Chapter 3 - What Vincent Finally Saw
Isabella stopped walking the moment she saw Vincent.
He was sitting at the kitchen island in the same black shirt he had worn the previous night.
He hadn’t slept.
Claire’s wedding ring rested in front of him.
So did the medical reports.
And his phone.
On the screen was the photograph Isabella had sent me.
Her head against his shoulder.
Below it, her message.
Vincent belongs to me tonight.
Isabella went pale.
“Vincent—”
“When did you send this?”
Her eyes moved toward the phone.
“I was joking.”
Vincent didn’t move.
“When?”
“The night we went to Red Rock.”
He looked at the pregnancy confirmation again.
The same date.
The same night.
Claire had been standing somewhere in this penthouse holding proof that she was carrying his child while he drove another woman across Las Vegas because she wanted cake and a sunrise.
“Did Claire tell you she was pregnant?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you she was going to the doctor?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the allergy?”
Isabella hesitated.
Vincent noticed.
His voice dropped.
“Did you know?”
“She mentioned mango once.”
The room became completely silent.
Vincent slowly stood.
“What did she say?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
Isabella looked frightened now.
“She said she was allergic.”
“How allergic?”
“I didn’t know it was serious.”
Vincent stared at her.
He remembered Claire standing beside the sink.
Vincent, I’m allergic to mango.
And Isabella laughing.
My cousin says she’s allergic too.
He had believed Isabella.
Not his wife.
The realization was almost unbearable.
“You knew enough to know she shouldn’t eat it.”
“I didn’t make her eat anything.”
“No.”
Vincent’s voice was strangely calm.
“I did something worse.”
He looked toward the stairs.
“I made her believe I wouldn’t protect her even when she told me she was in danger.”
Isabella stepped closer.
“You were trying to help me.”
“That’s what I kept telling myself.”
“Vincent—”
“Leave.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“Get out.”
“But—”
“Now.”
She reached for his arm.
He stepped away.
For perhaps the first time since she had known him, Isabella realized charm would not save her.
“You’re blaming me because Claire left.”
Vincent looked at her.
“No. I’m blaming myself because Claire left.”
That answer silenced her.
“You sent that message because you wanted to hurt her,” he continued. “But I gave you the opportunity.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like?”
“She was always jealous of us.”
Vincent almost laughed.
“Us?”
Isabella said nothing.
“There was never an ‘us.’”
Her expression hardened.
“Maybe there could have been.”
Vincent stared at her.
And finally, painfully, he understood what Claire had been trying to tell him for months.
Every late-night call.
Every unnecessary favor.
Every interruption.
Every time Isabella had positioned herself between husband and wife and then acted wounded when Claire objected.
Vincent had called Claire insecure.
He had called her jealous.
He had defended Isabella because doing so was easier than admitting he had allowed another woman to disrespect his marriage.
“Get out of my house.”
Isabella left.
The penthouse became silent.
Vincent sat alone until sunrise.
The sunrise.
He could barely look at it.
Across the city, I was waking in a hotel room under another name.
Rebecca had arranged everything.
I had left my usual phone behind.
My cards remained untouched.
Cash covered the hotel.
No driver.
No assistant.
No Moretti security.
For the first time in years, no one knew where Claire Moretti was.
I stood at the window and watched morning spread over the desert.
It should have felt lonely.
Instead, I felt something unexpected.
Relief.
Then grief arrived again.
I sat on the edge of the bed and cried for the baby I had known for less than a day.
Grief doesn’t care how long you loved someone.
It only cares that you did.
I imagined tiny fingers.
A nursery.
Vincent holding our child.
Then I forced myself to stop.
That future had never existed anywhere except my mind.
My phone—the new one Rebecca had given me—rang.
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Rebecca.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
“Vincent contacted my office.”
“Of course.”
“He asked where you are. I refused.”
“Thank you.”
“He also asked whether he could send you a letter.”
“No.”
“All right.”
I hesitated.
“Did he contest the divorce?”
“Not yet.”
That surprised me.
“What did he say?”
Rebecca paused.
“He sounded… different.”
I closed my eyes.
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Tell me he’s devastated. Tell me he finally understands. Tell me he’s sorry.”
Rebecca was quiet.
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
Because remorse didn’t rewrite history.
Vincent could regret everything.
The baby would still be gone.
I would still remember trying to breathe alone on the kitchen floor.
Over the next several days, Vincent searched for me without violating Rebecca’s instructions.
He sent no men to drag me home.
No threats.
No pressure.
Instead, he began reconstructing the last months of our marriage.
He reviewed messages.
Schedules.
Security logs.
Not because he suspected me.
Because he finally suspected himself.
He discovered how many dinners he had canceled with me after Isabella called.
How many times I had eaten alone.
How often Isabella had entered our penthouse when I wasn’t home.
Then one security log stopped him.
The afternoon of my allergic reaction.
Paramedics had entered the building.
Vincent had been upstairs.
He requested the security footage.
What he saw nearly destroyed him.
Me sitting near the elevator doors.
Alone.
One hand at my throat.
The other gripping my phone.
Paramedics running toward me.
And Vincent Moretti nowhere in sight.
He watched it twice.
Then a third time.
After that, he couldn’t.
He shut the laptop.
For years, Vincent had believed power meant being able to protect the people who belonged to him.
But when his wife needed protection from something as simple as a piece of cake, he hadn’t even come downstairs.
A week later, Rebecca called me.
“There’s something you need to know.”
My heart jumped.
“About Vincent?”
“Indirectly.”
I sat straighter.
“What?”
“Isabella contacted my office.”
I went cold.
“Why?”
“She says she has information you deserve to hear before the divorce is finalized.”
“I don’t want anything from her.”
“I told her that.”
“And?”
“She sent something anyway.”
“What?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“A voice recording.”
I stared at the hotel wall.
“Of what?”
“She claims it was recorded the night you discovered you were pregnant.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Who’s on it?”
“Isabella.”
“And?”
Rebecca’s next words changed everything I thought I understood about that night.
“Vincent.”
I stopped breathing.
Because until that moment, I had believed the photograph was the worst thing that happened between them at Red Rock.
I was about to discover that after Vincent rejected my call, Isabella had asked him a question about me.
May you like
And his answer would finally reveal whether my marriage had been dying by accident—
or whether my husband had already chosen who mattered more.
