Chapter 1 - The Burn
“Hold the dress still. You're making it worse.”
Vanessa Bellini stood in the middle of Luca Moretti's Chicago mansion, surrounded by thirty guests, while I knelt on the marble floor trying to repair the hem of her red evening gown.
My right hand was trembling. The needle had slipped between my fingers twice. And beneath the white bandage wrapped around my palm, a burn I had suffered three hours earlier was beginning to throb so badly I could barely hold the thread.
“Are you listening to me, Emma?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Then stop shaking.”
I lowered my head and tried again.
My name is Emma Reed. I was twenty-seven, worked as a housemaid at the Moretti estate, and needed this job more than anyone in that room could possibly understand. My rent was overdue. My mother's medical bills were sitting unopened on my kitchen table. And Vanessa had already warned me that one more mistake would be my last.
So when she caught the heel of her expensive gown on a chair and tore the hem, I didn't argue when she ordered me to fix it. Even with my injured hand. Even in front of everyone.
What I hadn't expected was for Luca Moretti to come home early.
“What's going on here?” His voice came from behind us.
Vanessa immediately smiled. “Darling! You're home.”
Luca stood at the entrance to the foyer. Thirty-nine. Black suit. Dark hair. The kind of man who could make an entire room reconsider what it was saying without raising his voice.
His eyes moved from Vanessa to me. Then to the needle trembling between my fingers. “Emma. Stand up.”
I tried. But my right hand caught against Vanessa's dress. A sharp pain shot through my palm. I gasped.
Luca's expression changed. “What happened to your hand?”
Before I could answer, Vanessa laughed. “She burned herself ironing the table linens. Apparently, even that requires supervision.”
I stared at the floor.
Luca looked at his fiancée. “Did you see it happen?”
Vanessa's smile faltered. “Not personally.”
“Then how do you know?”
“She told me.”
Luca looked back at me. “Emma?”
I could feel Vanessa watching. “Yes, sir.”
He held out his hand. “Let me see.”
My stomach tightened. “It's really nothing.”
“Then you won't mind showing me.”
Slowly, I unwrapped the bandage. The center of my palm was blistered. Red skin stretched toward my thumb.
Luca stared at it. Then he noticed something else—a fine black stain beneath my fingernails. He gently turned my hand toward the light. “You burned yourself on an iron?”
I nodded.
Vanessa folded her arms. “Luca, we're entertaining guests. Surely this can wait.”
He didn't look at her. “Emma, was the ironing press turned on when you were hurt?”
My mouth went dry. The laundry-room press had been broken for two days. Luca knew because he'd personally approved the repair. I had forgotten. Vanessa hadn't.
“She used a regular iron,” Vanessa said quickly.
Luca slowly turned toward her. “That's interesting.”
Her smile disappeared. “What is?”
“You seem to know exactly what happened to Emma, yet you weren't there.”
Vanessa gave an irritated sigh. “She's a maid, Luca. Not a murder investigation.”
His expression didn't change. “Then why does she look frightened every time you speak?”
The question landed harder than either of us expected. Vanessa stared at him. I stared at the floor.
Luca looked at my injured hand again. Then he said something that nearly made me cry: “Emma, you don't have to finish her dress.”
“I need the hours, sir.”
“You'll be paid.”
Vanessa laughed. “Wonderful. Now we're rewarding people for being incompetent.”
Luca's eyes lifted. “Take your dress upstairs, Vanessa.”
“Excuse me?”
“Have someone else repair it.”
For several seconds, she looked as though she might argue. Then she noticed the guests watching. Her perfect smile returned. “Of course, darling.” She walked away.
Luca turned back to me. “Where did you really burn your hand?”
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Because the truth was sitting inside my apron pocket. And if Vanessa discovered I still had it, I knew exactly what she would do.
“Emma?”
I looked toward the staircase. “Please, Mr. Moretti. Don't ask me here.”
For the first time that evening, his expression softened. He glanced toward the guests, then nodded. “Go have your hand examined. We'll talk afterward.”
I hurried toward the servants' stairs.
But Luca didn't return to the party. He watched me disappear, then noticed a tiny piece of blackened paper lying on the marble where I had been kneeling.
He bent down. Picked it up. And went completely still.
Because he recognized the handwriting. It belonged to his mother—his mother, who had died seven months earlier, whom Luca believed had refused to see him during the final weeks of her life.
He turned the burned fragment over. Only two words remained legible: My Luca.
At 10:17 that evening, Luca found me in the servants' sitting room. I was sitting beside the window with my freshly bandaged hand resting on a cushion.
He closed the door behind him. Then placed the burned fragment on the table. “Where did you get this?”
My face went pale. “Mr. Moretti—”
“That's my mother's handwriting.”
I couldn't look at him.
He pulled out the chair opposite me. “Emma, tell me what happened.”
For several seconds, I couldn't speak. Then I reached into my apron. My fingers closed around the one thing Vanessa had ordered me to destroy: an envelope. Its edges were scorched. Part of the paper had turned brown. But the handwriting on the front was unmistakable: For Luca. Please make sure he gets this.
Luca stared at it. “Where did you find that?”
“In your mother's old bedroom.”
His expression hardened. “That room has been locked since her funeral.”
I nodded. “Vanessa unlocked it this afternoon. She told me to help clear out the remaining things before the wedding.”
“What happened?”
My eyes filled. “She found the letter inside your mother's writing desk.”
Luca looked at the envelope. “Then what?”
I swallowed. “She read it.”
“And?”
“She threw it into the fireplace.”
For several seconds, he didn't move.
I looked down at my burned hand. “I tried to get it out before it was destroyed.”
Luca slowly reached for the envelope. “Why would Vanessa burn a letter from my mother?”
I shook my head. “I don't know. But when she saw me holding it, she told me I would never work in Chicago again if I gave it to you.”
Luca carefully unfolded the damaged paper. His mother's familiar handwriting covered the first page. He began reading. Then stopped. His face lost its color.
Because the letter wasn't about money. It wasn't about his inheritance. It was about the final three weeks of his mother's life—the weeks when Vanessa had repeatedly told him his mother didn't want visitors, the weeks when he'd waited outside her hospital room believing the woman who raised him no longer wanted to see his face.
Luca read the first paragraph again. Then he looked up at me. “Emma, did Vanessa read this entire letter?”
“Yes, sir.”
His voice became almost inaudible. “Was she alone?”
I shook my head.
May you like
And that was when Luca heard Vanessa's footsteps outside the sitting-room door.
He looked down at the final paragraph. His mother's handwriting had become uneven, but her last sentence was perfectly clear: “My darling Luca, I never refused to see you. Vanessa told me you were the one who wanted me gone. But what she did the night before I died is something you must know before you marry her.”
