35
GAbrIELA DUARTE
The check lay between us, final proof that Luca had no intention of listening.
He pushed it a few inches toward me. I looked at the amount, then at him. At his signature. The hand that had never written I love you had written five million without hesitation. Five million euros.
More than Augusto’s firm had made in years. Enough to pay every debt, buy a house, raise a child without working, and disappear from Luca’s life exactly as he wanted.
“What is this?” I asked, though I knew.
“Security for you and the child.”
“Security? You just called me a liar.”
“It’s a practical solution.”
“To a problem you’ve decided is mine.
“My child is not for sale.”
“I’m not buying a child that isn’t mine.”
The words struck the center of my chest.
“Take it and leave Italy. I want this over without another spectacle.”
“Spectacle?”
I looked at Beatrice. After I’d pushed her hand away, she’d retreated to the door. She was still there, listening to the price Luca put on my departure.
“You let her watch while you try to pay me to disappear, and call my reaction a spectacle.”
I picked up the check. For a second, I thought of medical bills, the installments I still owed, the firm just beginning to recover.
Five million. I wouldn’t have to wake up calculating which payment could wait.
I saw Luca’s shoulders relax. Then I tore the paper in half, and in half again.
I let the pieces fall over the photographs.
“This I won’t accept. What your company owes for my work is separate, and I will collect it.”
His face hardened.
“I’m not deducting it from your payment.”
Beatrice shifted.
“Luca, the guests . . .”
“Get out,” I ordered.
This time, he repeated the order. She opened the door and left. I waited for it to close before looking at him again.
“I’m leaving. My lawyer will contact you about the contract. As for the baby, you’ll hear from me when there’s a paternity test. I’m not going to keep repeating myself tonight.”
“I can’t let you use a child to get into my family.”
“I was already in your life before the pregnancy.”
“You were under contract to my company, with debts you couldn’t pay. I bought your father’s property so you wouldn’t lose that too.”
I stared at him. I knew the buyer’s name. My lawyer had checked the contract and payment. She’d never told me the company belonged to Luca.
“The company that bought the office is yours?”
He looked away.
“I kept it from being destroyed.”
“Without telling me. After promising you wouldn’t use money to control my life.”
“I meant to give it back to you at the opening.”
“As a gift? Another debt I could never repay?”
“It was a way to preserve Augusto’s legacy.”
“Don’t say his name.”
My voice was low, but it stopped him.
“Don’t use my father to justify this. You went to Lisbon with me, waited in the car while I signed, listened to me talk about the sale for weeks. You knew what I’d asked and hid who was buying it.”
“You’re twisting it.”
“And now you think I got pregnant by another man to get more.”
I remembered coming back from that appointment, the way he’d taken me in his arms in the car. I’d cried over the office in the arms of the man who’d secretly arranged to buy it. Anger kept me standing.
“I loved you.”
He closed his eyes. It was the first time I’d said it. Not in the garden, in the imagined house, or in bed. I said it as he destroyed everything he could have been given.
“Don’t,” he murmured.
“When I was younger, I loved the idea I had of you. Here, I got to know the man. Or thought I did. He was the one I wanted to be with.”
“My worst mistake was confusing gratitude with love.”
I didn’t understand at first.
“What?”
“You were Augusto’s daughter. I felt responsible, guilty about missing the funeral, impressed by your work. I turned that into something that wasn’t there.”
I remembered the house drawing, his wish to keep seeing me after the work ended, his hand searching for mine in his sleep. I recognized none of it in the version he’d just offered me.
“I wasn’t an obligation you mistook for desire,” I said. “You came to me. You made choices. You’ll have to remember them without turning me into a debt you owed my father.”
He opened his mouth but didn’t answer. For the first time that night, I didn’t wait.
I opened the box, took out the envelope of results, and put the rose in my pocket. I left the empty box on the table. I wanted Enrico’s keepsake; I didn’t want to carry it in my arms with security waiting outside.
“One day you’ll find out. Maybe when a test shows you’re the father, maybe when you find whoever fabricated this. That day, you’ll remember this room and every word.”
I walked to the door. Luca called my name. I stopped with my hand on the handle.
“Don’t tell the press before the lawyers prepare a response.”
My laugh broke.
“Still worried about your reputation.”
“I’m worried about the group.”
“My private medical appointment has already passed through three people in this family. Start by asking them to keep quiet.”
I opened the door. Two security guards waited in the hall. Beatrice stood a few yards away with Lorenzo.
One of the guards lowered his eyes when he saw me. The other stayed by the door.
Luca appeared behind me.
“They’ll accompany you to your room to collect your things, then to a hotel.”
I turned slowly.
“You’re throwing me out of the palace I restored. On opening night.”
“It’s best for everyone.”
“I’ll leave. That doesn’t end my contract or give you the right to withhold payment.”
“The decision about your staying has been made.”
That wasn’t an answer to what I’d said. He leaned against the doorway, distant from me, while two men waited for his order.
“The car is waiting,” he said.
One guard avoided my eyes. The other extended a hand toward the hall.
“I don’t need an escort.”
“They have their instructions,” Luca said.
“Of course.”
I went upstairs with both men behind me. I put clothes into my suitcase without folding them and went into the bathroom for my toiletries. When I noticed one guard on the threshold, I stopped.
“Wait outside.”
He stepped back. I closed the door and had to brace my hands on the sink before I could put away my toothbrush.
When I came out, Paola was in the room, holding one of my blouses, unsure what to do.
I took it and shoved it into the suitcase.
If I stopped to organize anything, I might not manage to leave.
“What happened?”
“They received false documents about me. Luca wouldn’t listen. He ordered my access blocked, including my work access.”
“Let me come with you.”
“I need you to save a copy of today’s acceptance and the project records. Send them to the inspectors too. Don’t let them disappear.”
“I’ll send them now. Then I’ll come find you.”
In the studio, I collected Augusto’s photograph, my notebook, and the original house drawing.
I left the project materials and the copies the team would need.
I took the key to the door between Luca’s office and the corridor off the key ring and set it on the table beside the computer.
Paola photographed the handover papers for me.
I sent the images to my lawyer with a short message about being expelled and having my access blocked.
Sofia had already returned to the villa. Paola called, but she didn’t answer the first time. She said she’d try again; I didn’t need to stay and wait. When I went downstairs, dinner continued in the main ballroom. The side door opened onto an empty drive. It was raining.
Luca waited under the shelter of the arcade. He didn’t offer a coat or ask whether I was all right. I passed without stopping.
“I can forgive a lot,” he said behind me. “But don’t let a child who isn’t mine learn to call me Dad.”
I stopped in the rain. I didn’t turn.
“I won’t teach my child to beg you to want them.”
I got into the car. Only when the gate disappeared did I realize I was shaking too hard to hold the phone. The driver confirmed the hotel address Luca’s team had booked. I nodded, unable to speak.
In the back seat, I felt a mild cramp. I exhaled slowly and waited. When it passed, I called Cris.
“Gabi?” he answered, his voice thick with sleep.
For a few seconds, I couldn’t speak.
“He threw me out, Cris.”
His silence lasted only as long as it took to understand.
“Where are you?”
“In the car. They’re taking me to a hotel in Como.”
“Send me the location. I’ll take the first flight. Can Paola come to you?”
I sent the address to both of them and asked Paola to come.
I told Cris about the cramp, which had passed.
He asked whether I was bleeding. I said no.
He asked me to tell the driver and seek medical attention if the pain returned or I began to bleed.
I stayed on the line. The hotel was only minutes away; I wanted somewhere I could sit and talk.
I put a hand on my belly. Hours earlier, I’d hoped to tell Luca we were going to be parents. I pressed the envelope to my body while Cris kept saying my name.
Inside me, the life I still believed was only one kept growing as I drove away through the rain.