Part 5

I recognized him only after several seconds.

Samuel Russo had once been broad-shouldered and imposing.

Now he leaned on a cane.

His silver hair was thin.

Time had softened his face.

Dominic stood.

“Samuel?”

Samuel entered slowly.

Claire looked ashamed.

“He asked me to call him if you ever started asking questions.”

“Why?” Dominic asked.

Samuel lowered himself into the empty chair.

“Because there are things my daughter never told you.”

Nobody spoke.

Samuel looked at me first.

“Mrs. Moretti.”

“Natalie.”

He nodded.

“Natalie.”

His voice trembled slightly.

“I owe you an apology that is five years late.”

My heart sank.

“You wrote the letter.”

“No.”

I stared at him.

He continued.

“But my name made it possible.”

Dominic’s jaw tightened.

“What does that mean?”

Samuel placed both hands on his cane.

“Isabella had access to my archived files while I was recovering.”

“Why?”

“She was helping me close the office.”

Dominic went still.

Samuel looked ashamed.

“She copied my signature.”

The truth entered the room quietly.

No shouting.

No dramatic confession.

Just an old man speaking words that changed five years of our lives.

“Did you know?” I asked.

“Not then.”

“When did you find out?”

“Two years ago.”

Dominic stared at him.

“And you said nothing?”

Samuel’s eyes closed briefly.

“My daughter was frightened.”

“Of what?”

“Losing everything.”

I almost laughed bitterly.

“She had everything.”

“No,” Samuel said.

“She had proximity.”

He looked at Dominic.

“She wanted belonging.”

Dominic’s face remained cold.

“She forged your name.”

“Yes.”

“She intercepted Natalie’s correspondence.”

“Yes.”

“And you protected her.”

Samuel lowered his head.

“Yes.”

Silence stretched around us.

I expected to hate him.

Instead, I felt strangely empty.

The human explanations behind terrible choices were often disappointingly ordinary.

Fear.

Pride.

Love aimed in the wrong direction.

Dominic crossed the room.

“Why did Isabella do it?”

Samuel looked at him.

“Because she believed Natalie would come back.”

“So?”

“And because you would take her back.”

Dominic did not answer.

Samuel’s gaze moved toward me.

“My daughter knew you were pregnant before Dominic did.”

My blood chilled.

“How?”

“You told someone at the Moretti Foundation.”

I remembered.

I had called the foundation’s medical liaison because Dominic and I had once funded a maternal health program.

I had been looking for the name of a specialist.

The liaison had congratulated me.

Apparently, she had also mentioned it to someone else.

Samuel continued.

“Isabella learned about the pregnancy almost immediately.”

Dominic sat down again.

“Then she knew the twins existed for five years.”

Samuel nodded.

“Yes.”

I thought of the gala.

Her fear.

It had not been shock.

It had been recognition.

“She knew exactly who they were when she saw them.”

“Yes.”

Dominic stared toward nothing.

Something in him seemed to fold inward.

I understood the feeling.

He had lost five years in less than twenty-four hours.

First steps.

First words.

Fevers.

Birthdays.

Bedtime stories.

Tiny ordinary moments nobody could return.

Samuel removed an envelope from inside his coat.

“There’s more.”

Dominic looked up.

“What?”

Samuel placed it on the table.

“I found this in Isabella’s belongings when she moved out of my home three years ago.”

The envelope was addressed to Dominic.

In my handwriting.

My first letter.

The one I had sent to the penthouse.

My fingers trembled as I touched it.

“It’s unopened.”

Samuel nodded.

I looked at Dominic.

He looked devastated.

Samuel reached into his coat again.

“There was another envelope with it.”

He placed a second one on the table.

This was not mine.

The handwriting belonged to someone else.

The recipient was me.

Natalie Moretti.

No address.

No stamp.

No date.

Dominic frowned.

“Who wrote that?”

Samuel looked at him.

“Your mother.”

Dominic went motionless.

“That’s impossible.”

Elena Moretti had died nearly seven years ago.

Samuel nodded toward the envelope.

“She gave it to Isabella several months before she died.”

“Why?”

“To deliver to Natalie if the two of you ever faced a crisis.”

My throat tightened.

Dominic stared at the letter as though afraid to touch it.

Samuel’s voice softened.

“Isabella never delivered it.”

Dominic finally picked it up.

The seal remained intact.

Across the back, in elegant handwriting faded by time, Elena Moretti had written six words.

For Natalie, when Dominic forgets himself.

Dominic looked at me.

And for the first time since this began, neither of us was thinking about Isabella.

We were thinking about a dead woman who had somehow left behind a message for precisely the moment when our lives had broken apart.

Dominic opened his mother’s letter with hands that were not entirely steady.

We remained in Claire’s kitchen while evening gathered against the windows.

Samuel sat silently.

Claire stood near the sink.

I sat opposite Dominic.

The paper inside the envelope was cream-colored and thin.

Elena had written in blue ink.

Dominic read the first line.

Then he stopped.

He looked at me.

“You should read it.”

“It was addressed to me.”

“I know.”

He handed it across the table.

I unfolded it.

Elena’s handwriting brought back memories so quickly that for a moment I could smell rosemary from her garden.

She had been one of the few people who could tease Dominic without causing him to retreat behind dignity.

She had loved him fiercely.

She had also understood his flaws.

The letter began simply.

Natalie, if you are reading this, then I suspect my son has allowed pride to speak louder than love.

My eyes blurred.

I continued.

Elena wrote about Dominic as a boy.

How he had learned early that showing uncertainty invited other people to make decisions for him.

How his father had praised confidence and discouraged questions.

How Dominic had confused certainty with strength.

She wrote that marriage would challenge that instinct.

Not because love required weakness.

Because love required curiosity.

Ask before you assume, she had written.

Listen before you decide.

If Dominic forgets this, remind him that certainty without truth is only another form of fear.

I stopped.

Dominic was staring at the table.

I continued reading.

Elena wrote about me too.

She said I had a habit of leaving rooms emotionally before my body followed.

She had noticed it during disagreements.

She urged me not to mistake independence for silence.

Say what hurts, even when saying it feels undignified.

Do not make him guess.

Do not disappear simply because disappearing feels safer than asking to be understood.

I closed my eyes.

Five years late, Elena Moretti had managed to expose both of us.

There was no prophecy in the letter.

No secret information.

Nothing sensational.

Only uncomfortable wisdom.

That made it worse.

Dominic finally spoke.

“She knew.”

“She knew us.”

He looked at me.

“I should have asked you.”

“Yes.”

“I should have asked Daniel who he was.”

“Yes.”

“I should have asked whether the photographs were what they looked like.”

“Yes.”

His mouth tightened.

“You could occasionally disagree.”

“I’ve waited five years to say yes.”

A faint smile touched his face.

It disappeared quickly.

Samuel cleared his throat.

“There is something else you should know.”

Dominic turned.

Samuel looked exhausted.

“Isabella did not create the rumors about Natalie’s affair.”

I frowned.

“What?”

Samuel nodded.

“She used them.”

“Who started them?”

“I don’t know.”

Dominic’s expression sharpened.

“You said there were photographs.”

“There were,” I said.

Five years earlier, a gossip columnist had published photographs of Daniel and me leaving a restaurant.