Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO LIED
By nine the next morning, three black SUVs were parked outside my house.
I stood at my kitchen window holding coffee.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
My best friend, Tasha, peeked through the blinds.
“He brought security?”
“He brought an army.”
“Maybe billionaires don’t know how doors work.”
The doorbell rang.
Noah came running downstairs.
“Is it him?”
I closed my eyes.
The kids had asked questions all night.
Was Luca their father?
Why didn’t he know?
Did he have other kids?
Was he married?
Would they have to call him Dad?
I had answered what I could.
The one thing I hadn’t told them was why I had kept Luca out of their lives.
Because I wasn’t sure anymore.
For years, I had believed Luca made a choice.
Now I wondered if someone had made it for him.
The bell rang again.
I opened the door.
Luca stood alone.
“No lawyers?” I asked.
“Not today.”
“Comforting.”
He looked exhausted.
I had almost never seen Luca tired during our marriage.
He treated sleep like a weakness.
“May I come in?”
“No.”
“Nia.”
“Say what you came to say.”
He glanced toward the window.
“I want a DNA test.”
I laughed once.
“You looked at them yesterday.”
“I need legal certainty.”
“And there he is.”
“What does that mean?”
“The businessman. For half a second yesterday, you looked human.”
His eyes flashed.
“You expect me to learn I may have two eight-year-old children and not want proof?”
“They are yours.”
His breathing changed.
It was almost invisible.
But I knew him.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Then why hide them?”
I folded my arms.
“I tried to tell you.”
His face went blank.
“What?”
“I came to your office.”
“When?”
“Three days after the divorce papers arrived.”
“That never happened.”
“Yes, Luca. It did.”
“I would remember.”
“You weren’t there.”
He stared.
“I asked to wait. I waited almost two hours.”
“Who did you speak to?”
My stomach twisted.
Here it was.
The name I had not spoken in years.
“Celeste.”
His entire body stiffened.
Celeste Moretti.
Luca’s mother.
Elegant.
Powerful.
A woman who could insult you so politely you thanked her afterward.
She had never liked me.
Not because I was Black.
At least not openly.
Celeste was too sophisticated for obvious prejudice.
She simply believed a Moretti wife should come from “the right world.”
Old money.
Connections.
Generations of family influence.
I was a public-school teacher from the South Side.
To her, Luca marrying me had been rebellion.
“What did my mother say?” Luca asked.
“She said you knew I came.”
His eyes darkened.
“She said you told her not to let me upstairs.”
“No.”
“She said you wanted a clean break.”
“No.”
“She said you were embarrassed I had shown up.”
“Nia, no.”
My voice started shaking despite everything I did to control it.
“I told her I was pregnant.”
Luca stopped breathing.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“And she told you I knew?”
“Yes.”
He stepped back like I had struck him.
I kept going.
“She said you wanted nothing to do with me or the baby. She said you were already seeing someone else.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t ask.”
His eyes closed.
For the first time, I saw something close to panic cross Luca Moretti’s face.
“My mother knew you were pregnant.”
“Eight years ago.”
He opened his eyes.
“And she never told me.”
“That’s what I believed.”
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His expression hardened.
“My mother.”
A chill moved down my spine.
Almost as if Celeste knew we were talking about her.
Luca answered.
“Mother.”
I couldn’t hear her words.
But I watched his face change.
“What did you just say?”
Silence.
Then Luca looked directly at me.
His hand tightened around the phone.
“No. Don’t go anywhere. I’m coming to you now.”
He hung up.
“What?”
He stared at me.
“My mother says you’re lying.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course she does.”
“No.”
May you like
He slid his phone into his coat.
“She says she has proof.”
