CHAPTER 3 – THEY LAUGHED AT THE NAME
Charles crossed the study first.
He moved slowly because he enjoyed fear when it had nowhere left to run. Rainwater darkened the shoulders of his tuxedo. His silver hair was still perfect. His expression was almost kind, the way powerful men look when they are about to explain why cruelty is necessary.
“Give me the phone, Isabella.”
She pulled the receiver closer to her chest.
Victoria leaned against the doorframe, diamonds shining at her throat. “Don’t be childish. Whoever you called is not coming here.”
Isabella’s cousin Mark laughed from the hallway. “Maybe she called a cab.”
His sister Elise added, “With what money? Uncle Charles froze her accounts.”
The cousins laughed together, bright and ugly.
Isabella kept her eyes on Charles.
“My father’s letter,” she said. “Where is it?”
The amusement left his face for half a second.
There. Proof that the sealed letter existed.
Victoria noticed and stepped forward quickly. “Your father wrote many things before he died. Most of them sentimental. None of them relevant.”
“He told me to trust it.”
“He also trusted us,” Charles said.
“No,” Isabella whispered. “He trusted the wrong version of you.”
The slap came fast.
Not from Charles.
From Victoria.
Her jeweled hand cracked across Isabella’s face, snapping her head sideways. Pain burst through her cheek. The phone receiver hit the desk but remained in her grip. Blood from her bandaged palm smeared across the cream plastic.
Victoria bent close. “You ungrateful little orphan. Everything you have is because we protected this house while you cried in hallways.”
Isabella tasted blood where her teeth cut her lip.
Charles sighed. “Victoria.”
“What? She needs to hear it.”
“No,” he said. “She needs to sign.”
He placed a folder on the desk. The documents inside were already prepared. A medical authority statement. A temporary transfer of estate voting rights. A consent form for engagement announcement management. All the words were dressed in law, but the meaning was simple: surrender.
Isabella stared at the papers.
Outside, thunder rolled.
Charles took a pen from his jacket. “You will sign. Then you will return to the ballroom, smile for Gregory, and tomorrow we will call tonight a nervous episode.”
“And if I don’t?”
Charles glanced at her wounded hand. “You already look unstable. A fall. A cut. A frantic call to some imaginary rescuer. We can make this story very sad.”
Victoria smiled. “Or very permanent.”
The room went cold.
Even Mark stopped laughing.
Isabella looked at the telephone receiver in her bloodied hand and said the name because it was the only weapon she had left.
“I called Dante Moretti.”
Silence.
Then Mark laughed first, too loudly.
Elise covered her mouth. Victoria looked amused. Charles stared at Isabella for a moment, then chuckled under his breath.
“Dante Moretti?” he said. “You expect us to believe the Moretti prince is coming because a frightened little heiress dialed his number?”
Victoria’s voice dripped mockery. “Sweetheart, men like that don’t rescue girls. They own them.”
Isabella lifted her chin despite the tears.
“He said eight minutes.”
Charles’s smile faded slightly.
Then headlights flashed through the rain beyond the study window.
One pair.
May you like
Then another.
Then six more.
