Chapter 2 - The Bride Who Walked Out
By midnight, Hannah was sitting in the back seat of a black sedan wearing a wedding dress that cost almost four months of her salary.
The ridiculousness of that detail bothered her.
Not Connor's words.
Not yet.
Pain this large apparently required time to become real.
For the first twenty minutes after leaving Harborstone, Hannah stared through the tinted window while Newport's streets passed in blurred bands of yellow light.
Luca sat across from her.
He had not asked whether she was all right.
Hannah appreciated him for that.
Obviously, she wasn't.
His driver, an older man named Pietro, maintained complete silence.
Hannah's phone would not stop vibrating.
Her cousin.
Her aunt.
Three bridesmaids.
Connor.
Connor again.
Vivien Walsh.
Unknown number.
Connor.
She eventually turned it off.
“Good decision,” Luca said.
Hannah looked up.
“Do you always comment on strangers' phone habits?”
“No.”
“Just abandoned brides?”
“One so far.”
A tiny, unwilling laugh escaped her.
Then she covered her face because the laugh turned instantly into a sob.
Luca looked away.
That small act of privacy nearly broke her more than sympathy would have.
Hannah pressed her palms beneath her eyes.
“I married him.”
Luca remained silent.
“I actually married him.”
“Yes.”
“I stood in a church three hours ago and promised my entire life to someone who apparently couldn't wait until tomorrow to tell everybody he didn't love me.”
Still Luca said nothing.
She looked at him sharply.
“You could at least say I wasn't stupid.”
His eyes met hers.
“Would you believe me?”
Hannah opened her mouth.
Closed it.
“No.”
“Then I won't insult you with something you aren't ready to hear.”
That annoyed her.
Mostly because it felt true.
They stopped outside her aunt Rose's small colonial house.
Every downstairs light was on.
Rose rushed through the front door before the car fully stopped.
“Hannah!”
Hannah barely stepped onto the sidewalk before her aunt wrapped both arms around her.
Rose had changed out of her reception dress and into sweatpants, but her formal hairstyle remained pinned awkwardly in place.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
That did it.
Hannah collapsed against her.
For several minutes, neither woman cared that Luca Belandi stood nearby.
Eventually Rose looked at him.
Her face changed.
Recognition.
Fear.
Luca seemed accustomed to it.
“Mrs. Miller.”
“Rose,” she corrected cautiously.
“Luca Belandi.”
“I know who you are.”
“I assumed.”
Rose tightened one arm around Hannah.
“What do you want?”
Hannah pulled back.
“Aunt Rose.”
“No, it's a fair question.”
Luca's expression didn't change.
“I want nothing from your niece.”
“Men who say that usually do.”
“Then judge me by what I do next.”
He removed a card from his jacket.
Not a business card.
A plain white card with one telephone number handwritten across it.
He gave it to Hannah.
“If Connor contacts you tonight, don't meet him alone.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“If Richard contacts you, call this number before answering.”
Hannah frowned.
“Why Richard?”
Luca's gaze dropped briefly toward the ivory purse hanging from her wrist.
“Did your father leave you anything connected to Harborstone?”
Every nerve in Hannah's body seemed to sharpen.
“What?”
Rose went completely still.
Luca noticed.
So did Hannah.
“Aunt Rose?”
Rose's face had drained of color.
“I think you should go inside.”
Hannah stared at her.
“What did Dad leave me?”
“Hannah.”
“You know something.”
Luca took one step backward.
“This conversation belongs to your family.”
Hannah turned to him.
“No. You brought it up. Finish it.”
He considered her for a moment.
“Your father worked at the harbor.”
“I know.”
“Not exactly.”
Her heart beat faster.
Thomas Miller had died when Hannah was thirteen.
According to every story she'd ever been told, he had been an accountant for a shipping cooperative. A quiet man who came home smelling like coffee and salt air, who taught Hannah long division at the kitchen table and brought her books whenever his work took him to Boston.
His death had been called an accident.
A highway collision during heavy rain.
“What does ‘not exactly' mean?” Hannah asked.
Luca glanced at Rose.
Rose shook her head.
“Not here.”
That frightened Hannah more than anything.
Inside, Rose made coffee nobody drank.
Hannah changed into one of her aunt's old robes while Rose wrapped the wedding gown carefully in a sheet and placed it in the spare bedroom.
When Hannah returned to the kitchen, Luca was still there.
Rose sat across from him.
Between them lay the brass key.
Hannah stopped.
She had forgotten it was in her purse.
Her father had given it to her the year before he died.
“Keep this somewhere boring,” he'd told her with a smile. “Boring places are the safest.”
For twelve years, it had opened nothing.
At least nothing Hannah knew about.
She had carried it today because her aunt suggested including something from her father as her “something old.”
Now Luca Belandi was looking at the key as though it were a loaded weapon.
“What does it open?” Hannah asked.
Rose rubbed her hands together.
“I don't know.”
“Aunt Rose.”
“I swear.”
“Then why do you look terrified?”
Rose closed her eyes.
“Because your father asked me never to let anybody named Walsh have it.”
The room went silent.
Hannah slowly sat down.
“What?”
“He came here two weeks before the accident.”
Rose's voice trembled.
“He was frightened. Your father was never frightened, Hannah. Not like that. He gave me a small box. He told me that if anything happened to him, I was to give you the key when you became an adult.”
“You gave it to me when I turned eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“But not the box.”
Rose looked ashamed.
“I couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Because someone broke into my apartment three nights after your father's funeral.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
“Nothing valuable was taken. Jewelry stayed. Cash stayed. They searched drawers. Closets. Papers.”
Rose looked at Luca.
“When I heard the Walsh name years later, I remembered what Thomas had said.”
Hannah felt nauseated.
“Connor told me his family didn't know Dad.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“They knew him.”
“How well?”
“Richard Walsh and your father were both attached to Harborstone Shipping twelve years ago.”
Hannah shook her head.
“No. Connor said Richard's company didn't buy into the harbor until eight years ago.”
“Officially.”
That word settled heavily between them.
Luca continued.
“Your father discovered irregularities in shipping records. Containers moved under duplicate registration numbers. Payments routed through shell companies. Properties changing ownership using signatures belonging to people who never signed anything.”
Hannah looked down at her hands.
The wedding ring was gone.
A pale band remained where it had been.
“Why do you know this?”
“Because my father was one of the men accused.”
Hannah's head snapped up.
Luca's eyes had gone colder.
“Twelve years ago, federal investigators were given documents suggesting Antonio Belandi arranged fraudulent shipments through Harborstone. My father insisted they were forged. He couldn't prove it.”
“What happened?”
“He was never convicted.”
Luca paused.
“But his reputation never recovered.”
Rose whispered, “Thomas believed someone was setting him up.”
Luca nodded.
“And six days after your father's death, the investigation disappeared.”
Hannah felt the kitchen tilt.
“You're saying my father died because of this?”
“I am saying I don't believe in convenient accidents.”
Hannah pushed back from the table.
“No.”
“Hannah—”
“No. I can't do this tonight.”
Luca immediately stood.
“Then don't.”
She looked at him.
No argument.
No pressure.
Again, a choice.
“I came here because Richard saw that key tonight,” Luca said. “And when he did, he looked scared.”
Hannah wrapped her fingers around it.
“He couldn't possibly recognize it from across the ballroom.”
“Richard Walsh was staring at your purse before you even took your ring off.”
A chill crawled up her arms.
Rose rose too.
“Stay here tonight.”
“I will.”
Luca headed toward the door.
Hannah followed him onto the porch.
The night air was cold against her face.
“Why were you really at my wedding?”
He paused.
“Richard invited me.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No.”
“Were you watching him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Walsh Shipping has been using my company's routes for transactions I didn't authorize.”
Hannah folded her arms.
“So you weren't there for Connor.”
“No.”
“You weren't there for me.”
Luca looked at her for a long moment.
“No.”
Oddly, she was grateful for the honesty.
“Then why dance with me?”
His expression softened almost imperceptibly.
“That had nothing to do with business.”
She didn't know what to do with that.
Luca descended the porch steps.
Then stopped.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Don't go back to Connor's apartment alone.”
“Why?”
“Because when men like Richard realize you've accidentally kept something they need, they rarely begin by asking politely.”
Hannah tightened her hand around the key.
“Mr. Belandi.”
He looked back.
“Was my father a criminal?”
Luca's answer came without hesitation.
“No.”
“How can you know?”
“Because he was the man who tried to prove my father wasn't.”
Then Luca entered the car.
Hannah stood frozen beneath the porch light while the sedan disappeared around the corner.
Behind her, Rose spoke.
“There is something else.”
Hannah turned.
Her aunt was holding an old photograph.
Thomas Miller stood beside three men at a harbor warehouse.
One was unmistakably Richard Walsh.
Another was Luca's father.
And the fourth man made Hannah's blood run cold.
Because although the picture had been taken more than a decade ago, she recognized him instantly.
He had stood beside Connor at the altar that morning.
Connor's godfather.
Attorney William Danner.
The same attorney who had prepared Hannah and Connor's prenuptial agreement.
And on the back of the photograph, in her father's handwriting, were seven words:
May you like
If they find the ledger, everything is lost.
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