Chapter 1 - THE MAN ACROSS THE RESTAURANT
For several seconds, Luca Moretti stood in the middle of the restaurant as if the entire city of Chicago had stopped moving around him.
The waiter beside him said something about his reservation.
Luca did not hear a word.
His eyes were locked on my children.
My six-year-old son, Eli, had Luca’s dark eyes and the same stubborn angle to his jaw.
His twin sister, Emma, had my smile, but when she frowned, a tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows that I had once kissed on Luca’s face a thousand times.
Evelyn’s fingers tightened around Luca’s arm.
“Luca.”
He still did not answer her.
Eli glanced at me.
“Mom, do you know him?”
My throat closed.
“Yes.”
Luca finally moved.
He crossed the restaurant slowly.
People recognized him.
Of course they did.
Heads turned.
Whispers followed.
A billionaire walking toward a table with two children who looked disturbingly like him was not something people ignored.
Luca stopped beside us.
“Nia.”
I had imagined hearing him say my name again.
In some versions, I hated him.
In others, I felt nothing.
Reality was worse.
I remembered everything.
The penthouse.
The hospital appointments.
The silence.
The divorce papers.
The night I discovered I was pregnant.
“Hello, Luca.”
His gaze dropped to Eli and Emma again.
Evelyn arrived beside him.
Her expression was controlled, but I noticed something strange.
She was not confused.
She looked afraid.
That detail lodged itself somewhere in the back of my mind.
Luca swallowed.
“How old are they?”
I stood immediately.
“We’re leaving.”
“Nia.”
“Not here.”
His hand moved toward my arm.
I stepped back before he could touch me.
“Do not.”
The hurt on his face surprised me.
Eli climbed from his chair.
“Mom?”
I picked up Emma’s coat.
“We’re going home.”
Luca stared at Eli.
“What’s your name?”
Eli looked at me first.
I hated that my child was already sensing danger.
“Eli.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“And you?”
Emma held my hand.
“Emma.”
Luca closed his eyes briefly.
Their names meant something to him.
Years earlier, when we had still believed we would become parents together, we had once sat in bed discussing baby names.
I had chosen Emma.
Luca had chosen Elijah.
I had never forgotten.
Apparently, neither had he.
Evelyn suddenly spoke.
“Luca, we should go.”
His head turned sharply toward her.
“No.”
Something passed between them.
Something I did not understand.
Then Luca looked back at me.
“Are they mine?”
The restaurant became impossibly quiet.
I could have lied.
For years, silence had protected us.
But Eli and Emma were standing beside me now.
They were old enough to hear.
Old enough to remember.
I refused to turn their lives into a public spectacle.
“Children first.”
I put my coat around Emma.
“We will discuss this somewhere private.”
Luca stepped aside.
I walked past him.
Then he spoke quietly enough that only I heard.
“I spent six years thinking I would never have children.”
I stopped.
His voice cracked.
“You knew what that meant to me.”
I turned.
The pain inside me rose so quickly that I almost laughed.
“You think I didn’t try to tell you?”
Luca froze.
Behind him, Evelyn went completely pale.
That was the moment everything changed.
Because Luca looked at his wife.
And for the first time that afternoon, he stopped looking at the twins.
He looked directly at Evelyn.
May you like
“What does she mean?”
Evelyn said nothing.
