He Chose Another Heir, Now He Wants Me Back novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Her Pen, His Hand

In the hospital family room Ruggero offers Livia's donation for Serena's signature on the dissolution. Serena lifts the pen and Alessio puts his palm over the page.

It was Ruggero.

He stood in the doorway in a charcoal overcoat with a cane in one hand and a leather folder under his arm.

Two old men in dark suits waited behind him, and neither would look at my mother.

"Serena," Ruggero said warmly. "Welcome home. Forgive the hour."

He took in the room with one glance, the bed, the rosary, the drawing in my hand.

"Teresa needs her rest," he said. "Will you come down the hall? The Families would like a word."

"Which Families?"

"Both of them, cara. These gentlemen are the witnesses."

I looked at my mother.

She closed her eyes and said nothing, and I understood that this was my answer.

I kissed her forehead and followed him out.

The family room was a small windowless place with a long table and a jug of water nobody had touched.

Alessio was already inside, standing against the far wall with his arms folded.

Livia sat at the table with her hands in her lap, and Nico was gone.

Ruggero took the head of the table and opened the folder.

"Let us be simple about this," he said. "Six years ago you left a paper at an airport and a ring in a box."

"I signed the dissolution," I said.

"You signed it alone." He turned the page toward me. "Alone, it is only a letter. The old law says an engagement ends when both Families witness it, and nobody has."

My stomach turned over, because I knew he was right.

I had known it in Paris and had decided not to care.

"Today we can finish it properly," Ruggero went on. "One signature here, and these two gentlemen put their names under it. The Bellandi house is clean. Your mother's house is clean."

"And in return?"

"In return nothing," he said kindly. "Nobody bargains over a signature."

He glanced down the table.

"Livia has offered to give her mother a piece of her liver on Monday. It is a matter of the family's love, not of any papers. But the Bellandi wing is a Bellandi gift, and I cannot ask my Family to spend it on a house with a dispute still open."

I stared at him.

"You're telling me my mother's operation depends on my signing."

"I am telling you the Families like a clean table," Ruggero said.

"Livia." I turned. "Did you agree to this?"

Livia lifted her wet eyes to me.

"I would never make it a condition," she said. "Zio, please, I said I would never."

"No one is saying it is a condition, child."

"Then why is it on the table?"

Nobody answered.

The old witnesses studied their hands.

Alessio had not moved from the wall.

"Alessio," I said. "Do you have something to add?"

His jaw tightened.

"Not while he is speaking," he said.

I gave a short laugh.

Six years, and he was still waiting for the right moment to say something.

I looked at the page.

It was one line, and a place for my name, and two empty lines for the witnesses.

I thought of my mother's thin wrists.

I thought of a surgeon's schedule and how long a woman can wait for a liver.

Then I picked up Ruggero's pen.

It was heavy and black, with a gold nib, and it was warm from his pocket.

"Serena," Livia said softly. "You don't have to."

"I know," I said.

I set the nib on the paper.

The scrape of a chair behind me was loud in the silent room.

Alessio crossed the floor.

He did not touch me.

He put his hand flat on the page, over the line, and held it there.

The pen stopped against his knuckles.

"Move your hand, Bellandi," I said.

"No."

"Alessio," Ruggero said, still pleasant. "The witnesses are here."

"I see them." He did not take his eyes off me.

I had expected shouting, or a threat.

What I got was a voice so low I almost missed it.

"She isn't signing anything."

"She is of age," Ruggero said. "She may sign what she likes."

Alessio straightened, and for the first time he faced the room.

He looked at his uncle, at the two witnesses, and at Livia.

"She's not signing," he said, "because she's my wife."

Nobody in the room moved.

Ruggero's smile stayed in place, but his eyes went flat.

"Nephew," he said. "The registry says otherwise, and I wrote the registry."

"You did," said Alessio. "That is exactly my point."

Livia's hand went to the thin chain at her neck.

She did not look surprised, and I noticed that and had no time to think about it.

I put the pen down.

"Your wife," I said, "is sitting at the table."

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