The Signature Beneath Her Name

Isabella Moretti set her wedding ring beside her husband’s whiskey glass.

The diamond struck the glass tabletop with a sharp little click.

Dante’s hand was still on another woman’s waist.

For a second, nobody at the Moretti Foundation Winter Benefit moved. The string quartet kept playing. Champagne kept bubbling in crystal flutes. But the guests nearest the auction stage turned to watch.

Dante looked at the ring, then at Isabella.

“What are you doing?”

She unclipped her foundation director badge and placed it beside the diamond.

“Leaving.”

Natalia Duca stepped away from him. Her gold dress caught the chandelier light, and her face lost all its color.

“Mrs. Moretti, I—”

“Don’t,” Isabella said.

At thirty-six weeks pregnant, Isabella could feel the weight of their daughter pressing against her spine. She had spent the afternoon approving auction sheets, calming a nervous donor, and checking the foundation’s final receipts. She had done all of it knowing Dante would arrive with Natalia.

She had still been surprised to see his hand on her.

Not by the affair. She had known about that for seven weeks.

It was the ease of it. As if Dante expected her to take her place at his side and smile.

“You’re making a scene,” he said quietly.

Isabella looked around the ballroom. Two hundred guests stood beneath the chandeliers. For seven years, she had built the foundation they had come to support. She knew which donors had paid for the children’s clinics, which vendors had tried to overcharge them, and which checks had arrived with conditions she refused to accept.

Most of those guests knew her as Dante Moretti’s wife.

“I’m preventing one,” she said.

Dante moved closer. “Come upstairs. We’ll talk.”

“No.”

“Isabella.”

She knew that tone. It had ended arguments for years. It had made employees lower their eyes and powerful men change their plans.

Tonight, it made her tired.

“We are not discussing our marriage in public,” he said.

“We haven’t discussed it in private, either.”

His jaw tightened. He glanced at Natalia, then back at Isabella.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing.”

“I understand exactly what I’m doing.”

She turned toward the service hallway. Dante caught her wrist. Several guests looked away at once.

Isabella looked down at his hand.

He released her.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Somewhere our daughter can sleep.”

The words landed harder than the ring had. Dante’s expression shifted, but Isabella didn’t wait to find out what he would say.

She walked behind the catering station, through a service door, and down a narrow hall that smelled of coffee and warm bread. Cold harbor air hit her when she stepped outside.

A gray sedan waited at the loading dock.

Elias Mercer leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door. He had worked with Isabella’s father years earlier. These days, he ran a forensic accounting firm for clients whose books had been made difficult to read on purpose.

“Did he follow you?” Elias asked.

“No.”

Isabella lowered herself into the car. Elias waited until she had her seat belt on before pulling away.

“So he brought Natalia,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

She watched the gala disappear behind them. The windows still glowed. Somewhere inside, Dante was probably telling people she needed rest.

“Are you all right?” Elias asked.

“No.”

Her daughter kicked against her ribs.

Elias drove another block. “At least now you know.”

“I knew about Natalia seven weeks ago.”