Chapter 1 - THE IMPOSSIBLE NEWS
The medical folder lay between us like a loaded weapon.
Luca Varenna had faced armed men without blinking. He had negotiated with people who considered murder a business expense. He had watched his father die and taken control of an empire before his thirty-sixth birthday.
But now his hands were trembling.
“Who gave you this diagnosis?” I asked.
He opened the folder, then closed it again.
“Dr. Adrian Bell.”
“Your family doctor?”
“My father's doctor first. Mine afterward.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That the injury I suffered twelve years ago had destroyed my ability to father a child.” Luca looked at me. “He said the damage was permanent. He showed me the results. He explained the surgery. I asked him the same question three times.”
“And he gave you the same answer.”
“Yes.”
I touched the edge of the folder. “Then why are you frightened?”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“Because the first page isn't the report I remember.”
He turned it around.
The document was yellowed, stamped with the seal of a Boston medical center. It listed a date from twelve years earlier, shortly after Luca's car had crashed on a rain-slick road outside the city. The report described an emergency examination and a fertility assessment.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
NO PERMANENT DAMAGE IDENTIFIED. FOLLOW-UP TESTING REQUIRED.
I read it twice.
“Luca, this says—”
“I know what it says.”
He pulled out another sheet. It was dated six weeks later.
PERMANENT INFERTILITY. NO POSSIBILITY OF NATURAL CONCEPTION.
The signature belonged to Dr. Bell.
“Those reports contradict each other,” I whispered.
“They shouldn't exist together.”
I sat down.
Eleven weeks ago, I had signed a marriage contract that stated we would have no children. Luca had told me he couldn't have them. I had believed him because he believed it himself.
Now I was carrying his child.
“Could the first report be wrong?” I asked.
“Or the second.”
He pressed a hand against the desk.
“Evelyn, I need you to understand something. If that diagnosis was falsified, somebody made sure I would never question it.”
“Why?”
“I don't know yet.”
I watched his expression. Beneath the controlled stillness, something was beginning to break.
“Do you think I'm lying?” I asked.
His head snapped toward me.
“No.”
“Do you think the baby isn't yours?”
He crossed the room so quickly that I barely saw him move. He knelt in front of my chair and took my hands.
“I think you're carrying our child. I think I have spent twelve years believing something that may never have been true. And I think someone knew exactly what that belief would do to me.”
His voice softened.
“I'm not questioning you, Evelyn.”
My eyes filled.
“Then what happens now?”
He glanced at the folder.
“Now I find the person who stole twelve years from me.”
Before he could say anything else, his phone vibrated.
The screen showed a name: VITTORIO.
Luca's uncle.
He answered without taking his eyes off me.
“Uncle.”
“Your wife left dinner rather suddenly,” Vittorio said. “I hope she isn't unwell.”
Luca's expression hardened.
“She is.”
“Then perhaps you should have her examined. The family has a reputation to protect.”
I went cold.
Luca looked down at the hand resting over my stomach.
“What exactly are you worried about, Uncle?”
A pause.
Then Vittorio laughed softly.
“Nothing, my boy. Absolutely nothing.”
The call ended.
Luca remained kneeling in front of me.
“Evelyn,” he said, “from this moment on, you don't go anywhere alone.”
May you like
I should have felt protected.
Instead, I wondered how many people in his family already knew I was pregnant.
