Chapter 3 - THE NAME THEY PUT ON MY DAUGHTER
My water hadn't fully broken.
The doctors called it a small leak and threatened preterm labor.
Isabel's heartbeat remained strong.
Mine felt like it was trying to escape.
They admitted me.
Roman stayed outside the room until I allowed him in.
That took three hours.
When he entered, he looked terrible.
Good.
He sat six feet away.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
Neither was entirely true.
But medically, close enough.
“Cass.”
“No apology yet.”
His mouth closed.
“I don't want to hear how sorry you are until I know what you did.”
He nodded.
So I questioned my husband like a witness.
“When did Alessia start?”
“May.”
“Who initiated it?”
“I did.”
Pain.
Clean.
Useful.
“How many times?”
He looked away.
“Roman.”
“I don't know.”
“More than ten?”
“Yes.”
“Twenty?”
His silence answered.
“Hotels?”
“Sometimes.”
“Our properties?”
“No.”
“Our house?”
His eyes snapped toward mine.
“Never.”
Interesting that he still had lines.
“Did you tell her you loved her?”
“Yes.”
That one hurt worse.
I looked toward the hospital window.
Snow continued falling.
“Did you mean it?”
“I thought I did.”
I laughed once.
“You don't get points for confusion.”
“I know.”
“Did you plan to leave me?”
“No.”
That answer was somehow more insulting.
“So you wanted both.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
I appreciated that almost as much as I hated him.
“Did you know about the psychiatric document?”
“No.”
“Did you know Beatrice wanted me removed from the trust?”
“I knew she wanted safeguards.”
“Safeguards against whom?”
“You.”
I looked at him.
“Explain.”
Roman rubbed his hands together.
“The agreement requires stable guardianship of the successor beneficiary.”
“Our baby.”
“Yes.”
“Call her our baby.”
His face changed.
“Our baby.”
“Continue.”
“My mother said if our marriage became publicly unstable, the Calders could challenge Isabel's position.”
“And your solution?”
“I told them our marriage would remain intact.”
“While sleeping with Alessia.”
“Yes.”
The stupidity almost impressed me.
“Did you approve Alessia as substitute guardian?”
“No.”
“Potential stepmother?”
“No.”
“Successor spouse?”
“No.”
“Did you know those provisions existed?”
Silence.
“Roman.”
“I knew there were contingency discussions.”
There it was.
The betrayal beneath the betrayal.
He hadn't written every document.
He'd simply allowed rooms to exist where people discussed replacing me.
“Did you stop them?”
“No.”
I nodded.
He leaned forward.
“Cass—”
“That is the thing I don't know how to forgive.”
“Not Alessia?”
“Oh, I may never forgive that either.”
I looked at him.
“But you promised nobody would ever make Bellandi decisions about my life without me.”
“I know.”
“You didn't have to sign the psychiatric order.”
My voice shook.
“You just had to let your mother believe she was entitled to prepare one.”
Roman looked down.
For the first time, the most feared man in half the city had nothing to defend himself with.
A nurse entered.
“Mrs. Bellandi?”
“Yes?”
“There's an attorney asking to see you.”
Roman stood.
“Who?”
The nurse checked.
“Evelyn Shaw.”
I knew Evelyn.
She'd drafted my father's estate.
More importantly, she was my attorney.
Not Bellandi counsel.
Mine.
I had called her before Thanksgiving.
“Send her in.”
Roman stared.
“You called a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“For divorce?”
“I haven't decided.”
That hurt him.
Good.
Evelyn entered carrying another cream folder.
Roman looked at it as if folders had become his natural predator.
She sat beside me.
“We found the original trust instrument.”
Roman's expression changed.
“What original instrument?”
Evelyn opened it.
“Isabel's succession trust wasn't created this year.”
I stared.
“What?”
“It was created eight years ago.”
I wasn't pregnant eight years ago.
I hadn't even begun fertility treatment.
“How?”
Evelyn turned the page.
The beneficiary wasn't Isabel.
It was:
FIRST LIVING CHILD OF ROMAN BELLANDI AND CASSANDRA BELLANDI.
My blood went cold.
“Who created it?”
Evelyn looked at Roman.
“Your father.”
Roman stopped breathing.
Luca Bellandi had died seven years earlier.
Evelyn continued.
“And according to this, Cassandra isn't merely the child's mother.”
She turned another page.
“She is the controlling trustee until the child turns twenty-five.”
Roman stood.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Beatrice hadn't been trying to protect an agreement.
She'd been trying to remove me because once Isabel was born—
May you like
I would control the one trust capable of overruling her.
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