Chapter 3

Three days after Dominic left, I returned to the Moretti estate. When I married him twelve years earlier, my father had asked whether I truly wanted to give up my place as the Moretti heir. I had answered without hesitation because I believed I could be both a Moretti daughter and Dominic Valenti's wife.

I learned too late that when a woman keeps setting parts of herself aside, the people around her begin to believe those parts no longer matter.

Victoria Rossi was waiting at the front entrance. She was the Moretti family's chief attorney and my closest friend from childhood. On the day I left New York, she had stood in the rain and asked whether Dominic was worth everything I was giving up. I had told her he was.

Now she looked at the signet on my hand and opened the door. "Welcome home, Miss Moretti." I sat in my father's office and reviewed the papers I had signed twelve years earlier. My succession rights, premarital assets, and shares in North Harbor were still protected.

That afternoon, Victoria and I returned to the Valenti estate so I could collect my personal belongings. Dominic arrived while I was closing the last box. He looked at the half-empty closet and stopped. "What are you doing?"

"I am taking my things." His brow tightened, and he asked whether I was really leaving. I told him that when I married him, I gave up the name Miss Moretti and became Mrs. Valenti. I had cared for his home and stood beside him for twelve years, but none of it meant what I had believed it meant.

His expression hardened. "Why are you doing this to us? Is being Mrs. Valenti so terrible? You have this estate, respect, and everything most women want." He believed every word, and that was what hurt the most. Dominic truly thought I had everything.

"I also became a woman who spent her life waiting for you to come home," I said. For twelve years, he had treated my love as something permanent. He had never considered that I might choose to leave.

He asked whether I truly wanted to end our marriage. I did not answer. I stayed long enough to finish the paperwork, and Dominic remained at the estate through dinner. He sat at the long table and kept looking at the chair I had occupied for twelve years.

When I picked up my coat, he spoke again. "Tomorrow is our anniversary. Give me one chance. Attend the gala with me and let us appear together one more time."

I agreed because I had already decided what would happen after the gala. By the end of the night, every family in the room would know that my marriage to Dominic Valenti was over.