Chapter 2 - THE DIAGNOSIS THAT DESTROYED HIS FUTURE
“Evelyn, there's something you need to know about the people who gave me this diagnosis.”
Luca Varenna stood behind his desk holding a medical folder that looked as though it had been opened and closed a thousand times.
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he removed a yellowed report.
The paper was dated twelve years earlier.
A hospital in Boston.
A specialist's signature.
And a conclusion that had shaped every decision Luca made about his future.
Permanent infertility following traumatic injury.
I looked up.
“Luca.”
His jaw tightened.
“I was twenty-three.”
I waited.
“There was a car accident.”
He looked toward the window.
“My brother was driving.”
I frowned.
“You never told me that.”
He gave a humorless laugh.
“There are many things I never told you.”
I stepped closer.
“Then tell me now.”
He looked at me.
His gray eyes were filled with something I'd never seen before.
Fear.
“My father wanted grandchildren.”
I swallowed.
“He wanted an heir.”
Luca nodded.
“And when the doctors told him I couldn't have children, everything changed.”
I looked down at the report.
“What changed?”
“My position in the family.”
He sat slowly.
“For twelve years, my brother has been treated as the future of the Varenna bloodline.”
I stared.
“And you?”
Luca looked at me.
“I was allowed to run the empire.”
May you like
His expression hardened.
“But never to inherit all of it.”
