11. Nora
— ? —
Nora
One Week Later
The letter lives in my nightstand now.
I’ve read it so many times the paper is going soft at the creases. Dante’s handwriting, slanting and urgent:
Nora,
I don’t know how to reach you anymore. Every night I come home and you’re already asleep, or pretending to be, and I stand in the doorway and try to remember how to walk into our bedroom like I belong there.
Like I have any right to lie down next to you after another day of choosing work over you.
I don’t know when I became this person. I don’t know how to stop.
It ends there. Unfinished. Like all the others.
I fold it back up. Put it away. Lie in the dark and stare at the ceiling.
It’s 3 AM. I’m wearing one of his old t-shirts - the gray one, soft from years of washing, stolen from his closet so long ago that I forgot to give it back. It still smells like him. Barely. Just enough.
This is pathetic, I tell myself. You’re supposed to be moving on.
But at 3 AM, with his words in my nightstand and his shirt on my skin, moving on feels like a lie I’m telling myself to survive.
***
Julian texts at noon.
Coffee? I have news.
We meet at a place near my office - small, quiet, the kind of spot where you can have a conversation without being overheard. He’s already there when I arrive, looking effortlessly put-together in a charcoal sweater that probably costs more than my rent.
“You look tired,” he says as I sit down.
“Thanks. That’s exactly what every woman wants to hear.”
He laughs. “You look beautiful and tired. Better?”
“Marginally.”
The waiter brings my usual order without being asked. Julian notices my surprise.
“I may have called ahead,” he admits. “Told them what you liked.”
“That’s either charming or stalkerish.”
“I prefer charming.” He leans back, then seems to remember why he called. “But that’s not why I dragged you out here.”
“You said you had news.”
“I do.” He sets down his cup. “There’s a role opening at the foundation. Executive Director, international programs. Based in London.” He pauses. “I put your name forward.”
“Julian-”
“No pressure. Nothing’s decided - the board still has to sign off.” He shrugs, easy and unhurried. “But you’d be extraordinary at it. And you deserve a stage that has nothing to do with the Moretti name.”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing. He lets it go.
“So,” he says. “How was the lake house?”
I stir my coffee. “Snowed in. Freezing. Complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
“Complicated as in my almost-ex-husband was there, and we spent three days trapped together, and I found out he’d been writing me letters all year that he never sent.”
Julian’s eyebrows rise. “Letters.”
“Dozens of them. All about how he didn’t know how to reach me.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “He noticed everything, Julian. The whole year I thought I was invisible - he was watching. He just didn’t know how to say anything.”
“And that changes things?”
I don’t answer.
Julian studies me for a long moment. His expression shifts - something softer than I’m used to seeing from him.
“You’re already in love with him again,” he says quietly. “Aren’t you?”
“I never stopped.”
The words surprise me as much as they seem to surprise him. But they’re true. I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise for weeks, but at 3 AM in his shirt with his letters in my drawer, the truth is undeniable.
“I never stopped loving him,” I say. “I just couldn’t keep loving someone who couldn’t see me.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know.” I wrap my hands around my coffee cup. “He says he’s going to prove it. Choose me with the roads clear, whatever that means. But I’ve heard his promises before.”
“So you’re waiting.”
“I’m trying not to wait.” I meet his eyes. “I’m trying to figure out what my life looks like without him. And I can’t-” My voice cracks. “I can’t do that if I’m still hoping.”
Julian reaches across the table. Takes my hand.
“For what it’s worth,” he says, “I think you deserve someone who chooses you without being asked. Someone who never stops seeing you in the first place.”
“Is that someone you?”
He smiles, but it’s sad at the edges. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
“Julian-”
“It’s okay, Nora. I’m a big boy. I knew what I was getting into.” He squeezes my hand, then lets go. “But if he screws it up again - if he gets the chance you’re thinking about giving him and he wastes it-”
“He won’t.”
“You sound sure.”
“I’m not.” I take a breath. “But I think I’m going to find out.”
***
The tabloid drops at 3 PM.
Sophia calls me before I even see it. “Don’t look at your phone.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
“Sophia-”
“That stronza. That absolute - I’m going to kill her. I’m going to find her and I’m going to kill her with my bare hands.”
I pull up the gossip site. The headline screams in bold:
BILLIONAIRE’S WIFE FLEES TO RIVAL’S ARMS
Below it, a photo from the gala. Julian’s hand on my waist. My head thrown back in laughter.
And the text:
Sources close to the Moretti family reveal that Nora Moretti’s sudden departure from her marriage may not have been as innocent as she’d like the world to believe.
“She was always looking for a better deal,” the source says.
“Dante gave her everything, and the moment someone richer came along, she ran.”
The source, who asked to remain anonymous, described Nora as “calculating” and “obsessed with status.” “She married Dante for his money. When it got hard, she bailed. Now she’s working her way through his competitors.”
I set down my phone.
My hands are shaking.
“Nora?” Sophia’s voice is tinny through the speaker. “Nora, say something.”
“It’s Vanessa.”
“What?”
“The source. It’s Vanessa.” I recognize the poison. The specific venom of someone who’s been waiting for years to strike. “She’s the only one who would say those things. The only one who hates me enough.”
“That stronza. I’ll bury her. I’ll find her and I’ll bury her so deep-”
“Don’t.”
“What do you mean, don’t?”
I pick up my phone again. Read the article one more time.
The words are acid, but underneath the burn, there’s something almost funny about it.
Vanessa’s been wanting this for years - the chance to destroy me, to paint me as the villain, to rewrite the story so she’s the wronged party and I’m the gold-digging whore who stole her happy ending.
And I’m supposed to - what? Deny it? Issue a statement? Go on some talk show and cry about how I really loved my husband, I promise, I’m not a gold-digger?
No.
“I’m not going to deny loving him,” I say quietly.
“What?”
“That’s what she wants. She wants me to scramble. To defend myself. To look guilty.” I set the phone down. “I’m not going to do it. Let her say whatever she wants. The people who matter know the truth.”
“Nora-”
“I spent a year being invisible. I’m done performing for people who don’t deserve it.”
Sophia is quiet for a long moment.
“You’re sure?” she finally asks.
“No.” I laugh, and it sounds almost real. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
***
The text comes at midnight.
Dante: I’m handling it.
Then, a minute later:
Dante: Trust me once more.
I stare at the screen.
The letter is in my nightstand. His shirt is on my body. And somewhere across the city, he’s awake at midnight, fighting a battle I didn’t ask him to fight.
My thumb hovers over the keys.
I want to write back. I want to say okay or thank you or don’t make me regret this.
But I don’t.
I set the phone down. Turn off the light.
And I lie in the dark, wanting to trust him, not quite ready to say it out loud.