Chapter 1: The Woman Who Should Have Been Gone
"NICHOLAS SAW FOUR FRESH FINGER MARKS ON LUCY’S WRIST—THEN THE SUITCASE VIVIENNE CLAIMED MARIA HAD PACKED CONTAINED A LETTER WRITTEN BY NICHOLAS’S DE@D MOTHER YEARS BEFORE LUCY WAS BORN
Maria insisted the suitcase wasn’t hers.
Nicholas believed her after seeing the lock.
It belonged to an old Moretti luggage set kept in the east wing.
Nobody had opened it in years.
Inside were Maria’s clothes.
Lucy’s toys.
And a sealed envelope addressed to:
“THE WOMAN RAISING THE LITTLE GIRL.”
Nicholas recognized the handwriting at once.
His mother.
De@d for six years.
The letter had been written before Lucy was born.
It warned that if a young girl ever entered the Moretti house wearing Maria’s family surname, Nicholas must protect her before announcing who she was.
Nicholas stared at Maria.
She had never met his mother.
Then he discovered an old photograph inside the envelope.
Maria’s mother stood beside Nicholas’s mother twenty-five years earlier.
Between them was a newborn baby.
On the back:
“THE SECOND DAUGHTER MUST NEVER BE REGISTERED AS A MORETTI.”
Nicholas examined Lucy’s records.
Her maternal grandmother had changed identities twice.
Then Vivienne admitted she knew about the letter.
That was why she wanted Maria and Lucy gone before the wedding.
But she wasn’t the person who packed the suitcase.
The mansion’s camera revealed an elderly woman walking into the east wing that morning.
Nicholas went still when he saw her face.
His mother.
Older.
Alive.
And holding the same red dress Vivienne wore to the party."
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Why had Nicholas’s mother returned—and how would Vivienne react?
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