Chapter 2 - The Question He Couldn’t Unhear
Luca called seventeen times before midnight. I counted because my phone lit the dark bedroom each time, his name appearing like something raised from the dead. LUCA MORETTI. I had deleted the contact six years earlier, but somehow my phone had recovered it when I restored an old backup. I never corrected the mistake. Maybe some part of me had always expected the name to return. I did not answer. Theo and Lily were asleep in the next room, although getting them there had taken nearly two hours. Theo asked questions continuously. “Is Luca really our dad? Does he know about us? Why didn’t he ever visit? Is he rich? Ben at school says billionaires have helicopters. Does he have a helicopter? Can we ride in it?” Lily asked only one question. “Did he leave because he didn’t want us?” That one nearly destroyed me. I sat on the edge of her bed and held her face between my hands. “No, sweetheart. He did not know you existed.” “But Theo said you told him.” “I tried.” “Then why didn’t he know?” I kissed her forehead. “Because adults can make terrible messes when they don’t tell each other the truth.” She considered that. “Did you make the mess?” Children have no mercy. “Part of it,” I said. “Did he?” “Part of it.” “Did someone else?” My throat tightened. “Yes.”
The someone else was Celeste Moretti, Luca’s mother. Six years earlier, I had taken three pregnancy tests before I trusted the result. The first appeared positive while I was still living out of boxes in a rented apartment in Lincoln Park. Our divorce had been final for twenty-three days. I remember sitting on the bathroom floor with the test in my hand, laughing and crying at the same time because irony can be cruel enough to feel supernatural. After years of treatments, charts, supplements, procedures and specialists telling us my ovarian reserve was dangerously low, I became pregnant naturally the month my marriage ended. My obstetrician confirmed it two days later. At the eight-week ultrasound, the technician turned the monitor toward me and smiled. “There are two.” I thought she meant two images. “Two what?” “Babies.” I laughed until I started sobbing.
I called Luca from the parking garage. His number went straight to voicemail. I tried the next morning. Again. And again. I emailed. The message bounced from his personal account with an automatic notice saying the address was no longer active. That was strange, but Luca had changed security protocols before. I sent a certified letter to Moretti Global addressed PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL — LUCA MORETTI ONLY. Three days later, I received a call from Celeste. “Nia,” she said, in the same calm tone she used when ordering waiters to remove plates. “We need to meet.” I should have refused. I was still conditioned to obey Moretti invitations like subpoenas.
She chose a private lounge at the Peninsula. Celeste arrived wearing white wool and pearls. I arrived carrying my first ultrasound photograph inside my purse. I remember thinking perhaps she had called because Luca was too shocked to speak. Instead, she placed a manila envelope in front of me. “Luca received your letter.” My heart raced. “Then why hasn’t he called?” “Because he asked me to handle this.” “Handle what?” Her eyes dropped briefly to my stomach, although there was nothing visible yet. “The pregnancy.” She told me Luca doubted the timing. She said he believed I had become pregnant after the separation and was trying to attach him financially. I called her a liar. She slid a printout across the table: an email allegedly from Luca to her. I am not reopening this marriage because Nia claims she is pregnant. Have counsel establish paternity after birth. Until then, no contact. The words sounded cold enough to be Luca during those final months. That was the worst part.
I sent one more letter after the twins were born. This time I included their photographs and blood types. It came back unopened with a Moretti Global stamp reading DELIVERY REFUSED BY EXECUTIVE SECURITY. I stopped trying. Not immediately. Not emotionally. But physically. I told myself I would not spend my children’s lives begging a man to want them. I changed my number, rebuilt my consulting business, and learned how to become two parents in one body.
At 12:41 a.m., my doorbell camera sent an alert.
Luca stood outside my building.
I stared at the screen in disbelief.
He wore no coat despite the cold. His tie was gone. His hair looked like he had dragged both hands through it for hours. He pressed the intercom.
“Nia.”
I remained silent.
“I know you can hear me.”
Still nothing.
“I’m not leaving.”
I opened the app microphone. “The children are asleep.”
His face lifted toward the camera. “I need five minutes.”
“No.”
“Then give me one.”
“What do you want?”
“The truth.”
I almost laughed. “You had six years to become interested in that.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Your mother said you did.”
“My mother lies.”
The certainty in his voice startled me.
“Now you know?”
“She denied everything for twenty minutes, then asked me whether you demanded money.”
My stomach twisted.
“She hasn’t changed.”
“No.”
“What did Evelyn say?”
Silence.
I closed my eyes. “Go home to your wife, Luca.”
“Nia.”
“You are married.”
“I know.”
“Then behave like it.”
“This is about my children.”
“They are not a problem for you to solve at midnight.”
His face tightened.
“I want a DNA test.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
I had known he would ask. Any attorney would advise it. Any reasonable man in his situation should confirm paternity. Still, hearing it felt like being doubted all over again.
“Fine.”
He blinked.
“Fine?”
“Yes. We’ll do a legal chain-of-custody test. You pay. My attorney chooses the lab jointly with yours. No private investigators near my children. No press. No appearing at their school. No gifts. No security team following them. You speak to me before you do anything involving them.”
He stared at the camera.
“You’ve thought about this.”
“For six years.”
Pain moved across his face.
“I want to meet them.”
“You did.”
“Nia.”
“Not properly. Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because Theo is already asking whether you own a helicopter, and Lily thinks you may have abandoned her.”
His eyes closed.
“She thinks that?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“She’s six. She doesn’t understand intercepted letters.”
“I’ll explain.”
“No. I will explain. You will listen until I decide they are ready to hear from you.”
He nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
I almost didn’t trust the word.
The Luca I had married was not a man who accepted limits easily. The Luca I divorced accepted them even less.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
His voice dropped.
“Did you really try to tell me after they were born?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
I swallowed.
“Enough that I stopped counting.”
He looked away.
“I need copies.”
“I kept everything.”
“Of course you did.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
A sad smile touched his mouth. “You always kept receipts.”
“Someone had to.”
He almost laughed. Then the expression disappeared.
“Nia, I went back to fertility specialists this year.”
My chest tightened.
“Why?”
“Evelyn and I…” He stopped. “We never had children.”
I hated the complicated relief that flashed through me.
He continued, “Three clinics said there is nothing wrong with me.”
“I know.”
His gaze returned to the camera.
“What?”
I froze.
He caught it.
“Nia.”
I should have ended the conversation.
Instead, six years of buried anger made me reckless.
“The specialist we saw during our marriage called me three months after the twins were born.”
Luca went still.
“Dr. Keane?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“He had heard I delivered twins.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“And?”
“He apologized.”
Luca’s face changed.
“For what?”
I looked toward the hallway where my children slept.
“For letting us believe I was the reason we couldn’t conceive.”
Luca stopped breathing.
“He said my original results weren’t nearly as bad as the summary we were given.”
Silence.
Then Luca whispered, “Who changed them?”
“I never found out.”
His eyes became cold in a way I remembered from the day he destroyed a competitor in a boardroom.
“I will.”
I shook my head.
“That is not permission to invade my life.”
“No.”
His voice was frighteningly calm.
“It’s permission to investigate mine.”
He turned to leave.
“Luca.”
He looked back.
“If Celeste did this…”
He waited.
I finished, “Do not become her while trying to defeat her.”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he nodded.
And the next morning, a courier arrived with two envelopes.
One contained the DNA-testing appointment.
May you like
The other contained a handwritten note from Evelyn.
Nia, there are things about my marriage to Luca you deserve to know. Please do not assume I am your enemy.
