Burned Out of the Moretti Name

Everyone in southern Italy knew that Lorenzo Moretti loved me like a madman.

And yet he had been keeping a much younger woman in Naples. They said she looked just like I had years ago. He told people she was only a reminder of the woman he had once loved most.

He also gave strict orders that no one was to let me hear about her.

Until the day I found out I was pregnant.

I went to his office to tell him the news myself, only to stop outside the door when I heard a young woman’s voice from inside.

“Lorenzo… am I only here because I remind you of her?”

The door was slightly ajar. Through the gap, I saw a young woman who looked too much like me, wrapped in his jacket and holding his glass.

I stood there, barely breathing.

Then I heard him answer.

“Don’t compare yourself to her.”

“She could never be what you are.”

I turned and walked away without making a sound.

That night, I called my mother.

“Mother, I’ve made up my mind.”

She was silent for a moment.

“I want a fire,” I said. “Something no one survives. By the time it’s over, Sophia Moretti needs to be dead to the world.”

On the other end of the line, my mother went quiet for a second, then I heard something like relief in her voice.

“Sofia,” she said, almost smiling, “you’ve finally decided.”

“I’ll have your father start on the papers tonight. It should take about ten days. Wait for my call.”

After I hung up, I went home.

When I walked into the villa, Lorenzo was already sitting in the living room.

There was a tension in his face I did not see often.

“You’re late,” he said. “Where were you?”

I lifted the pharmacy bag in my hand and answered evenly, “Nowhere special. My stomach was bothering me, so I went to a clinic. They ran a few tests and gave me some medicine.”

My health had never been particularly strong, and this pregnancy had come hard enough that the doctor had warned me to be careful and prescribed something to help.

When he saw nothing unusual in my expression, he finally asked what he really wanted to know.

“You came by to see me today, didn’t you?” he said. “Why did you leave as soon as you got there?”

So someone had told him I had been seen outside his office.

He just did not know whether I had witnessed that moment.

The truth was, it had only lasted a few seconds. Bianca had been sitting far too close, wrapped in his jacket and holding his glass . By the time I looked again, she had already stepped back.

“I was just passing by,” I said. “I saw you were busy with your assistant, so I left.”

I saw his body eased, he let out a breath he had been holding.

Something inside me twisted.

We’d been