Chapter 4 - The Negotiation
The glass dome of the Drake Hotel conservatory was quiet at 2:00 PM, bathed in muted afternoon light. The palm trees and marble fountains created an illusion of peace, but the air was thick with tension.
Luca was sitting at a corner table, staring into an untouched cup of black coffee. He looked exhausted. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his suit looked as if he had slept in it.
When he saw me walking across the marble floor, he stood up instantly.
"Nia," he said, stepping forward. He started to reach out a hand, but stopped himself when he saw the cold distance in my posture.
I sat down across from him, declining the waiter's offer for tea. "You have twenty minutes, Luca. The children are with Sarah."
Luca winced at the reminder, slowly sinking back into his chair. "I didn't sleep last night, Nia. I spent twelve hours looking at old photographs of us. Looking at my mother’s childhood photos. Leo has her mouth. Maya has her exact jawline." He rubbed his face with both hands, his voice dropping into a ragged whisper. "How could you hide them from me?"
"How could I tell you?" I countered, my voice low and fierce. "You broke my heart, Luca! You looked at me like I was broken goods! You let your corporate friends whisper in your ear until you couldn't stand the sight of me!"
"I was a fool!" he yelled softly, leaning across the table, his knuckles white against the dark wood. "I was terrified! Moretti Global was going through a hostile takeover, my father was dying, and every month we got another negative test result! I thought... I thought I was making you miserable! I thought leaving you was giving you a chance to be free!"
"That is a lie you tell yourself so you can sleep at night," I said coldly. "You didn't leave to set me free. You left because you wanted a perfect wife who could produce a perfect heir for your empire. And when I didn't deliver on your timeline, you traded me in for Evelyn Shaw!"
Luca went completely still. "Evelyn has nothing to do with this."
"Doesn't she?" I sneered softly. "I know about your recent trips to fertility specialists, Luca. I know you spent the last two years visiting clinics in Chicago and Manhattan, only to be told you were perfectly fine. You realized I wasn't the problem. You realized you had destroyed our marriage over an assumption. And then, fate threw my twins in your face."
Luca’s dark eyes filled with a terrifying, raw agony. "Yes!" he confessed loudly, not caring that a waiter nearby turned to look. "Yes, damn it! I found out six months ago that there was never anything wrong with either of us! I realized I had committed the greatest sin of my life by letting you go! I was living in a hell of my own making, Nia! And then yesterday... yesterday I saw those two beautiful children, and I realized my sin was a thousand times worse than I ever imagined!"
He reached across the table, grabbing my hand before I could pull it away. His fingers were burning hot, trembling against my cold skin.
"Please, Nia," he begged, his voice cracking completely. "I don't care about the empire. I don't care about the Shaw merger. I just want to know my son and daughter. Let me be their father. I will give you anything. Half my fortune, total legal immunity, whatever you want. Just don't keep them in the dark."
I looked at his hand holding mine—the same hand that had once held me through cold winters, the same hand that had signed our divorce papers without a second thought.
"I can't trust you, Luca," I whispered, pulling my hand back gently. "Because you're still surrounded by the snakes who destroyed us in the first place."
Luca frowned, his eyebrows knotting in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
May you like
I pulled a single sheet of paper from my purse—a copy of the forged medical report—and slid it across the marble table toward him.
"Ask your best friend, Marcus Vance, where he got this," I said quietly, standing up from the table. "And when you find out the truth about how your empire was built... then maybe we can talk about my children."
