Chapter 6
The tension from the hallway hadn’t dissipated by the time supper rolled around. Dimitri, Nico, and Killian were already seated, looking like three dark, brooding statues in the candlelight of the formal dining room.
Then Bea walked in. She hadn’t dressed up.
She was in a pair of soft black leggings and an oversized charcoal-grey men’s hoodie that swallowed her frame.
Her dark curls piled into a messy bun held together by a stray pencil.
She looked soft, approachable, and entirely too comfortable in their fortress.
As she passed a maid carrying a bread basket, Bea stopped and touched the woman’s arm. “This smells amazing, I’m Beatrice, but please call me Bea.”
The older woman’s smile was pleasant as she responded, “Nice to meet you Bea I’m Maria.”
“Thank you for all the hard work,” Bea responded with a genuine, warm smile.
“You are most welcome.” Maria beamed.
“Beatrice!”
A woman with silver hair and eyes that held the same steel as Dimitri’s rose from the side of the table. Isabella Marchetti didn’t wait for an introduction; she swept across the room and pulled Bea into a fierce, fragrant hug.
“It is so good to finally have a woman of substance in this house,” Isabella declared, pulling back to cup Bea’s face. “Welcome to the Marchetti home.”
Bea blinked, clearly caught off guard by the genuine warmth. “Thank you. Do you… do you live here too, Mrs. Marchetti?”
Isabella laughed, a melodic sound that made Dimitri look down at his plate. “No, honey. I live in the ‘smaller’ cottage on the edge of the estate. I value my peace too much to live with these three headaches, though, sometimes I do like to stay in a guest room if it gets too late.”
The guys watched in stunned silence. The way their mother interacted with Bea, the woman who had once tried to dismantle their empire, was seamless, as if they were old friends.
As the first course was served, Isabella leaned in, her gaze softening. “Tell me, Beatrice, what was it like for you growing up? I want to know the woman behind the legend.”
Dimitri froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. He watched Bea’s reflection in the polished mahogany.
In a split second, the playfulness vanished. Bea’s posture stiffened, her spine going as straight as a blade. Her eyes, usually so full of fire, went suddenly sad, and then, a heartbeat later, stone cold.
“Oh, you know,” Bea said, her voice perfectly level, though the hand holding her water glass tightened until her knuckles were white. “It was a normal childhood. Nothing too crazy. Suburban life, school, the usual.”
The lie hung heavy in the air. The three men knew better. They didn’t have the full file, they knew her stepfather had “disappeared” from the board permanently and that Bea had been the one to checkmate him, but they could see the ghost of a scream in the way she wouldn’t meet Isabella’s eyes.
By the time the meal ended, the air in the room felt thin to Bea. The weight of her past, combined with the guilt of lying to a woman as kind as Isabella, was suffocating.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Bea said, standing up abruptly. “I’m in a bit of a headspace. I need to go call my boyfriends and tell them goodnight.”
Dimitri, who had just taken a restorative sip of his twenty-year-old Macallan, choked violently.
He sputtered, coughing into a linen napkin as he stared at her. “Boyfriends? Plural?”
Nico leaned back, his glasses reflecting the candlelight. “Apparently, she has three, Dimitri,” he said, his voice tight with a jealousy he was failing to hide.
Killian nodded grimly, his face set in a scowl. “A whole roster of them.”
Isabella Marchetti didn’t look shocked at all. Instead, she let out a delighted cackle, clapping her hands together. “Three? Oh, you go, girl! Why settle for a slice when you can have the whole bakery?”
Dimitri turned a look of pure, horrified betrayal on his mother. “Ma! You are not encouraging this.”
Isabella just patted Dimitri’s hand with a sharp, knowing smirk. She looked from Dimitri to Nico, and then to the hulking, brooding Killian.
Bea didn’t wait for the fallout. She turned and hurried toward the stairs, the sound of her own heartbeat echoing in her ears.
Isabella gave them all a pointed look, her eyes glinting with mischief and challenge.
“Honestly, you boys would be lucky to find a woman like Bea. But you’re all too busy with your heads up your asses and your hands on your dicks to ever notice what’s right in front of you,” she declared, her laughter bubbling up again as the men’s faces turned a collective shade of crimson.