Chapter 3 - The Divorce Papers on His DeskI left the hospital six days later.
I did not return to the Moretti mansion.
Vincent apparently expected me to.
He had ordered the east guest suite restored because our bedroom had been destroyed.
He bought medical equipment.
Hired a private nurse.
Placed flowers in every room.
He even had a new security system installed.
I knew all of this because his assistant sent Evelyn a detailed list as though expensive preparations could transform the place where I had almost died into a home again.
I went somewhere Vincent did not expect.
My father’s house.
Thomas Bennett opened the door before I even knocked.
He looked older than I remembered.
For three years, I had barely spoken to him.
Vincent and my father had never liked one another.
Vincent thought Thomas was judgmental.
Thomas thought Vincent was controlling.
I had spent years believing marriage required loyalty to my husband, so every time my father questioned the way Vincent treated me, I defended Vincent and withdrew further from my own family.
The moment my father saw the bruises along my face and arms, his eyes filled.
He did not ask me what happened.
He already knew.
The story was everywhere.
MILLIONAIRE MORETTI ESTATE DAMAGED IN LATE-NIGHT FIRE.
WOMAN RESCUED AFTER SECOND-FLOOR FALL.
Authorities had kept my name out of the initial reports, but secrets did not last long around the Moretti family.
My father opened his arms.
I stepped into them.
And for the first time since losing the baby, I allowed myself to collapse.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
He held me tighter.
“For what?”
“For disappearing.”
“You came home.”
Those three words nearly broke me.
You came home.
Not How could you stay with him?
Not I warned you.
Not You should have listened.
Just home.
I stayed in my childhood bedroom for two weeks.
I slept badly.
Sometimes I woke convinced that smoke was filling the room.
Sometimes I could hear the security panel beeping even when there was no sound.
I began leaving every bedroom door open.
I couldn’t tolerate locks.
My father quietly had the lock removed from my bedroom door without mentioning it.
That kindness hurt more than speeches would have.
Vincent tried contacting me thirty-four times during the first week.
Evelyn documented every attempt.
Flowers arrived.
I sent them back.
Jewelry arrived.
I refused delivery.
A handwritten letter came.
I did not open it.
Then Vincent did something I should have expected.
He came to my father’s house.
At 6:14 one evening, I heard an argument downstairs.
My father’s voice.
Then Vincent’s.
I stood at the top of the staircase.
Vincent looked up.
Everything stopped.
He looked thinner.
There were dark circles beneath his eyes.
His usually perfect hair was disordered.
For one irrational second, I remembered the man I had loved.
The man who once drove four hours through a snowstorm because my flight had been canceled.
The man who danced with me barefoot in our first apartment before the Moretti empire became larger and harder and more demanding.
Then I remembered the door locking.
“What are you doing here?”
Vincent took a step toward the stairs.
My father blocked him.
“I need ten minutes.”
“You were told not to contact me.”
“I know.”
“Then leave.”
“Claire.”
I hated how my name sounded in his voice.
Soft.
Almost broken.
Too late.
“I know you think I came to ask you to forgive me.”
“I don’t care why you came.”
“I came to tell you Sophia has been arrested.”
I froze.
My father turned.
Vincent continued.
“Arson. Attempted murder. Tampering with a security system.”
My fingers tightened around the railing.
“Attempted murder?”
“The investigators believe she knew you were locked upstairs.”
My stomach twisted.
“How?”
Vincent looked sick.
“Because I told her.”
Silence.
My father slowly turned toward him.
“You what?”
Vincent’s voice became quieter.
“She texted while I was leaving. She asked why you weren’t coming to the party.”
I remembered his phone lighting up.
“I told her you were upset and that I’d locked the bedroom because you were trying to stop me from leaving.”
My breath caught.
He had turned my captivity into gossip.
A joke.
A detail shared with the woman I had begged him to stop prioritizing.
Vincent continued.
“She knew you couldn’t get out.”
I descended one stair.
“What did she do?”
“She went to the house. She used her credential. Investigators found residue from an accelerant on a pair of shoes in her apartment.”
My father cursed.
“The ignition device had her fingerprint.”
My vision blurred.
“Why?”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“She claims she only wanted to frighten you.”
I laughed once.
A terrible sound.
“Frighten me?”
“She says she intended for the fire to remain contained near the service stairs.”
“And the smoke detectors?”
“She disabled them.”
My father stepped forward.
“You need to leave before I forget I’m seventy years old.”
Vincent did not move.
“There’s more.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
His expression changed.
Something like shame crossed his face.
“Police recovered messages between Sophia and me.”
My heart slowed.
“What messages?”
“She had been deleting some from my phone.”
I almost smiled.
Of course.
There was always more.
“How?”
“She knew my passcode.”
My father made a disgusted sound.
Vincent ignored him.
“She sent herself screenshots of conversations.”
“What conversations?”
He looked directly at me.
“Conversations where I complained about you.”
I gripped the railing.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“When you asked me to stop taking her calls during dinner. When you objected to our trips. When you asked why I forgot your birthday.”
He swallowed.
“I made you sound unreasonable.”
I stared at him.
“You didn’t make me sound unreasonable.”
He went still.
“You made me believe I was unreasonable.”
That landed.
I walked down another step.
“For three years, every time I told you something hurt me, you explained why I was wrong.”
“I know.”
“You called me jealous.”
“Yes.”
“Insecure.”
“Yes.”
“Controlling.”
His eyes closed.
“Yes.”
“Meanwhile, Sophia was reading our private arguments.”
Vincent looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
My father turned toward the kitchen, apparently because remaining in the room required more restraint than he possessed.
Vincent stepped forward.
“I betrayed you long before that fire.”
That surprised me.
He continued.
“I never slept with her.”
“I know.”
His brow furrowed.
“I know because I spent three years desperately trying to determine whether my husband was physically cheating on me.”
His face tightened.
“And eventually I realized it didn’t matter.”
“Claire—”
“You gave her the part of you that belonged inside our marriage.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
“You trusted her with our problems. You protected her from my feelings. You left me whenever she called. You let your family treat me like the temporary woman who happened to marry you.”
His eyes filled.
“And I kept waiting for proof that you cheated because I thought that would justify leaving.”
I descended the final step.
“I didn’t understand that being miserable was already enough.”
Vincent’s voice cracked.
“I loved you.”
“That was the problem.”
He stared.
“You loved me in a way that required me to suffer quietly.”
He had no answer.
I walked toward the front door and opened it.
“Leave.”
Vincent stood there for several seconds.
Then he reached inside his jacket.
My father immediately returned.
Vincent slowly removed a folded document.
He placed it on the entry table.
“I signed the divorce papers.”
I stared at him.
He gave a hollow smile.
“You thought I was going to fight you.”
“Yes.”
“I was.”
He looked down.
“Then I listened to the voicemail again.”
My chest tightened.
“I heard myself telling you to stay in that room.”
His eyes were wet.
“I realized fighting the divorce would be one more locked door.”
For the first time since the hospital, I saw something in Vincent I had not expected.
Not redemption.
Not yet.
But recognition.
He looked at me.
“I won’t lock another one.”
Then Vincent Moretti walked out of my father’s house.
May you like
This time, I was the one who closed the door.
And he did not stop me.
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