Chapter 13
Rosalie nearly resigned.
Alessandro found the letter on the kitchen counter.
She had written only six sentences.
She thanked the household.
She said she cared deeply for Livia.
She said she could no longer work somewhere she associated with humiliation.
Alessandro found her packing in the staff wing.
“You don’t need permission to leave,” he said.
“I know.”
“But I want to apologize.”
Rosalie stopped folding her uniform.
“For Bianca?”
“For me.”
She looked confused.
“You tried to tell people something was wrong. You believed nobody would listen because of the way this house works.”
Rosalie said nothing.
“I made people think power mattered more than truth.”
“You never treated me like Bianca did.”
“No.”
Alessandro looked at the uniform in her hands.
“But you were afraid of me before she ever put you on that floor.”
Rosalie could not deny it.
Alessandro offered her several months of salary and a reference.
No silence agreement.
No demand for loyalty.
No expectation that she protect the Rizzano name.
She accepted.
Livia did not.
“You’re leaving?”
Rosalie knelt.
“I’m just not working here anymore.”
“But you live here.”
“Not forever.”
Livia began crying.
Rosalie hugged her.
Alessandro stood a few feet away and resisted the instinct to fix something that could not be fixed immediately.
Later, Rosalie told him she planned to finish culinary school.
She had dropped out two years earlier after her mother became ill.
The service kitchen had originally been temporary work.
Life had extended it.
“What do you want to do?”
“Pastry.”
Alessandro glanced toward the damaged dessert rack still waiting for replacement.
Rosalie laughed for the first time since the wedding.
“Preferably somewhere with fewer flying cake stands.”
Even Alessandro smiled.
Elsewhere, investigators questioned Damien about the diverted money and the vehicle records.
Bianca cooperated separately.
The two siblings stopped speaking.
That surprised Alessandro.
He had imagined betrayal created stronger alliances.
Instead it destroyed them.
Bianca blamed Damien for using her.
Damien blamed Bianca for losing control in the kitchen.
Each insisted the other had ruined the plan.
Neither mentioned Rosalie as a person.
May you like
Only as the maid who talked.
That detail told Alessandro everything he needed to know about them.
