Chapter 3 - The First Three Days
The sun had barely cleared the treetops of the Hudson Valley when the formal routine of Duca Manor began.
For the first three days, Bianca felt like a prisoner living inside a golden cage disguised as a honeymoon. Mason left for his Manhattan headquarters before dawn, returning late in the evening without a word about business. They shared massive, silent dinners across a dining table large enough to seat twelve, speaking only in polite, monosyllabic pleasantries for the benefit of the hovering estate staff.
Yet, beneath the cold exterior, an electric current hummed between them whenever their eyes met across the room.
On the third night, a torrential autumn storm broke over the valley. Sheets of rain lashed against the massive glass windows of the study, and distant rumbles of thunder shook the heavy oak floorboards.
Bianca was sitting at the mahogany desk in the library, poring over old corporate tax returns from Romano Continental Logistics dated nine years prior, trying to trace the sudden, unexplained influx of capital that had launched her father’s empire.
The door opened quietly, and Mason stepped inside, shaking the rain from his dark hair. He had discarded his suit jacket; his white shirt was open at the collar, and he looked exhausted.
"You should be in bed," Mason said, walking over to the fireplace and pouring himself a finger of amber scotch into a crystal glass.
"I found something," Bianca said without looking up, her finger tracing a line of suspicious wire transfers between a Cayman Island shell company and an account registered under Victor Romano’s personal name.
Mason froze, his glass halfway to his mouth. He set it down sharply on the mantelpiece and crossed the room in three long strides, pulling a chair up beside her desk.
"Show me," he commanded.
Bianca pointed to the figures. "Look at the dates. These transfers didn't start after Claire’s death. They started three weeks before she went into labor. That’s not a business acquisition. That’s a retainer."
Mason stared at the numbers. His jaw worked, a muscle ticking violently in his cheek as years of suppressed rage and unanswered questions coalesced into absolute clarity.
"A retainer paid to someone inside my own household," Mason murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, gravelly register.
He looked up from the ledger, his gaze locking onto Bianca’s. For the first time since they met, there was no corporate armor between them. There was only raw, pulsing humanity, forged in the fires of mutual betrayal by the people who were supposed to protect them.
Bianca looked back at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. The storm outside raged louder, rattling the windowpanes.
"Mason," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "What happens when we find out who took your family from you?"
Mason didn't answer with words. Instead, he reached out, his hand cupping the back of her neck, pulling her slowly toward him. His thumb brushed across her lower lip, hesitant for a fraction of a second, before his lips met hers.
The kiss wasn't gentle, nor was it born of polite romance. It was fierce, desperate, and laden with the intoxicating weight of shared vengeance and sudden, undeniable passion.
May you like
Bianca gasped against his mouth, her hands gripping the lapels of his shirt as she pulled him closer. The sterile walls of the mansion seemed to dissolve around them, leaving only the heat of their bodies against the howling darkness of the storm outside.
That night, in the quiet seclusion of the master suite, the cold contract of their marriage was shattered. In its place, driven by a fierce, unspoken hunger to reclaim what had been stolen from their lives, they forged a bond far deeper than any legal document—conceiving a new life in the shadow of the old world's ghosts.
