Chapter 1 - THE ANSWER SHE GAVE TOO FAST
“She hit her face on the pantry door.”
Vanessa said it before I could explain the purple bruise beneath my left eye.
Before I could decide which lie might keep me employed.
And the moment she spoke, Luca Moretti stopped looking at my face.
He started looking at hers.
Three guests.
That was all I had left to serve.
My name is Olivia Hayes.
I was twenty-eight, had worked in Luca’s Chicago mansion for nine months, and had seventy-four dollars to last until payday.
Missing a shift wasn’t an option.
Neither was telling him what I had found upstairs.
Twenty-six guests sat beneath the chandeliers, celebrating his engagement to Vanessa Bellini.
She wore red silk and diamonds.
He wore a black suit and the quiet expression that made grown men choose their words carefully.
I stood beside him with a platter of roasted vegetables.
“Look at me,” he said.
I kept my swollen cheek turned away.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Your face.
What happened?”
That was when Vanessa answered.
“She hit her face on the pantry door this afternoon.
Honestly, I don’t know how she manages to be so careless.”
Luca set down his fork.
“The pantry door?”
“Yes, darling.
She’s been complaining about it all afternoon.”
I hadn’t complained to anyone.
“Did you?” he asked me.
Vanessa’s eyes settled on my hands.
“Yes, sir.”
“When?”
“About four.”
“What were you doing?”
“Putting away supplies.”
Vanessa smiled.
“She was carrying towels and walked straight into the door.”
Luca turned toward her.
“You saw it happen?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know what she was carrying?”
“She told me.”
He looked back at me.
“Did you?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
A chair scraped somewhere down the table.
Luca stood.
“Set down the platter.”
“I still have—”
“Please.”
That word frightened me more than an order would have.
I placed the vegetables beside his plate.
Vanessa gave a small, impatient laugh.
“Luca, we have guests.”
He ignored her.
“Who else was upstairs at four?”
My fingers went cold.
Upstairs.
I hadn’t said upstairs.
Neither had Vanessa.
Across the table, Luca’s cousin Enzo stopped turning his wineglass.
Luca noticed that, too.
Then he looked at the gold engagement ring on Vanessa’s hand.
A narrow edge.
Four raised stones.
May you like
He looked back at the cut beneath my swollen eye.
“Olivia,” he said quietly, “does the pantry door wear a diamond ring?”
