Chapter 3: A donor and a stolen inheritance (2/2)
Part 6 · 5 min read ·
St.
Bridget's Pediatric Family Fund.
Luca looked at me.
“You've been donating the money.”
“Most of it.”
“Nora.”
“What was I supposed to buy?”
His expression changed.
“Anything.”
“I didn't need anything.”
Daniel cleared his throat.
“There was another recurring transfer.”
I frowned.
“To whom?”
He pointed.
A company named AQ Consulting.
Two thousand dollars monthly.
My stomach tightened.
“I never authorized that.”
Luca went still.
“How long?”
“Since the month after the wedding.”
“Who owns AQ Consulting?”
Daniel hesitated.
Then answered.
“Antonio Quinn.”
My father's brother.
My uncle.
A man I had not seen since I was thirteen.
I stared at the page.
“What does he have to do with the Ferraros?”
Daniel looked toward Luca.
Then back at me.
“A great deal.”
He opened another file.
Inside was an old photograph.
My grandfather.
Luca's father.
Antonio Ferraro.
And my uncle.
All four men standing together twenty-five years earlier.
I felt the ground shift beneath me.
“This marriage,” Daniel said carefully, “may have been planned long before either of you knew about it.”
My grandfather had lied to me.
That was the hardest part.
Thomas Quinn had raised me after my father left.
He taught me to drive.
Attended school concerts.
Helped me apply to university.
When he died, I inherited his investment holdings.
I had believed the Ferraro marriage arrangement was something his trustees negotiated afterward to stabilize those companies.
It wasn't.
A letter discovered in his archive changed everything.
Twenty-six years earlier, Thomas Quinn and Vittorio Ferraro had purchased shipping property together.
Their partnership collapsed.
Money disappeared.
Accusations followed.
Eventually they separated the businesses.
But one complicated trust remained jointly connected.
Our marriage consolidated it.
“Why didn't anyone tell us?”
I asked.
Marco sat in the mansion library with Luca and me.
“Because your grandfather apparently changed his mind.”
“About what?”
“The marriage.”
I stared.
“He never wanted it completed.”
Luca's face darkened.
“Then who revived it?”
“Antonio Ferraro and your uncle.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Two Antonios.”
Marco nodded.
“Apparently confusing names were the least dishonest thing about them.”
The two uncles had benefited enormously from combining Ferraro shipping interests with Quinn real estate holdings.
Our marriage simplified control.
The fraudulent pregnancy clause would have completed the transfer.
I felt sick.
“So I wasn't a wife.”
Luca looked sharply at me.
“Nora.”
“I was a corporate mechanism.”
“No.”
“That is literally what these documents describe.”
“Not to me.”
I looked at him.
He became still.
Marco quietly left the room.
Coward.
Probably intelligent.
Luca came closer but stopped several feet away.
“I didn't know.”
“I believe you.”
“But?”
“Part of me wishes you had.”
His face tightened.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
I wrapped my arms around myself.
“If you'd known, then maybe the distance would make sense.”
He understood.
I saw it happen.
If Luca had deliberately treated me like a contract, I could hate him simply.
But he'd chosen me before the attorneys suggested my name.
He'd wanted me.
Then he'd married me.
Then neglected me anyway.
That hurt differently.
“I thought distance was safer,” he said.
“For whom?”
“Me.”
“Of course.”
The words came sharper than intended.
Luca accepted them.
“You started becoming important immediately.”
I laughed softly.
“We barely spoke.”
“I noticed when you weren't at breakfast.”
“Yet you didn't come find me.”
“No.”
“I started waiting for dinner.”
“I know.”
“After how long?”
His expression changed.
“Three months.”
“So you noticed.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you sit down?”
He looked toward the fireplace.
“Because wanting to felt like changing the agreement.”
My anger faltered.
“You thought I didn't want you there?”
“You had your own life.”
“I was eating alone.”
“I know that now.”
I closed my eyes.
Two people obeying rules neither wanted.
Perhaps tragedy did not require villains.
Sometimes it required pride and poor communication.
Still, choices mattered.
“You could have asked.”
“Yes.”
“So could I.”
He looked at me.
That was my part.
I had waited.
I had resented.
I had assumed his absence meant preference.
Then pride turned loneliness into secrecy.
“I could have told you about Theo.”
“Yes.”
“I could have asked you to come to dinner instead of leaving reservations on your calendar.”
“Yes.”
“But?”
He understood.
“But none of that excuses me missing you three birthdays in a row.”
I looked at him.
“Three?”
He frowned.
Then horror dawned.
“Our engagement dinner last year.”
“My twenty-eighth birthday.”
He closed his eyes.
“You missed that too.”
“Yes.”
“God.”
“No, Luca.
Scheduling.”
He laughed despite himself.
So did I.
It was inappropriate.
Necessary.
Theo began recovering.
Slowly.
His blood counts dropped first.
Then began rising.
Doctors warned us not to celebrate too soon.
We celebrated tiny things anyway.
One good lab result.
Half a sandwich.
A day without fever.
Luca visited whenever allowed.
He never arrived empty-handed.
At first he brought expensive toys.
Theo rejected nearly all of them.
Then Luca learned.
Comic books.
Cheap plastic dinosaurs.
A puzzle.
One afternoon he brought nothing.
He simply sat.
That was the day Theo seemed happiest.
I noticed.
So did Luca.
“Apparently children are inexpensive,” he said afterward.
“No.
They're expensive.”
“Then what did I learn?”
“That attention isn't.”
His face became quiet.
The sentence applied elsewhere.
We both knew.
My pregnancy reached eight weeks.
The ultrasound showed a heartbeat.
Fast.
Tiny.
Impossible.
Luca stood beside me.
His eyes filled again.
He was becoming alarmingly emotional for a powerful billionaire.
“You cry a lot now.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
“I have allergies.”
“To ultrasounds?”
“Yes.”
Dr.
Patel looked amused.
Afterward, Luca walked me to the car.
“I want to ask something.”
“Dangerous.”
“If we weren't married…”
I waited.
“Would you date me?”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Hypothetically.”
“That is a terrible question.”
“I know.”
“You're asking your pregnant wife whether she'd date you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His expression became serious.
“Because I'm trying to understand whether there is anything between us that exists beyond the arrangement.”
My heart tightened.
“That isn't a question I can answer while we're inside it.”
He nodded.
“I thought so.”
“You're not angry?”
“No.”
“Disappointed?”
“Yes.”
Honest.
I appreciated that.
“I think we need to undo the contract.”
He stopped walking.
“What?”
“Not necessarily the marriage.”
His face changed.
“The business structure.”
I continued.
“The trust.
The financial dependencies.
Everything our families built around us.”
“You want separate ownership.”
“Yes.”
“So if you stay—”
“It won't benefit anyone.”
Understanding entered his expression.
“If you leave—”
“I'll leave because I chose to.”
Luca stared at me.
Then smiled.
Not happily.
Proudly.
“I'll have Marco start tomorrow.”
“You agree?”
“Yes.”
“That easily?”
“No.”
He looked toward the hospital.
“Nothing about you has ever been easy.”
I nearly smiled.
Then his phone rang.
Marco.
Perfect timing.
Luca answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
I watched.
“When did you learn this?”
Another pause.
Then he looked at me.
“What happened?”
Luca ended the call.
“My uncle confessed to altering the agreement.”
Relief should have followed.
It didn't.
“But?”
Luca's face went pale.
“He says he wasn't the one who created the pregnancy clause.”
“Then who was?”
His eyes held mine.
“Your grandfather.”
My breath stopped.
“The clause was genuine originally.”
“That can't be true.”
“According to Antonio, your grandfather removed it before you inherited the trust.”
“Why?”
Luca swallowed.
“Because he discovered something about my father.”
“What?”
The city seemed to go silent around us.
Luca answered carefully.
“Your father didn't leave when you were eleven because he wanted another family.”
I stared.
“He left because Vittorio Ferraro paid him to disappear.”