Chapter 2 - The Secret That Followed Her into the Night
I expected him to call again.
What I did not expect was silence.
After an hour, I thought he was angry.
After two, I assumed he was punishing me.
By midnight, I knew something was wrong.
Vincent never ignored a message.
Not from me.
Not from anyone.
At two in the morning, someone knocked on my hotel door.
I froze.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
Daniel Reed.
Vincent’s head of security.
I opened the door but kept the chain attached.
Daniel looked exhausted.
His tie was loose.
“Are you safe?”
“No,” I said. “But not in the way you mean.”
His eyes moved over the room.
“Mr. Moretti asked me to find you.”
“Where is he?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Is he with Sophia?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
“I know he returned to her resort.”
My throat burned.
“Then why are you here?”
“He wants to speak with you.”
“He had fifteen months.”
“He says he doesn’t understand your message about the greatest gift of his life.”
My hand moved unconsciously to my stomach.
Daniel saw it.
His face changed.
“Mrs. Moretti…”
“I’m pregnant.”
He went completely still.
“Does he know?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Daniel looked down the corridor, then back at me.
“He needs to hear that from you.”
“No. He needed to hear it before he decided my birthday was better spent with another woman.”
Daniel closed his eyes briefly.
“I’m sorry.”
And the worst part was that I believed he meant it.
He reached inside his jacket and handed me a cream envelope sealed with black wax.
“Vincent asked me to give you this.”
Inside was a handwritten note.
Claire,
I don’t know everything you saw tonight, but I understand enough to know I failed you in ways explanations cannot erase.
Please do not leave Miami alone.
I’m coming to speak with you.
Vincent.
No denial.
No excuse.
No mention of Sophia.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Daniel’s expression tightened.
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“She checked out.”
“When?”
“Before you sent the message.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She told Mr. Moretti she was driving to Orlando to see her sister.”
“Sophia doesn’t have a sister in Orlando.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Mr. Moretti asked me to verify the arrangements after she stopped answering his calls.”
A thin line of unease moved through my anger.
Nothing I had seen disappeared.
The photographs remained real.
The lies remained real.
But something had shifted.
“Is Vincent downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him to come up.”
Daniel studied me.
“You don’t have to see him.”
“I know.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
Ten minutes later, Vincent stood outside my door.
His charcoal suit looked as though he had thrown it on in a hurry.
His hair was disordered.
His face was pale.
He looked first at me.
Then at my bare left hand.
Then at the ring on the table.
“Come in,” I said.
He entered.
Neither of us sat.
“I know what you saw,” he said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Say her name.”
His jaw tightened.
“Claire.”
“Say it.”
“Sophia.”
Hearing her name from him made something cold move through me.
“How long?”
He looked away.
“Fifteen months?”
“Not exactly.”
I laughed.
“Is there a more flattering number?”
“No.”
“Were you sleeping with her?”
His face went still.
“Yes.”
It hurt.
Of course it hurt.
But pain was almost easier than doubt.
“At least there’s one truth between us.”
“I should have ended things before it happened.”
“You should have talked to me before it happened.”
“Yes.”
“You should have left me before you made me defend you to everyone who noticed you were disappearing.”
“Yes.”
“You should have respected me enough not to turn me into a fool.”
“I know.”
“Do you love her?”
Vincent hesitated.
“I thought I did.”
“You thought?”
“She’s gone.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I don’t know what I feel now.”
I stared at him.
Then I realized something.
He looked frightened.
Vincent Moretti frightened almost no one and was frightened by almost nothing.
But something about Sophia vanishing had shaken him.
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
His entire face emptied.
“What?”
“I found out twelve days ago.”
His mouth opened.
No sound came.
“I had tiny shoes,” I continued. “An ultrasound photograph. Dinner. Cake. I was going to tell you tonight.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“Is the baby healthy?”
“So far.”
“Are you healthy?”
“Yes.”
He sat down as if his legs had stopped working.
“I’m going to be a father.”
“You are going to be a father,” I corrected. “That does not mean I’m staying your wife.”
His eyes lifted.
“Claire—”
“You don’t get to use this child to repair what you broke.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t get to become loyal because now there is something you’re afraid of losing.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
His voice cracked.
I had never heard that sound from him.
His phone vibrated.
Vincent glanced at the screen.
Every trace of color left his face.
“What?”
He placed the phone between us.
An unknown number had sent a photograph.
Sophia stood outside a train station in a cream coat, holding a dark leather bag.
Beneath it was a scanned document.
PATERNITY AND ESTATE INQUIRY.
My name appeared.
Claire Bennett Moretti.
Vincent Moretti.
Sophia Reynolds.
The document was dated six months earlier.
Request for confidential genetic testing and succession review.
Then another line.
Subject: Unborn child connected to the Moretti family estate.
I read it three times.
“I wasn’t pregnant six months ago.”
Vincent stared at the document.
“That means this isn’t about you.”
Another message arrived.
Ask Vincent who the child really belongs to.
I looked up.
“What child?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me again.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why would Sophia be involved in a paternity inquiry connected to your estate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why is my name there?”
“I don’t know.”
May you like
“Why is yours?”
His silence frightened me more than the document.
