Part 1

Five years after my husband abandoned me for his secretary and let Manhattan believe I was a cheating wife, he spotted me at his luxury hotel with two children he'd never met. One look at my son's eyes and my daughter's smile shattered his composure, but the most terrifying part was the unmistakable fear on his secretary's face when she saw us.

I never expected to see Dominic Moretti again.

Especially not beneath the glittering chandeliers of the Moretti Grand, where two hundred wealthy guests were celebrating while I worked as an event coordinator.

Five years earlier, I'd left his penthouse carrying one suitcase, my face swollen from crying. He'd chosen Isabella Russo, his secretary, over me, and the entire city had whispered that I'd betrayed him.

I'd swallowed my rage and rebuilt my life.

Now, standing beneath an archway of white orchids, I heard two familiar voices.

"Mommy!"

My little boy raced toward me, his twin sister chasing him with her stuffed rabbit swinging wildly.

"Slow down, sweetheart!" I whispered, catching him against my hip.

Then I noticed the silence.

Across the ballroom, Dominic stood frozen beside a senator, staring at my children as though he'd seen ghosts.

His gaze locked onto my son's storm-gray eyes.

The exact same eyes he saw in his own mirror.

Then my daughter looked up and smiled.

Dominic went deathly pale.

I knew why. She had inherited the unmistakable smile of his late mother, the same smile captured in a photograph he kept locked inside his study.

CRASH!

His champagne glass shattered against the marble floor.

Every conversation stopped.

"Natalie?" he whispered.

Hearing my name from his lips after five years made my fingers tighten around my son's shoulder.

I refused to tremble.

My little boy tugged my dress. "Mommy, why is that man staring at us?"

I pulled both children closer.

"Because he doesn't know us, sweetheart."

Dominic flinched.

For a moment, the powerful mafia boss who could terrify an entire city looked completely helpless.

Then a sharp female voice broke the silence.

"Dominic? What's going on?"

Isabella appeared beside him in a silver gown, clutching her phone.

The moment she saw me, her smile vanished.

But when her eyes dropped to my twins, something far more revealing crossed her face.

Fear.

Pure, unmistakable fear.

Her fingers tightened around her phone as she studied my son's eyes, then my daughter's face.

She recognized something.

And I saw it.

Dominic turned toward her, his jaw tightening.

"Isabella," he said slowly, "do you know something about these children?"

She forced a smile.

"Darling, don't be ridiculous. Do you even know them?"

I stood perfectly still, holding my children against me.

Dominic looked from Isabella to my twins, then back at me.

His expression darkened.

And when he finally opened his mouth, I knew the secret I'd protected for five years was about to collide with the one Isabella desperately wanted buried.

Now I only looked at her.

Time had changed something inside me.

I no longer needed the approval of a ballroom.

I needed only the trust of the two small people standing beside me.

My daughter, Lucy, pressed her rabbit against her chest.

My son, Eli, stared curiously at Dominic.

Dominic was staring back.

He had forgotten the senator beside him.

He had forgotten Isabella’s hand on his sleeve.

Perhaps he had forgotten the entire room.

His attention remained fixed on Eli’s face.

“How old are they?” he asked.

The question was quiet.

Too quiet.

I knew what calculation had already begun inside his head.

I bent to straighten Lucy’s ribbon although it did not need straightening.

“That isn’t a conversation for here.”

Dominic swallowed.

“Natalie.”

There was something almost desperate in the way he said my name.

I stood.

“Not here.”

For one second, I saw the man I had once loved instead of the man Manhattan had feared and admired.

He used to look at me that way when something mattered more than his pride.

It was rare.

It was also the reason I had stayed longer than I should have after our marriage began collapsing under misunderstandings neither of us knew how to name.

Isabella’s fingers tightened around his arm.

“Dominic, Senator Hayes is waiting.”

Dominic did not look at her.

“Let him wait.”

A faint tremor passed through Isabella’s expression.

It disappeared almost immediately.

I noticed anyway.

So did Dominic.

He slowly removed her hand from his sleeve.

“Natalie,” he said, “give me five minutes.”

“No.”

His brows drew together.

I almost smiled at the expression.

Five years earlier, almost nobody said no to Dominic Moretti.

Five years earlier, I rarely did either.

Motherhood had cured me of that particular weakness.

“I’m working,” I said.

“And my children are leaving with their babysitter.”

“They’re yours?”

The question came from Isabella.

I looked directly at her.

“Yes.”

She inhaled.

It was hardly noticeable.

Dominic noticed.

His gaze moved sharply toward her.

Isabella lowered her eyes.

Lucy tugged my hand.

“Mommy, can we have the little cakes before we go?”

The innocence of the question cracked the strange tension surrounding us.

I crouched beside her.

“Two.”

“Three?”

“Two and one strawberry.”

Lucy considered this.

“Deal.”

Eli nodded solemnly.

“Can mine have chocolate?”

“Absolutely.”

Their babysitter, Maya, hurried toward us from the service corridor, looking apologetic.

“I’m so sorry, Natalie.”

“It’s fine.”

Maya reached for the children.

Lucy immediately took her hand.

Eli did not.

He was still studying Dominic.

Then, with the unfiltered curiosity of a five-year-old, he asked the question I had feared since the moment Dominic dropped his glass.

“Do I know you?”

Dominic’s face changed.

It was not dramatic.

His shoulders simply lowered, as though something heavy had suddenly been placed upon them.

“No,” he said.

Then he paused.

“I don’t think you do.”

Eli frowned.

“You look like me.”

Nobody spoke.

Lucy turned and examined Dominic too.

“No,” she declared.

“He looks like Eli when Eli is grumpy.”

Eli protested immediately.

“I’m not grumpy.”

“You are when your socks are itchy.”

Maya bit back a laugh.

Even Dominic’s mouth moved.

Only Isabella remained perfectly still.

I placed my hands gently on my children’s shoulders.

“Go with Maya.”

Eli hesitated.

“Mommy?”

“I’ll see you at home soon.”

He nodded, although reluctantly.

Lucy waved at everyone as though departing a birthday party rather than the strangest encounter of our lives.

“Bye, grumpy man.”

A sound escaped Dominic that might have been a laugh or a breath.

Then the children disappeared through the side door.

The moment they were gone, his expression hardened again.

He turned toward me.

“How old?”

I looked at Isabella.

She had gone pale.

I could have lied.

For five years, I had told myself that silence was not dishonesty.

Silence had protected the children.

Silence had protected me.

But standing there, watching Isabella struggle to keep her composure, I realized something I had never fully considered.

My silence might also have protected her.

“Five,” I said.

Dominic closed his eyes.

Only for a second.

When he opened them again, the calculation was complete.

“When?”

“Dominic.”

“Natalie, when were they born?”

“March seventeenth.”

His face drained of color.

He remembered.

Of course he remembered.

Our marriage had ended the previous July.

He took one step toward me.

“Are they mine?”

Isabella spoke before I could answer.

“This is absurd.”