Chapter 1 - The Boy Who Called Her Mommy
“Mommy!”
The little boy raced across the ballroom and wrapped both arms around Anna’s legs.
Vincent Moretti forgot how to breathe.
For three years, he had lived with the image of fire consuming the private jet.
For three years, he had visited a grave with Anna’s name carved into black marble.
Now she stood twenty feet away in a silver evening gown, one hand resting protectively on the shoulder of a child who looked frighteningly familiar.
Anna slowly turned.
Their eyes met.
Vincent felt the entire ballroom disappear.
She was older.
Her hair was shorter.
There was a faint scar near her temple.
But it was Anna.
His wife.
The woman he had abandoned for one terrible minute.
“Anna?”
Her expression hardened.
The little boy looked up at her.
“Mommy, who is that man?”
Vincent’s gaze dropped to him.
Dark hair.
Gray-green eyes.
A small dimple in his left cheek.
Vincent had seen that face before.
Every morning.
In the mirror.
His knees nearly gave out.
“How old is he?”
Anna immediately stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
Vincent stared at her.
“How old is your son?”
“Our son,” Anna said quietly.
The words struck harder than the explosion had.
Vincent’s lips parted.
Sophia appeared beside him.
“That’s impossible.”
Anna looked at her.
Something cold entered her eyes.
“No, Sophia. What’s impossible is that you still think nobody knows what you did.”
Sophia went pale.
Vincent turned sharply.
“What is she talking about?”
“Vincent,” Sophia whispered, grabbing his arm. “She’s confused. She survived a traumatic accident.”
Anna laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“I survived more than an accident.”
Before Vincent could respond, a tall man in a tuxedo approached Anna.
“Everything okay?”
Vincent immediately noticed how naturally the man placed himself beside her.
Anna nodded.
“Yes, Daniel.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Daniel looked at him calmly.
“Vincent Moretti.”
“You know me?”
“Everybody in Chicago knows you.”
Daniel gently lifted the little boy.
The child rested comfortably against his shoulder.
Something ugly twisted in Vincent’s chest.
“What’s his name?” he demanded.
Anna hesitated.
Then she answered.
“Leo.”
Vincent swallowed.
That had been the name they had chosen together.
Months before the crash.
If they had a boy.
Sophia whispered, “We should leave.”
Vincent didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
“Anna, I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you come home?”
Anna looked at him for a long moment.
When she finally spoke, her voice was almost gentle.
“Because when I woke up, I discovered something worse than losing my memory.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“What?”
“I discovered the explosion wasn’t an accident.”
The color disappeared from his face.
Anna’s eyes moved toward Sophia.
“And somebody made sure you would save exactly the wrong woman first.”
Sophia stumbled backward.
Vincent saw it.
That tiny reaction.
That flash of fear.
And suddenly, for the first time in three years, he wondered whether the worst mistake of his life had actually been engineered.
Anna took Leo’s hand.
“We’re leaving.”
Vincent moved instinctively.
“Anna, please.”
She stopped.
He had never sounded so desperate.
“I came back for you that day.”
Anna closed her eyes briefly.
“Too late.”
“I know.”
When she looked at him again, tears shone in her eyes.
“But you’re still too late, Vincent.”
She walked away.
Vincent watched his wife disappear through the ballroom doors with the son he had never known existed.
Then Sophia touched his shoulder.
“Vincent—”
He turned.
His expression terrified her.
May you like
“Tell me,” he said quietly, “why Anna looked at you when she said the explosion wasn’t an accident.”
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