The Day Scarlett Moretti Died

The night before my wedding, I found out I was pregnant.

That same night, I found out my fiancé had already chosen another woman to give him his first child.

Adrian DeLuca, heir to a mafia empire and the man who once swore I was the only woman he would ever love, came home carrying her perfume on his clothes and told me, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, that it was only a medical arrangement. His dead friend’s widow needed an heir, and after I had failed to give him one through sixty-six rounds of IVF, he had decided this was the best solution for everyone.

I said nothing.

I let him go on preparing the wedding. I let him believe I would still walk down the aisle and become Mrs. DeLuca.

But while he was planning our ceremony, I was planning my disappearance.

On our wedding day, the estate would still open its doors. The guests would still arrive. The ceremony would still begin.

But the bride Adrian DeLuca betrayed would die there.

By the time he learned the truth, that I had been carrying his child all along, I would already be gone under a new name, taking his heir somewhere he could never reach.

After I hung up, I replied to the employment email from the Chicago headquarters using my new identity.

A confirmation notice flashed on the screen.

Welcome, Stephanie Vale.

I had just closed my laptop when I heard footsteps in the hallway.

A second later, the bedroom door opened.

“Scarlett, you’re still awake?”

His voice was low and gentle in the dark. Adrian DeLuca slipped off his black cashmere coat and draped it over my shoulders with the ease of a man who had done it a thousand times before.

He stood over six-foot-three, with broad shoulders that seemed to block out half the room. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms, showing strong, lean arms warmed by a golden tan. When those gray-blue eyes settled on me, they held the same soft devotion that had made half of New York envy me for years.

Everyone knew Adrian.

He was the heir to the DeLuca family, the young don who controlled the ports, the casinos, and half the city’s dirty money. Handsome. Wealthy. Ruthless when he needed to be.

And impossibly patient only with me.

At least, that was what everyone believed.

Before his warmth reached me, I caught the scent on his collar.

Rose perfume.

Not mine.

I stepped away from him.

The coat slid from my shoulders to the floor. Adrian bent to pick it up, his face calm, almost indulgent.

“You’re still upset?” he asked. “Vivian’s situation got worse. Her husband is dying, and the Castro family wants an heir before he does. They’re pressuring her every day. She had nowhere else to turn.”

I looked at him and let out a cold laugh. “So I’m supposed to thank you for sleeping with another woman?”