Chapter 6 - The Marriage We Had Hidden Too Long
The divorce agreement arrived Monday morning.
Vincent had signed every page.
No conditions.
No demands.
No attempt to force reconciliation.
He transferred the lake house fully into my name.
Waived claims against my investment income.
Agreed that our personal property division could remain exactly as I proposed.
At the bottom of the final page was his signature.
Vincent Antonio Moretti.
I stared at it for a long time.
Rebecca sat across from me.
“You don’t have to sign today.”
“I know.”
“Legally, the remaining terms are very favorable.”
“I know.”
She studied me.
“Then why do you look disappointed?”
“I’m not.”
She raised one eyebrow.
Good attorneys are irritating people.
“I wanted him to stop fighting me.”
“And now he has.”
“Yes.”
“And that hurts.”
I closed the folder.
“Yes.”
Because if Vincent had continued behaving like the arrogant man who thought he could order me to remain his wife, divorce would have been simple.
But he was changing.
Quietly.
Without asking me to reward him for it.
And that complicated everything.
Two days later, another complication arrived.
Sophia requested to speak with me.
In person.
Vincent did not want it.
That alone made me consider saying yes.
We met at a secure private residence in New Jersey.
Sophia looked nothing like the woman who had stood beneath Vincent’s umbrella.
No polished makeup.
No expensive dress.
Her hair was tied back.
She looked younger.
Tired.
Human.
When I entered, she stood.
“I’m sorry.”
I sat.
“Everyone seems to be saying that lately.”
She looked down.
“I deserve that.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then I asked, “Why did you want to see me?”
Sophia placed a small box on the table.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
Old.
Damaged by heat.
“Isabella’s.”
I stared at it.
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“I don’t want Vincent to have it.”
That surprised me.
“He loved her.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Sophia looked at me.
“Because for eight years, everyone let Isabella’s memory control his life.”
Her voice shook.
“My father did. Dominic did. I did.”
She swallowed.
“And Vincent did.”
I understood.
“You think giving it to him keeps the ghost alive.”
“Yes.”
“Why give it to me?”
“Because you were the person most harmed by it.”
I looked at the bracelet.
“No.”
She blinked.
“Keep it.”
“I don’t deserve—”
“It belonged to your sister.”
Sophia’s eyes filled.
“That matters more than what happened between us.”
She began crying.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
“I hated you,” she whispered. “Before I ever met you.”
“I know.”
“I saw one photograph of you in a private file. You were standing beside Vincent on a dock. He was smiling.”
I remembered that photograph.
Lake Como.
Our second anniversary.
“I had never seen him smile like that with Isabella,” Sophia said.
My chest tightened.
“What?”
“She loved him. But they were always fighting. Always trying to become what their families expected.”
She wiped her eyes.
“When I saw that picture, I realized he had become happy after she died.”
“And you hated him for surviving.”
“Yes.”
Then she looked at me.
“And you for being the reason.”
That truth was ugly.
But honest.
“I wanted him to choose me over you,” she said. “Not because I loved him. Because I wanted proof Isabella still mattered more.”
The umbrella.
The jacket.
The penthouse.
Each incident suddenly looked different.
Sophia had been testing how much of Vincent’s attention she could pull away.
And he had let her.
“I succeeded,” she whispered.
“No.”
She frowned.
“You hurt me.”
“Yes.”
“But Isabella didn’t win.”
Sophia stared at me.
“You did not bring her back. You only made Vincent repeat the worst parts of his past.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know.”
I stood.
“Help us stop Dominic.”
She wiped her cheeks.
“I will.”
That evening, I returned to Manhattan.
Vincent was waiting in the lobby.
“Did she upset you?”
“Hello to you too.”
His jaw tightened.
“Claire.”
“I’m fine.”
We stepped into the elevator.
He remained on the opposite side.
I watched the floor numbers rise.
Then I asked, “Were you happy with Isabella?”
Vincent looked at me sharply.
“That’s not a simple question.”
“Try.”
He stared at the doors.
“I loved her.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
He exhaled.
“No.”
The answer surprised me.
“We were young,” he continued. “Our fathers expected us to marry. We loved each other, but half of what we called love was obligation.”
I thought about our own secret marriage.
Different prison.
Same family.
“Did you compare me to her?”
“At first.”
My stomach tightened.
“For how long?”
“A few months.”
“And after?”
“No.”
“Not even when Sophia arrived?”
His expression changed.
“I compared Sophia to Isabella.”
“That is not better.”
“I know.”
The elevator opened.
We walked into the apartment.
Vincent stopped near the window.
“I never wished you were Isabella.”
“Then why did Sophia matter so much?”
He took a long time to answer.
“Because she made me feel like I had been given a chance to correct something.”
“What?”
“The night Isabella died, she called me.”
I had never heard this.
“I ignored it.”
My anger disappeared.
“Why?”
“We had argued.”
His voice became quiet.
“She left six messages. I listened to them after the explosion.”
My chest ached.
“What did she say?”
“That she had found something about Carlo Russo. That she was scared. That she needed me.”
I closed my eyes.
Vincent continued.
“When Sophia had problems, I answered every call.”
There it was.
Not romance.
Punishment.
Vincent had been trying to rescue a dead woman through someone who resembled her.
“And every time you rescued Sophia,” I whispered, “you abandoned me.”
“Yes.”
His face twisted.
“That’s the part I didn’t see until you left.”
We stood in silence.
Then Vincent said, “I’m changing the family structure.”
“What?”
“My companies.”
“Why?”
“No Moretti wife will ever be hidden again.”
I stared at him.
“There may never be another.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because what I did to you was wrong whether or not you forgive me.”
He continued.
“I’m moving legitimate holdings out of the private family structure. The criminal operations are being separated from everything that can affect you or the baby.”
I almost laughed.
“You’re reorganizing a Mafia empire because of couples therapy you never attended?”
A smile appeared.
Small.
Real.
“I also scheduled therapy.”
I stared at him.
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I watched you refuse antibiotics because you said your body could handle an infection.”
“That was different.”
“You had a fever of 104.”
“I survived.”
“Unfortunately.”
He laughed.
The sound filled the apartment.
For a second, we were us again.
Then reality returned.
Vincent looked at me.
“I don’t expect you to come back.”
I nodded.
“But I won’t hide you anymore.”
“You can’t publicly announce a wife who is divorcing you.”
“No.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I’m done pretending the people I love are weaknesses.”
My throat tightened.
That sentence mattered more than diamonds.
More than apologies.
More than the signed agreement.
Because secrecy had been the foundation of our marriage.
And Vincent was finally admitting that what he had called protection had also been fear.
The next morning, Moretti Holdings issued a statement.
Not about the Mafia.
Not about our divorce.
About me.
Claire Bennett Moretti, former senior financial adviser to Moretti Holdings and spouse of CEO Vincent Moretti, had accepted a senior leadership position in New York.
The business press exploded.
Five years of secrecy ended in one paragraph.
My phone rang within minutes.
Vincent.
“Are you furious?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
I looked at the statement again.
“You used my married name.”
“You are still legally my wife.”
“For now.”
“I know.”
I waited.
He added, “If you want a correction, I’ll issue one.”
That stopped me.
Old Vincent would have justified the decision.
New Vincent asked.
I read the paragraph again.
Spouse.
Not secret consultant.
Not hidden woman.
For the first time, my existence beside him had been acknowledged publicly.
“No correction.”
Silence.
Then softly, “Okay.”
After we hung up, I placed my hand on my growing stomach.
The baby moved for the first time.
Barely.
A flutter.
I froze.
Then laughed.
And without thinking, I called Vincent back.
He answered immediately.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Claire?”
“The baby moved.”
Silence.
Then his voice broke.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
For the next ten minutes, we talked about nothing else.
Not Dominic.
Not Sophia.
Not divorce.
May you like
Just our child.
And for the first time, I began wondering whether the end of our marriage had actually been the beginning of something neither of us had known how to build before.
