The Princess Without a Memory novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: The Ring
In the underworld of Corvona, there's a rule no one has ever written down and everyone obeys.
When a Don keeps a new woman for three consecutive months, the Donna must take off the family ring and put it on her finger, in front of everyone.
My husband, Rocco Valenti, had spent ninety days at the summer house on the coast with a woman named Lavinia.
That afternoon, he returned to Villa Valenti to honor the rule.
Everyone expected me to fall apart.
I saw it on the faces of the sixty guests filling the hall of mirrors: capos with their hands in their pockets, wives with glasses frozen halfway to their lips, cousins who'd bet I'd throw myself on the floor and scream.
I'd been at his side for seven years.
I followed him everywhere, never leaving his side.
I'd wake up in the middle of the night to put my hand on his chest and make sure he was still there, because it was the only way I could fall back asleep.
All of Corvona knew it.
Everyone bet I'd never let him go.
Rocco sat at the head of the long table, in his black leather chair, a glass of whiskey in his hand.
His black hair was combed back, his shoulders broad beneath the dark suit, and those ice-blue eyes looked like frozen glass.
Standing to his right was Lavinia.
She wore a white silk dress, her blonde hair loose, with a carefully rehearsed sweetness on her face.
She held out her hand to me.
"Nerina," she said, her voice dripping with honey. "Thank you for being so understanding."
The room held its breath.
I felt a strange, cold calm, as if I'd been emptied out all at once.
I looked down at my left hand.
The Valenti family ring gleamed on my ring finger: thick gold, with a hand-engraved falcon crest.
I'd worn it for seven years.
I turned it slowly.
I slid it off.
It didn't catch on my knuckle.
My pulse didn't waver.
I took Lavinia's hand, thin and white, and slipped the ring onto her finger.
It was a little big on her.
A stifled murmur rippled through the room.
Someone gasped.
No one had ever seen a Donna do it without tears.
Rocco swirled the whiskey in his glass, satisfaction glinting in his eyes.
"Nerina," he said, in that velvet voice of his. "You finally learned your place."
I looked down at my bare finger.
I said nothing.
There was a white mark where the gold used to be, a thin line of skin that never saw the sun.
I touched it with my thumb.
"Withdraw," Rocco ordered, gesturing toward the door. "Today is Lavinia's celebration."
"Yes, Don Rocco."
I gave a barely perceptible bow.
It was the first time in seven years I'd called him that.
His brow furrowed, just slightly.
But he didn't ask anything.
I left the hall through the side door, parting the guests who stepped aside to let me pass.
An older woman touched my arm.
"Poor thing."
"I'm fine, signora."
"It'll hurt more later."
"I don't think so."
I kept walking.
In the hallway, by the service stairs, Pina the housekeeper was waiting, hands pressed against her black apron.
Her eyes were wet.
"Child."
"Pina."
"Come, come."
She led me into the empty kitchen, closed the door, and just stood there looking at me.
"How are you?"
"Fine."
"Don't lie to me."
"Fine, really."
She covered her mouth with her hand.
"My God. It's true."
"Yes."
I sat down on a stool by the stone table.
My heart was beating calmly, unhurried.
The afternoon light came through the window and fell across my hands.
My hands, which no longer belonged to anyone.
I thought about the last time I'd cried over Rocco Valenti.
It was a month ago.
One stormy night, under the sheets, my hand pressed against his empty side of the bed, knowing he was with someone else.
That night, something broke.
And from between the cracks emerged, intact, what had been sleeping for seven years.
My name.
My home.
My brother.
"Pina," I said.
"Tell me."
"How many days are left?"
She counted on her fingers, slowly.
"Three."
A smile crossed my lips for the first time all day.
Rocco had believed, all this time, that I was a street orphan he'd given a surname to.
He didn't know his wife was the lost Princess of the Altieri family, the most powerful in the Old World.
And in three days, my brother's armed convoy would cross the gates of his villa to take me home.
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