8. The Toast That Buried Him
Chapter Eight
THE TOAST THAT BURIED HIM
Ethan dresses for triumph.
I can tell from across the rehearsal dinner terrace. The perfect navy suit. The crisp white shirt. The watch angled just so beneath his cuff. He’s always believed the right clothing can hold a man together, at least long enough for people to clap.
Willow stands beside him, pale and tense, in gray silk.
They’ve argued. I can see it in the brittle space between them. Her smile appears only when someone looks. Ethan keeps touching the inside pocket of his jacket, probably checking for the speech he thinks will carry him into promotion.
The terrace has been transformed for the formal dinner. Candles line the stone walls. Flowers spill from urns. Long tables glow beneath strings of lights. The lake beyond is dark, reflecting the villa and the moon in trembling gold.
It's too beautiful for what’s about to happen.
But Matteo has made sure the wedding itself will not be harmed.
The bride and groom are at a private family gathering on the upper lawn for another hour.
Here, on the lower terrace, are the people who need to hear the truth: senior Ruggiero leadership, the Lombardi investment circle, legal counsel, select family representatives, and Ethan’s carefully cultivated audience.
He thinks they’re here to witness his rise.
I stand near Matteo in a black dress tonight, unadorned except for small gold earrings Chiara selected. My wedding ring is in my clutch. My finger feels bare and honest.
Matteo leans close. “Are you sure you want to stay?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t have to watch.”
“I do.”
He nods and offers no argument. No protection that takes away my agency.
Ethan steps onto the small platform near the center of the terrace, smiling as conversations soften.
“If I could have everyone’s attention,” he says. His voice carries well. It always has.
Willow stands near the front, eyes fixed on him, though her hands twist together.
Ethan begins with gratitude. To the Lombardi family. To Ruggiero Events. To the vision of expanding destination celebrations for discerning clients who value trust, elegance, and discretion.
Trust. Discretion. My fingers tighten around the stem of my water glass.
He speaks about loyalty next, how relationships are the foundation of this business. How clients need to know they’re in hands that value family, legacy, and integrity.
Matteo moves beside me, taking one step forward. Ethan sees him and smiles wider, mistaking movement for endorsement.
“And of course,” Ethan says, “none of this would be possible without Matteo Ruggiero’s confidence in my leadership.”
Matteo steps onto the platform, and a murmur moves through the crowd. He takes the microphone Ethan is too startled to withhold.
“Thank you, Ethan,” Matteo says smoothly. “Leadership is precisely what we need to discuss.”
Ethan’s smile freezes.
Matteo turns to the guests. “I apologize for interrupting the evening, and I’ll be brief. The wedding celebration will continue as planned and with the care the Lombardi family deserves. However, Mr. Pratt is being removed from this account effective immediately.”
The terrace goes silent.
Ethan’s face drains, then floods with color. “Matteo, this isn’t the place?—”
“It is the place,” Matteo says, still calm. “Because this is where you intended to use our clients’ trust to advance yourself.”
A legal counsel steps forward near the side of the platform. So does a woman from Ruggiero’s senior team.
Matteo continues. “An internal review has uncovered serious concerns regarding falsified expense reports, misuse of company funds, inappropriate allocation of travel benefits, and unethical personal conduct involving both staff and individuals connected to client families.”
Willow takes a half step backward, and every eye on the terrace turns toward her.
Matteo doesn’t look at her. “These concerns include, but are not limited to, first-class upgrades billed improperly through corporate travel, luxury hotel add-ons miscategorized as client expenses, private transfers, spa charges, and communications indicating that company resources were used to facilitate a personal affair.”
Ethan lunges for the microphone. “This is outrageous.”
Matteo shifts it out of reach without raising his voice. “You’ll have the opportunity to respond through appropriate channels.”
“This is because of her,” Ethan says, pointing at me. Of course, his instinct is to drag me onto the floor with him.
The crowd turns, and for years, that would’ve made me shrink. Tonight, I step forward.
Matteo’s eyes flick toward me, asking silently, and I answer by continuing.
“No,” I say, my voice clear enough to carry. “This is because of you.”
Ethan’s mouth twists. “You’re my wife.”
“I was.” The two words move through the terrace like a match struck in a dark room.
Willow makes a small sound.
Ethan lowers his voice, but everyone hears it anyway. “Sophie, don’t do this.”
I look at him carefully, one last time.
At the handsome face I once trusted. At the man who put another woman beside him in first class and expected me to be grateful for any seat at all. At the husband who believed my loyalty was a leash he could yank whenever consequences came close.
“I’m forwarding our financial records to my attorney,” I say. “Including the transfers from our joint accounts and the charges you hid from me.”
His eyes flare. “You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“I understand more than you hoped I would.”
Willow suddenly speaks. “Ethan told me those charges were approved.”
Ethan turns on her. “Shut up.”
The ugliness of it exposes them both. Willow recoils, then looks around as if searching for sympathy in a room full of people she helped deceive.
“He said he was leaving her,” she blurts. “He said the promotion was basically guaranteed. He said?—”
“Willow,” Ethan snaps.
Matteo’s counsel is already taking notes.
The silence afterward is almost elegant.
Ethan looks from Willow to Matteo to the investors whose faces have closed against him. His charm searches for somewhere to land and finds no available surface.
Matteo gives the microphone to his senior team member. “Mr. Pratt will be escorted to a private office to await further instruction. Ms. Moore, you’ll accompany legal counsel separately.”
Two security staff appear.
No one gasps, or throws wine, or ruins the flowers, and that makes it worse for Ethan. It’s a quiet, professional removal. A clean erasure of the stage he thought belonged to him.
As he steps down, he reaches for me automatically, as if I’m still the person who will take his hand when he’s falling, but I step back, and his fingers close on air.
Matteo comes to stand beside me, and Ethan’s eyes shine with rage and panic.
“You’ll regret choosing him,” he says.
I think of Matteo’s jacket on the plane. The green dress. The coffee in the conference room. The way he asked what I needed. The way he looked at me in bed as if my pleasure mattered. The way he’s standing close enough to support me and far enough to let me be seen.
“I didn’t choose him to punish you,” I say. “I chose myself. He understood the difference.”
Ethan has no answer for that.
Security leads him away, and Willow follows counsel in the opposite direction, crying now in a way that may even be real. I don’t hate her in that moment, but I don’t forgive her either. She wanted to be chosen over me, and now she’s been left holding the cheapest part of Ethan: his promises.
The terrace remains silent until Matteo speaks to the room.
“The Lombardi celebration continues,” he says. “Our team will ensure every detail is handled.”
Then he turns to me, and his voice drops. “Ready to leave?”
I look around at the candles, the flowers, and the ruined ambition still hanging in the warm Italian air. “Yes.”
We walk away together, and Ethan watches from the far doorway, trapped between two security staff, as Matteo escorts me up the steps toward the villa.