He Loved Me in Secret, Until I Became Someone He Could Never Have novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: Fire

Chiara's hand went to her chest.

Then she laughed, high and breathless.

"God. You scared me."

"You were reaching for his hand."

"I was fixing his blanket."

"With a pen?"

She looked down at the pen in her fingers.

She dropped it on the tray table.

My father was awake now.

He'd pushed himself up on his good elbow, and he was looking at her the way he'd looked at Tullio in the lobby.

"Nobody's supposed to be here," she said.

"I know. The whole street knows. You heard it at the bakery."

I stood up.

I picked up the slip from beside the carnations and turned it toward the window.

Venturi peace bond. Five hundred thousand dollars.

It was dated two days before my father froze the bond.

Tullio's big looping signature was already on it.

"You backdated it," I said. "So it'd look like the money left before the freeze."

"Prove it."

"You'd have pressed his hand around the pen, like last time. Dragged it across the line. And then you'd have kissed his forehead and said thank you."

Her eyes flicked to my father.

"He told you."

"He told me."

Something ugly came up in her face, under all that polish.

"You think you're so special," she said. "The Keeper. With your cardboard crown and your old ladies. Do you know what Tullio's done for me? He paid for my school. My clothes. My car. He's going to make me a Venturi."

"By marrying you to Dario?"

"Dario will do what his father tells him. He always has."

"He resigned."

"He'll come back." She smiled. "They always come back to the Family. You don't."

"And my father?"

She glanced at him on the bed.

"Your father signed slips for two years like a good little bookkeeper. One more wasn't going to kill him." She shrugged. "He cried, you know. Like a baby. I held the pen steady for him."

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