Chapter 3 - The Divorce He Never Asked For
For several seconds, I could hear nothing except the distant sounds of the hotel.
A luggage cart rolling across marble.
An elevator bell.
Someone laughing in the lobby.
Monday.
Dante had chosen Monday.
Apparently betrayal could be scheduled.
“You were going to divorce me?”
His eyes returned to mine.
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“You just said—”
“I told Bianca I would.”
“That is not better.”
“I know.”
“Then explain it.”
He looked toward the open office door.
I closed it myself this time.
Not because he had asked.
Because I wanted to hear this without witnesses.
Dante remained standing.
“I told her what she wanted to hear.”
The words were ugly in their simplicity.
“She had started asking what we were doing. What came next.”
“And instead of ending the affair, you invented our divorce.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“You run companies with thousands of employees.”
“Bella—”
“You negotiate contracts worth millions. You remember the birthday of every man who has ever worked for your father. Please do not tell me you don't know why you told a woman you were divorcing me.”
His jaw flexed.
Finally he sat.
“I wanted more time.”
“For what?”
“To avoid choosing.”
There it was.
Not romantic confusion.
Cowardice.
Somehow that hurt less than hearing he loved her.
And more.
“So Monday was imaginary.”
“Yes.”
“Did you plan to see Bianca again afterward?”
He took too long.
“That answer required one second, Dante.”
“I don't know.”
I nodded.
“Then there's my answer.”
He leaned forward.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you weren't trapped. You weren't confused. You weren't desperately in love with two women.”
I picked up my handbag.
“You were comfortable.”
He stared at me.
“And you wanted to remain comfortable for as long as possible.”
I walked past him.
His hand caught the edge of the desk instead of reaching for me.
That mattered.
“Bella.”
I stopped.
“You want truth?”
“Yes.”
“You haven't been happy either.”
My stomach tightened.
“That does not make this my fault.”
“I didn't say it did.”
“Good.”
“You've been sleeping in the guest room twice a week.”
“Because you come home at two in the morning.”
“You stopped asking where I was.”
“Because every answer was business.”
“You stopped coming to family dinners.”
“Because your sister spends every dinner asking when we're having children.”
Dante's expression changed.
There it was.
The thing we hadn't spoken about in nearly two years.
Children.
I looked away.
“No.”
His voice softened.
“Bella.”
“Do not use that.”
“Use what?”
“The fact that we couldn't have a child to explain why you found another woman.”
“I wasn't.”
“You were about to.”
His face closed.
For once, the feared Dante Moretti seemed small inside his expensive suit.
“I was going to say we stopped talking after the last treatment failed.”
I closed my eyes.
Three years of doctors.
Appointments.
Needles.
Hope.
Disappointment.
Then one final morning when a physician had used the word unlikely so gently that I hated him for his kindness.
Dante had held my hand.
For two weeks.
Then life resumed.
Only it hadn't.
Not really.
We had built silence around that grief and called it stability.
“You should have talked to me,” I said.
“I know.”
“So should I.”
He looked up.
That surprised him.
I wouldn't rewrite our marriage merely because Dante had broken it.
I had withdrawn too.
I had stayed late at the hotel because work rewarded attention.
Reservations made sense.
Problems could be solved.
Guests told me what they needed.
My husband increasingly did not.
But distance was not betrayal.
“I failed our marriage in ways too,” I said. “I stopped telling you when I was lonely.”
Dante's eyes reddened.
“But I did not bring another man into the empty space.”
“No.”
“And I will not carry your half of this because I can identify mine.”
He nodded slowly.
“No.”
“Good.”
I opened the door again.
“I need to work.”
He stood.
“What happens tonight?”
“I don't know.”
“Can I come home?”
I looked at him.
For nine years, home had meant the house we shared in Gold Coast.
Tonight the word felt theoretical.
“Yes.”
Hope flashed across his face.
Then I continued.
“I won't be there.”
At 6:12 P.M., I entered the staff apartment on the eighteenth floor.
It consisted of one bedroom, a tiny kitchen, a sofa, and windows overlooking the city.
I had used it perhaps ten times.
Snowstorms.
Late conferences.
One plumbing disaster at home.
It had never felt significant.
That evening, it felt like neutral territory.
I removed my heels.
Ordered soup from room service.
Then sat on the bed and stared at my phone.
Twenty-seven messages.
Three from Dante.
Nine from my sister-in-law, Sofia.
Four from my best friend, Nora.
The rest were hotel matters.
Dante's messages were brief.
I am home.
Twenty minutes later:
I told the staff not to contact you.
Then:
I'm sorry. I know that isn't enough.
I did not answer.
Instead I called Nora.
She answered on the first ring.
“Why did Sofia just ask me whether you've left Dante?”
I closed my eyes.
“How does Sofia know?”
“Bella.”
“Nora.”
“What happened?”
I told her.
Not everything.
Just enough.
When I finished, she was silent.
Nora had known me since university.
Silence was not one of her natural gifts.
Finally she said, “Do you want me to come over?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to tell you he's terrible?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to bring wine and silently judge him from another room?”
That almost made me smile.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“Done.”
I lay back.
“Nora?”
“Yes?”
“Did you know?”
The silence returned.
Different this time.
My body went cold.
“Nora.”
“I didn't know he was having an affair.”
“But?”
“I knew something was wrong.”
“With us?”
“With him.”
I sat up.
“What do you mean?”
“Three months ago, Dante called me.”
That made no sense.
“Why?”
“He asked whether you were thinking about leaving.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What?”
“He said you'd changed.”
I laughed once.
“Apparently the man who stopped listening noticed eventually.”
“He sounded scared.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That if he was worried, he should ask his wife instead of her friend.”
“Did he?”
“I assumed he had.”
He hadn't.
Instead he had apparently gone to Bianca.
Or continued going to Bianca.
“What else did he say?”
Nora hesitated.
“He asked whether you still loved him.”
I closed my eyes.
Something inside me hurt.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I thought it was private. And because…”
“Because?”
“You'd asked me something similar the week before.”
My pulse slowed.
“What did I ask?”
Nora's voice became quiet.
“You asked me whether loving someone was enough reason to stay married when you no longer liked the person you became around them.”
I stared at the ceiling.
I remembered the conversation then.
Not clearly.
A late lunch.
Rain against café windows.
Me stirring tea long after it had gone cold.
Apparently Dante and I had both been standing on opposite sides of the same collapsing bridge.
Neither of us had crossed.
“What did you tell me?”
“That love matters.”
I waited.
“But not more than honesty.”
After we hung up, I remained motionless.
Then my hotel email chimed.
A message had arrived from security.
Urgent: Presidential Suite Reservation Documentation
I opened it.
Attached was a scanned special-request form completed forty-eight hours earlier.
Champagne.
Roses.
Dinner.
Late checkout.
The requests hadn't been entered by Bianca.
They had been personally approved by Dante's executive assistant.
At the bottom, a handwritten note had been scanned.
Make it perfect. This weekend matters. – D.M.
I stared at the words.
Then my eyes moved to the second attachment.
An internal booking history.
The Presidential Lake Suite had not been reserved only once.
Dante Moretti had booked it four times in the previous eight months.
Always under aliases.
Always on nights I believed he was traveling.
My breath caught.
But the dates were what truly unsettled me.
One reservation had been canceled.
Six months earlier.
On our ninth wedding anniversary.
The same night Dante had unexpectedly come home with flowers and told me his flight to Toronto had been canceled.
I remembered thinking fate had given our marriage an evening back.
Now I understood.
May you like
The hotel reservation had been canceled first.
And suddenly I needed to know why Dante had chosen me that night.
