Chapter 6 - The Wrath of Lorenzo and Victoria
|
Adrian reached out as I threw back the comforter, his hand hovering near my elbow as if he wanted to hold me inside the bedroom for just sixty more seconds.
"Claire, listen to me before you open that door," Adrian said urgently, his voice tight with a panic I had never heard from him before. "I made a mistake yesterday with the bracelet. I know how it looked on social media, and I’m going to fix it, I swear to you—just don't tell my father we’re having problems right now. He’s looking for any excuse to hold up the casino merger."
I looked down at his hand near my silk sleeve until he slowly lowered it.
"You didn't care how it looked at four-twenty yesterday afternoon when two hundred of our friends were commenting on Sophia’s photos, Adrian," I said quietly, tying the sash of my ivory robe around my waist. "You only care how it looks now because your father is standing on the other side of that door."
I walked past him down the marble gallery and pulled open the double mahogany doors of the penthouse myself.
Standing in the private elevator lobby were Lorenzo and Victoria Moretti, flanked by two of Lorenzo’s New York bodyguards carrying overnight luggage. At sixty-two, Lorenzo was a silver-haired lion in a charcoal cashmere overcoat, while Victoria looked as regal and terrifying as an empress in black wool and pearls.
The instant Victoria saw me standing barefoot in my robe, pale but composed, she stepped past the threshold and wrapped both arms tightly around my shoulders.
"Claire, my darling," Victoria whispered fiercely against my cheek before pulling back to frame my face in her warm, manicured hands. "Look at me. Are you really sick, or did my idiot son lie to the Walkers so he could parade that little parasite around Lake Forest?"
Behind me in the foyer, Adrian stiffened.
"Mom—" Adrian started, stepping forward.
"Do not speak to me!" Victoria snapped without even turning her head toward him, her dark eyes blazing as she looked back at me. "When your grandmother was dying in that hospital bed in Westchester, Claire sat with her for fourteen hours a day reading Italian poetry and brushing her hair while you were stuck in Chicago board meetings. And this is how he honors her memory?"
Lorenzo stepped inside the foyer and kicked the heavy oak door shut behind him. He didn't take off his overcoat. He walked straight across the marble tiles, stopped six inches in front of Adrian, and looked his thirty-five-year-old son up and down—taking in the rumpled navy tuxedo from yesterday’s wedding and the faint trace of Sophia’s vanilla-and-jasmine perfume still clinging to his right lapel.
CRACK.
Lorenzo’s open right hand struck Adrian across the jaw with enough force to snap Adrian’s head toward the entryway mirror.
I didn't flinch. Neither did Victoria.
Adrian slowly straightened his head, a dark red mark rising along his cheekbone. To his credit, he kept his hands at his sides and took the blow in silence.
"Thirty-five years old," Lorenzo snarled, his voice echoing like thunder off the vaulted ceiling of the foyer, "and you let a woman who dumped you ten years ago turn the Moretti family name into a cheap tabloid joke at Robert Walker’s table! Where is my mother’s bracelet?"
Without a word, Adrian reached into his tuxedo pocket, pulled out the antique emerald-and-diamond bracelet, and held it out toward me.
May you like
I didn't raise my hand to take it. I kept both hands tucked calmly inside the pockets of my silk robe, leaving Adrian standing there in the middle of the foyer with his arm outstretched over empty air.
"Keep it in your pocket for a moment, Adrian," I said evenly. "Because according to the lobby security tablet on the wall behind you, your guest from last night just told the concierge she’s on her way up."
