Chapter 1 - THE MAN IN THE FOG
“Get your hands off her.”
Bianca Thorne slowly lowered the hand she had raised for a third slap.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Mara remained on her knees beside her mother’s grave, one hand pressed protectively against her stomach while blood warmed the corner of her mouth.
The stranger stopped only a few feet away.
He was taller than Mara remembered.
His dark hair was touched with the faintest silver near his temples, and the charcoal coat he wore looked almost black beneath the gray cemetery sky.
But it was his eyes that brought the memory back.
Cold to everyone else.
Gentle only once.
For one night.
With her.
Luca Moretti.
Mara’s breath stopped.
Bianca’s anger disappeared so quickly it was almost frightening.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Her voice sounded nothing like it had moments earlier.
Luca did not look at her.
He looked at Mara.
Then he looked at the blood on her lip.
His jaw tightened.
“What happened?”
Mara lowered her eyes.
“Nothing.”
Luca finally glanced at Bianca.
The silence that followed seemed heavier than shouting.
Bianca swallowed.
“She works for me.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She was causing problems.”
Luca stepped closer.
Mara could see the tiny drops of rain clinging to the shoulders of his coat.
“What kind of problem requires hitting a woman who is kneeling at her mother’s grave?”
Bianca’s face flushed.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand exactly what I saw.”
Bianca glanced toward the black sedan waiting near the cemetery gate.
Two men stood beside it.
Neither spoke.
Neither needed to.
Bianca knew enough about Luca Moretti to understand that men like those did not stand in the rain because they enjoyed the weather.
She lifted her chin.
“This is a private family matter.”
Luca’s expression changed.
Only slightly.
But Mara saw it.
“Family?”
Bianca pointed at Mara.
“She slept with my husband.”
Mara closed her eyes.
Luca’s gaze moved back to her.
A strange silence passed between them.
Then Bianca delivered the accusation she believed would destroy Mara.
“She’s pregnant.”
Luca went still.
Mara felt the air leave her lungs.
Bianca laughed bitterly.
“There.”
She looked from Luca to Mara.
“Now you understand.”
Luca did not answer.
His eyes dropped toward the hand Mara had placed over the slight curve beneath her coat.
Mara instinctively pulled the fabric closed.
Too late.
Something shifted behind Luca’s eyes.
Calculation.
Memory.
Dates.
A night six months earlier.
A woman who had vanished before sunrise.
Luca’s voice became very quiet.
“How far along are you?”
Mara stared at him.
Bianca blinked.
“What?”
Luca ignored her.
“Mara.”
The fact that he remembered her name frightened her more than if he had forgotten.
“Almost six months.”
His face changed.
Not dramatically.
Luca Moretti was not a man who displayed shock.
But she saw it.
The smallest fracture in the wall.
Bianca looked confused.
Then suspicious.
Luca stepped toward Mara and held out his hand.
She stared at it.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Yes.”
His voice softened.
“I do.”
Mara looked toward her mother’s headstone.
Her bracelet still lay half buried in the mud.
Before she could reach for it, Luca bent down.
He picked it up carefully.
He wiped the mud away with a clean handkerchief.
Then he noticed something Mara had never noticed.
A tiny seam inside the silver clasp.
His eyes narrowed.
“What is this?”
“My mother gave it to me.”
“Did she ever tell you there was something inside the clasp?”
Mara frowned.
“No.”
Luca turned the bracelet beneath the gray light.
Something metallic glinted inside.
Bianca suddenly stepped forward.
“Give that back.”
Luca looked at her.
Bianca froze.
The reaction was too fast.
Too frightened.
Mara noticed.
So did Luca.
He closed his fingers around the bracelet.
“Interesting.”
Bianca recovered quickly.
“It belongs to my employee.”
“No.”
Mara slowly stood.
Mud stained her stockings and coat.
“It belongs to me.”
Bianca glared at her.
“You’re forgetting your place.”
For the first time in three years, Mara looked directly into Bianca’s eyes.
Maybe it was because Luca stood beside her.
Maybe it was because she was tired of kneeling.
Maybe it was because her mother’s name was carved into stone behind her.
Whatever the reason, Mara finally said the words she had swallowed for years.
“I think you’re the one who forgot mine.”
Bianca’s face twisted.
Luca opened the rear door of his sedan.
“You’re coming with me.”
Mara backed away.
“No.”
His brow furrowed.
“I’m not asking you to become my prisoner.”
“You’re Luca Moretti.”
“And?”
“And men like you don’t do favors for free.”
For the first time, something almost like sadness appeared in his face.
“You didn’t think that six months ago.”
Mara felt heat rise beneath the bruising on her cheek.
Bianca heard it.
Her eyes widened.
Luca saw the exact second understanding reached her.
Bianca looked at Mara’s stomach.
Then at Luca.
Then back again.
“No.”
The word escaped her like air from a punctured tire.
Mara said nothing.
Bianca shook her head.
“No.”
Luca’s voice became ice.
“Go home, Bianca.”
She stared at him.
Then she stared at Mara.
And Mara saw something far more dangerous than anger growing behind Bianca’s eyes.
Fear.
Because Bianca Thorne had just realized the pregnant maid she had been humiliating for three years might be carrying the child of a man her father had spent twenty years trying not to make an enemy of.
And Bianca knew something else.
May you like
Something neither Luca nor Mara knew yet.
Eleanor Whitfield had not died with all her secrets.
