THE INK ON THE RECEIPT WAS STILL FRESH

“Bring me the original order.”

Luca’s voice didn’t echo. It didn’t need to. The quiet authority in his tone was enough to freeze the blood of everyone at the mahogany table.

The thirty wealthy guests—politicians, real estate moguls, and syndicate bosses—sat in stunned silence. The string quartet in the corner had stopped playing.

Vanessa’s hand hovered inches from her gold clutch on the table.

“Luca, darling,” she whispered, her voice tight and breathy. “This is a misunderstanding. Elena is just trying to cause trouble because I told her to sit in the kitchen.”

Luca didn’t look at her.

His dark, terrifying eyes remained locked on the pastry chef, who was practically trembling by the swinging doors.

“The order,” Luca repeated.

The chef swallowed hard. He reached into his white apron pocket and pulled out a yellow carbon-copy receipt. He walked forward, his footsteps echoing loudly on the marble floor, and placed the paper directly beside Luca’s untouched slice of walnut praline cake.

Luca looked down at it.

The handwriting was elegant and sharp. Vanessa’s handwriting.

I stood a few feet away, my heart hammering against my ribs. Beside me, Mrs. Romano stood perfectly straight, her hands resting on her dented metal recipe box.

Luca traced his finger over the ink.

“You didn’t just leave the walnuts in,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a lethal calm. “You paid an extra two thousand dollars in cash to ensure they were ground down so fine I wouldn’t be able to taste them.”

Vanessa went completely white.

The room gasped.

“I would never!” Vanessa cried, tears instantly springing to her eyes. It was a beautiful performance. “Someone forged that! Emma! It was probably Emma, trying to ruin my night because she’s jealous!”

She pointed a manicured finger at me.

I took a step back, shocked. “I didn’t even know what flavor the cake was.”

“Liar!” Vanessa shrieked, standing up. “You’ve been obsessed with Luca since he hired you! You and this old hag conspired to embarrass me!”

Luca slowly stood up.

He was a tall man, broad-shouldered and imposing, carrying the weight of a family empire built on blood and loyalty.

He picked up the gold clutch sitting next to Vanessa’s plate.

“Luca, what are you doing?” Vanessa panicked, reaching for it.

He moved it out of her reach and unclasped the top.

He didn’t dump it on the table. He reached inside and pulled out a small, bright yellow plastic tube.

An EpiPen.

The room went dead silent.

“You knew about the allergy,” Luca said, staring at the life-saving medicine in his hand. “You knew it would send me into anaphylactic shock within three minutes.”

Vanessa’s lips trembled. She looked around at the guests, realizing she was entirely exposed.

“I wasn’t going to let you die,” she whispered frantically, the lie falling apart. “I was going to save you! I was going to use the pen. Don’t you see? Your family still looks at me like I’m an outsider. They think I’m just some Bellini princess. If I saved your life tonight, in front of everyone, they would finally respect me. We would speed up the wedding. It was for us!”

Disgust rippled across Luca’s face.

“You were going to stop my heart, just to play the hero?”

“I love you!” she sobbed.

Luca looked at the EpiPen. Then, he reached back into her purse.

His fingers brushed against something else. Something heavy and metallic that didn’t belong in a woman’s evening clutch.

He pulled it out.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was a heavy, silver pocket watch with a cracked glass face.

I knew that watch. I had spent hours polishing it when I was a little girl.

“Where did you get this?” Luca demanded, staring at the watch.

Vanessa wiped her eyes, her mascara running. “I don’t know! It’s just junk I found at an antique shop.”

“That’s a lie,” I said.

My voice rang out louder than I expected.

Luca turned to me. “Emma?”

I stepped forward, my hands shaking. “That’s my father’s watch. He was wearing it the night he had his stroke. The night we lost everything to pay for his hospital bills. It’s been missing for two years.”

Luca looked at me, then down at the watch. He turned it over.

Engraved on the back were three letters.

T.R.M.

Thomas Richard Reed. My father.

But beneath it was a second engraving, one I hadn’t seen since I was ten.

From A.M. For loyalty.

Luca’s thumb ran over the letters A.M.

Antonio Moretti. Luca’s father.

Luca’s expression completely shattered.

“Your father is Thomas Reed?” Luca asked, his voice suddenly thick with an emotion I couldn't place.

“Yes,” I whispered.

Luca looked back at Vanessa, his eyes burning with a sudden, terrifying fury.