Chương 2
"Your father told me you were kind," he said.
I laughed softly.
"That sounds like something parents say when they don't know what else to put in a description."
"He also said you were stubborn."
"That sounds more accurate."
A silence settled between us.
Not uncomfortable.
Just unfamiliar.
Then Luca sat across from me.
"I need you to understand something before you decide."
I waited.
"This marriage is not what people think."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning you would not be expected to pretend forever if you did not want to."
I frowned.
"You are offering me an escape before we even start?"
"I am offering you the truth."
His fingers tightened slightly around the glass in his hand.
It was the first sign I had seen that anything affected him.
"I have had women meet me and change their minds before dinner."
He looked down.
"Some were honest."
"Some were cruel?"
His silence answered.
I looked at the man sitting across from me.
The man with the reputation.
The money.
The power.
The loneliness.
"Why me?"
His eyes lifted.
"Because you were the only person who walked in here and forgot to be afraid."
"I tripped."
"You grabbed my shirt."
"That was an accident."
"Still."
I shook my head.
"You make that sound impressive."
"To me, it was."
The honesty of it caught me off guard.
I did not know what to do with a powerful man admitting that something small mattered to him.
So I did what I always did when I was uncomfortable.
I focused on something practical.
"Do you actually like wedding cake?"
Luca blinked.
"What?"
"I make cakes."
"I know."
"But nobody asked whether you like cake."
He looked genuinely confused.
"No one has asked me that before."
"That is sad."
"It is a cake preference."
"No."
I pointed at him.
"That is exactly the kind of sentence a person says when they have gone too long without normal conversations."
The guard near the door looked at the floor.
I suspected he was hiding another smile.
Luca leaned back slightly.
"I like chocolate."
"Good answer."
"You were judging me?"
"Of course."
"For cake?"
"Especially for cake."
For a moment, the room felt ordinary.
Not like a negotiation.
Not like a marriage contract.
Just two strangers talking about dessert.
Then Elena knocked.
Her face had changed.
Whatever she had wanted to tell me before was still there, waiting.
"Can I speak with Sophia now?"
Luca stood.
"About what?"
Elena looked at him.
The hesitation was small.
But I noticed.
"About the reason this marriage was arranged."
Luca's expression hardened.
"I know the reason."
"No."
Her voice was quiet.
"You know the version you were given."
The air in the room shifted.
Luca looked at his sister with a mixture of confusion and irritation.
"Elena."
"I found the documents yesterday."
"What documents?"
She looked at me.
Then back at him.
"The ones proving Sophia's father was never the person who owed you money."
Nobody moved.
The sentence sat between us.
Luca's face changed slowly.
Not into anger.
Into disbelief.
And somewhere deep inside me, a small piece of my carefully controlled fear finally broke.
Because suddenly I understood something.
I had not been brought here because of a debt.
I had been brought here because someone wanted both of us to believe there was no other choice.
Luca did not speak for several seconds.
The silence around him felt different from the one before.
Before, he had been waiting for me to reject him.
Now, he looked like someone trying to understand why the ground beneath him had moved.
"Explain," he said.
Elena walked to the table and placed a thin folder on the surface.
"I found it in father's old office."
Luca's eyes moved to the folder.
"Our father kept copies of everything."
"Not everything," Elena said.
"Apparently not."
There was something bitter in the way she said it.
I watched them carefully.
The Moretti family had the kind of money that made people imagine they had no problems.
But standing there, I saw something else.
They were still a family.
A damaged one.
A family with old wounds hidden under expensive clothes.
Luca opened the folder.
The first page was a contract.
I could not read all the details from where I stood.
I only saw my father's name.
And beneath it, another name.
A company I did not recognize.
Luca's expression tightened.
"Where did you get this?"
"I told you."
"No."
His voice became colder.
"Where exactly?"
Elena did not move.
"Behind the false panel in father's office."
The guard near the door shifted.
Even he seemed surprised.
Luca turned another page.
Then another.
His breathing changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that I noticed.
"What is it?" I asked.
Neither of them answered.
That bothered me more than anything.
People who had bad news usually rushed to deliver it.
People who had something dangerous usually measured every word.
Finally, Luca closed the folder.
"My father loaned money to your father."
I nodded slowly.
"Okay."
"But your father was not the only person involved."
"Who else?"
Luca looked at the papers again.
"A company owned by someone who worked with my family."
"Worked with?"
Elena looked away.
That was the answer before anyone said it.
Someone connected to them.
Someone close.
"Who?" I asked.
Luca's jaw tightened.
"Antonio Vieri."
The name meant nothing to me.
But it meant something to them.
The room changed immediately.
Elena sat down.
The confidence disappeared from her face.
"That is impossible."
Luca looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because Antonio died six years ago."
"No."
His voice was quiet.
"He disappeared six years ago."
I felt a chill move through me.
"Are you saying he's alive?"
"No," Luca said.
Then he looked at the folder again.
"I'm saying someone is using his company."
The problem with secrets was that they never arrived alone.
They brought questions behind them.
Questions that demanded answers.
And answers that usually created more problems.
May you like
I should have left.
Any reasonable person would have walked away.
