Chapter 7
Six months after the Duomo, I turned my humiliation into a weapon and aimed it at the world. The anger hadn’t gone away; it had been channeled into results. With eighteen-hour workdays, Ferraro Uomo had never been more profitable.
“…and that’s why a six percent gain in the Asian market isn’t a victory, Signor Esposito.
” I leaned forward, holding the platinum pen between my fingers and keeping my gaze fixed on him.
“It’s an insult! Double the projection by next quarter, or I’ll replace your entire team.
” The tip of the pen tapped the report with a sharp click.
He nodded without looking at me. The other eleven—men in gray suits with decades of experience—shrunk a centimeter. It was always like this. I saw only charts; they saw the execution.
No one at that table saw the woman. Only the CEO.
The heiress who was more Ferraro than Enzo and Matteo had ever been…
and it was better that way. My brothers were bogged down in their own families—Matteo’s back-and-forth between Brazil and the United States, commitments, children in their arms—and I silently thanked the logistics: fewer eyes on me meant more freedom to act.
I was hiding the truth about my long, heavy clothes from my brothers and my father, but my mother could see right through me. She’d call me late at night, ask in a low voice, and press me without raising her voice.
“You’re not going to hide this baby from the whole world, Bianca.” Her voice echoed in my mind whenever I allowed myself to remember. “Tell your brothers…” And I’d hang up before the lecture began.
The open-front blazer framed me like armor—tailoring designed to project power and, above all, conceal what lay beneath.
I felt a sharp blow inside, firm, just below my diaphragm. A kick. An invisible hand demanding space…
My breath caught briefly. The pen trembled between my fingers; I clenched my hand until my knuckles turned white.
The dull pain in my back stung sharply. Seven months…
Pregnant by the man who humiliated me and vanished off the face of the earth.
Only my mother and my doctor knew, and it would stay that way until I decided otherwise.
I wasn’t going to be the pregnant victim. I was the CEO. The paparazzi, the gossip magazines, and the entire Milan elite wouldn’t be able to gloat over me again once they discovered my secret. I was determined to keep myself—and, above all, my baby—well away from unnecessary attention.
“If there’s nothing else…” I straightened my back, and the baby stirred again, but my face didn’t. “…this meeting is adjourned.” I pushed my briefcase forward, scratching the leather with my fingernails.
Chairs scraped, ties were adjusted, and cautious footsteps retreated across the glass-walled room. The room emptied, leaving Milan at my feet.
My cell phone vibrated on the table. Mom.
For a moment, I closed my eyes before answering. Her voice came through firmly, cutting through the air as it always did, but sweet enough to mask the pressure.
“Bianca… you need to listen to me. They’re going to notice. Your body is changing. You can’t hide it for much longer.”
I pressed the phone against my ear.
“They’re too busy with their own lives. Matteo’s in Brazil, Enzo’s between flights and meetings… It’s better this way.” I picked up a report and pretended to read it, as if I could drown out the unease with spreadsheets. “They don’t need to know.”
“Tesoro, what about when the baby is born?” Her voice softened, unsteady. “Are you going to raise him in secret? What will you say when they ask? When he asks about his father himself?”
My chest tightened. For an instant, I couldn’t breathe.
“He won’t ask,” I lied with the clinical calm I’d learned to use as a shield. “His father abandoned us, and I won’t let the press turn my son into a headline. I’d rather the world ignore him than see him as a Ferraro mistake.”
“Bianca…” My mother’s tone softened, and that hurt more than any scolding. “I understand that you want to protect him, but lying about a child’s origins… that destroys you from the inside.”
“What destroys me, Mom, is being reminded every day that he left me at the altar while I was carrying his child.” Anger rose within me, slow and controlled. “No one will know. Not the press, not the shareholders, not my brothers…”
My mother paused on the other end of the line. I could hear her breathing heavily, as if she were choosing each word carefully.
“All right.” She relented at last. “Keep it a secret from the world, if you want. But not from your family. They have the right to be by your side, even if you don’t want them to be.”
I closed my eyes, exhausted.
“They have wives, children, and roles in the company. That’s trouble enough.” I looked at my reflection in the glass: my flawless face, my dark blazer, and my hand resting on my belly. “What I need right now is silence.”
“Silence can be a form of loneliness, my dear.” Her voice dropped, almost a whisper. “And no woman—not even a Ferraro—raises a child alone without paying the price.”
I hung up before the guilt could take hold.
Another kick… calm and present. As if my baby just wanted to say: I’m here, Mom.
The boardroom was finally empty. The twelve men had left, leaving behind the echo of their fawning voices.
I didn’t move. I remained seated at the head of the long mahogany table, my throne. Solitude was my reward. I leaned back in the leather chair and closed my eyes for a brief second, allowing the exhaustion to wash over me.
Seven months of hiding this pregnancy beneath the armor of structured blazers and disciplined resolve. A time when every day was an act of war against my own biology.
My hand slid under the table—a secret gesture—and rested on the firm curve of my belly. A sudden movement—a strong, sharp kick—answered me.
I exhaled, irritated and, somehow, reassured. At least you’re okay, I thought.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
The sound was so violent that the glass of water in front of me vibrated and toppled over, spilling ice-cold water onto the polished surface. It wasn’t a knock. It was the sound of the massive double oak doors being hurled against the walls.
My heart stopped.
I heard my assistant’s voice, Chiara’s, a high-pitched scream of panic coming from the hallway.
“Signore! You can’t! Mr. Valenti, wait!”
Valenti?
The name hit like a blow. Blood drained from my face, leaving my skin chilled. What flooded me wasn’t power, but pure, visceral panic.
I jumped to my feet. The leather chair slammed against the glass wall behind me with a sharp crack.
He was standing in the doorway. But he wasn’t the Marco Valenti I knew—the arrogant, impeccably dressed billionaire—but rather, a ghost.
He looked devastated. His expensive suit was wrinkled, as if he’d slept in it for two days. His tie was gone, and his shirt collar was open. A three-day stubble covered his tense jawline, and his hair—always perfect—was tousled, as if he’d run his hands through it a thousand times.
But it was his eyes that paralyzed me.
I remembered those green eyes as calculating and mocking. Now they were bloodshot, wild, and fixed on me. They were the eyes of a man who had seen hell.
“Bianca,” he murmured.
Just my name. It came out as a hoarse groan.
Horror paralyzed me. He was here. The man I’d erased from the world was standing right there.
He knows.
The thought hit me with the same force as the kick I’d felt moments earlier.
He knows.
He took a step into the room. Then another. The sound of his shoes on the marble was the only sound in the room.
“Wait…” My voice faltered. I cleared my throat, clinging to my anger. “Stay where you are!”
He ignored me. His hungry green eyes scanned my face, my neck, and then drifted downward.
He stopped, about three meters away. His gaze dropped to my belly. The table no longer concealed me. The unbuttoned blazer couldn’t disguise the obvious.
His eyes widened. I saw the exact moment his brain calculated the months.
The color, already scarce, drained completely from his face. He didn’t look like a ghost; he looked like a corpse.
“Dio…” The sound was torn from him, a whisper of pure horror. He took a stumbling step, his hand raised, as if to brace himself against the air. “It’s… it’s…”
The confirmation in his eyes, the terror of his discovery, was my final humiliation. He was exposing me. Again!
Panic ignited into fury.
“Get out,” my voice came out low, vibrating with a hatred sharp enough to make the chilled air feel hot.
“Bianca… I didn’t know. I…” He took another step closer, his gaze fixed on my belly.
He ignored me.
“GET OUT!”
My scream was so sudden and so violent that it echoed through the empty room, like the roar of a cornered lioness.
“GET OUT OF MY ROOM! NOW!”
I ran to the side of the table, to the drinks cart, grabbed the heavy crystal decanter, and hurled it at him.
I aimed it at him.
Marco threw himself to the side. The crystal shattered against the doorframe with a deafening crash, sending shards of glass and whiskey flying.
He froze, gasping for breath.
“Bianca, please…”
He came at me. Fast.
Before I could grab anything else, he grabbed my wrists. His strength was brutal, and his touch burned my skin.
“Let me go!” I screamed, struggling against him.
“I was tricked!” he roared back, his fury finally matching mine, his face inches from mine.
“I don’t care!” I tried to kick him, but he pinned me against the table, his hip pressing against my stomach, and I froze in terror.
“Is it mine?” he demanded, his voice breaking, his wild green eyes searching mine.
“IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! LET ME GO!”
“IS IT MINE?”
The baby kicked hard. A violent movement, a protest against the struggle, exactly where he had me pinned.
We both felt it.
The anger on Marco’s face faded. It was replaced by stunned shock. His hand, which had been gripping my wrist, let go. Slowly, his trembling hand moved…
“No,” I whispered, panic seeping into my voice. “Don’t you dare…”