimacy.
At least, that was what I believed.
The truth was more complicated.
The questions were also about me.
The first question had an answer only I knew.
When Dominic couldn't sleep, he walked barefoot to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator even when he wasn't hungry.
The second answer was not "betrayal."
He could forgive betrayal.
What he couldn't forgive was pity.
And the third wasn't about our proposal.
It was what he had said afterward, when he thought I was asleep.
I will spend my whole life making sure no one takes her away from me.
No other woman knew that.
Because I'd never told anyone.
But Sienna had answered.
And she'd answered with complete confidence.
“His sleep problem is solved with bourbon.”
Wrong.
“He hates disobedience.”
Wrong.
“He told you he'd never let anyone else have you.”
Wrong.
All three wrong.
Yet Dominic had brought her to me himself.
That was what bothered me.
Not the pregnancy.
Not even the betrayal.
The fact that Sienna had entered Dominic's life knowing nothing about the man he claimed to love her enough to marry.
I opened my laptop and searched her background.
Sienna Blake.
Age twenty-eight.
Father: Daniel Blake.
Former attorney.
Current consultant.
Daniel Blake had worked with Moretti Holdings seven years ago.
He had been fired eleven months before my wedding.
The reason had been concealed.
I found something buried in old corporate archives.
An internal complaint.
Fraud.
Daniel had tried to move funds from one of Dominic's European subsidiaries.
Dominic had stopped him.
Then fired him.
There was another name in the report.
Marco Moretti.
I sat back.
The same Marco connected to the shell companies.
Suddenly Sienna's pregnancy mattered less.
The real question became:
Why would Marco send his niece into my husband's life?
I called my former head of security, Samuel Reed.
He answered on the second ring.
“Mrs. Moretti.”
“Don't call me that anymore.”
A pause.
“Vivian.”
“I need a favor.”
“I'll listen.”
“Don't tell Dominic.”
Silence.
“That's going to be difficult.”
“You owe me.”
“I do.”
“I need everything you know about Sienna Blake.”
His voice dropped.
“You've noticed something.”
“Yes.”
“I was going to tell Dominic.”
“But you didn't.”
“Because I wasn't sure.”
“Now you're sure?”
“I'm sure she isn't who she says she is.”
Samuel agreed to investigate quietly.
Three hours later, he sent me a message.
One line.
Her medical records don't match her pregnancy story.
I stared at the message.
My hands went cold.
I had expected lies.
I had not expected that.
Then another message arrived.
She's been seeing a doctor at a private clinic under another surname.
I called him.
“Does she have a child?”
“No.”
“Then what is she carrying?”
“I don't know.”
The answer should have relieved me.
Instead, I felt something much worse.
Because Sienna had placed her hand over her stomach exactly when I suggested pregnancy.
She had not denied it.
She had used it to secure Dominic's sympathy.
And Dominic had believed her.
A woman who could manipulate Dominic with one gesture wasn't merely ambitious.
She was dangerous.
At midnight, my phone rang again.
This time it wasn't Dominic.
It was an unknown number.
A man's voice said, “You should stop asking questions.”
I sat completely still.
“Who is this?”
“You already know the answer.”
“No.”
“You're no longer Mrs. Moretti.”
“I know.”
“So leave the Moretti family alone.”
I stared at the dark window.
“Tell Marco I said hello.”
There was silence.
Then the line disconnected.
I smiled.
Now I knew exactly how dangerous this was.
And I also knew something else.
The man threatening me had confirmed the one fact I had needed.
May you like
Marco was involved.
But he wasn't acting alone.
