Chapter 1
The wedding music was still playing when Alessandro ordered it stopped.
Nobody in the reception hall understood why.
Nearly two hundred guests had already arrived at the Rizzano estate outside Chicago. Champagne glasses covered the tables. White roses climbed six-foot arrangements. A string quartet had been playing beneath the terrace windows.
Then the musicians lowered their bows.
Bodyguards closed the doors leading toward the service corridor.
The silence moved through the estate faster than any announcement could have.
Inside the kitchen, Livia refused to release her father’s hand.
Alessandro had wrapped his suit jacket around her shoulders, partly because she was trembling and partly because he did not want anyone staring at the uneven strip Bianca had cut through her hair.
Rosalie still knelt beside the stainless-steel counter.
“Stand up,” Alessandro told her.
Rosalie looked at him as if she was unsure whether the order was meant kindly.
That bothered him.
He repeated it more softly.
“Rosalie. Stand up.”
She did.
Her face was pale.
Damien groaned beneath the damaged dessert rack while two bodyguards pulled the metal frame away from him.
Bianca remained among the overturned flower buckets.
Water soaked the hem of her bridal gown.
One of the white roses had caught against her heel.
“You hit me,” she whispered.
Alessandro looked at Livia.
Then at the clippers in his own hand.
“Yes.”
Bianca’s expression changed.
“You’re going to regret that.”
“Maybe.”
He placed the clippers on the counter.
“But the wedding is over.”
Bianca pushed herself upright.
“You cannot humiliate me in front of everyone because a maid caused a scene.”
Rosalie flinched.
Alessandro noticed.
“What scene did she cause?”
Bianca said nothing.
Damien answered from the floor.
“She stole from my sister.”
Rosalie turned sharply.
“That’s a lie.”
Damien smiled through a split lip.
“She was caught going through Bianca’s things.”
“I was cleaning the bridal suite.”
“You were warned twice.”
Rosalie’s breathing quickened.
Alessandro held up one hand.
Nobody spoke.
He had spent most of his adult life learning how quickly a room could be controlled by silence.
That night, however, he did not want obedience.
He wanted an answer.
He turned toward Rosalie.
“Why did Bianca bring those clippers into the kitchen?”
Rosalie looked at Bianca.
Bianca looked at Damien.
It lasted less than a second.
But Alessandro saw it.
Rosalie swallowed.
“They weren’t for Livia.”
Alessandro’s eyes settled on her.
Rosalie continued.
“They were for me.”
Livia tightened her fingers around his hand.
Alessandro did not move.
Rosalie looked down at the cold food on the floor.
“She told me to kneel. She said if I admitted what I had done, I could leave quietly.”
“What had you done?”
Rosalie’s eyes lifted.
“I heard something I wasn’t supposed to hear.”
The kitchen became completely still.
Damien stopped smiling.
May you like
And for the first time that afternoon, Alessandro forgot about the ruined wedding.
“What did you hear?”
