His small body slammed against my chest.
Both arms circled my neck.
And then he buried his face against the hollow beneath my jaw.
I froze.
Leo gave one shuddering breath.
Then another.
Then silence.
His fingers wrapped around my necklace.
“There,” I whispered. “So you did want the jewelry.”
But nobody smiled this time.
Luca stared at the necklace.
Not at me.
At the necklace.
It was simple.
A thin silver chain with a small oval pendant worn smooth around the edges.
My mother had supposedly left it for me before she died.
At least that was what my adoptive parents had always said.
Luca stood so abruptly his chair scraped against the floor.
“Where did you get that?”
I instinctively covered the pendant.
“My mother.”
“What was her name?”
I frowned.
“You said no personal questions.”
His jaw tightened.
One of his men—older, gray at the temples—leaned forward.
“Boss.”
Luca ignored him.
“What was her name?”
“Claire.”
Something drained out of his face.
“Claire what?”
I should have lied.
I don’t know why I didn’t.
“Claire Bennett.”
The older man swore under his breath.
The younger one stood and turned toward the restaurant entrance.
Luca looked at me as if a ghost had just answered him.
“No.”
I tightened my hold around Leo.
“What?”
“No. That’s impossible.”
“Which part?”
He reached toward the pendant.
I stepped back.
Leo whimpered.
Luca stopped immediately.
“Open it.”
“What?”
“The pendant.”
“It doesn’t open.”
“Yes, it does.”
My heart skipped.
“I’ve had it since I was a baby.”
“And nobody showed you?”
“Showed me what?”
Luca glanced toward the two men beside him.
“Matteo. Clear the room.”
I stared.
“Absolutely not.”
The younger bodyguard was already moving.
“Luca,” the older man said carefully, “you need to think.”
“I have thought about nothing else for eleven months.”
Eleven months.
The exact amount of time I had worked at Aurelia.
The coincidence sat cold in my stomach.
Luca looked at me again.
“Open the pendant.”
“I told you—”
He reached slowly, deliberately.
Not touching me.
Pointing.
“There’s a seam under the left edge.”
My fingers trembled as I felt along the pendant.
There was.
So fine I had mistaken it for a scratch my entire life.
I pressed my nail beneath it.
The oval split open.
Something tiny slid into my palm.
A photograph.
Faded.
Creased.
A young woman holding a newborn.
My breath vanished.
I knew the woman.
Not because I remembered her.
Because I had seen her face in the only photograph my adoptive parents ever gave me.
Claire Bennett.
My mother.
But the man standing beside her was unmistakable.
Younger.
No scar.
No tattoo visible.
But unmistakable.
Luca Moretti.
I looked at him.
Then at the picture.
Then at Leo.
“No.”
Luca’s voice was quiet.
“That was taken at St. Catherine’s Hospital twenty-seven years ago.”
My stomach turned.
“You knew my mother?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“She was my sister.”
The restaurant disappeared.
The candles.
The music.
The murmured conversations.
Everything.
I heard only my pulse.
“That isn’t possible.”
“It is.”
“My mother’s name was Claire Bennett.”
“Her birth name was Clara Moretti.”
“No.”
“She disappeared at nineteen.”
“No.”
“Our father wanted her brought home. She refused.”
“Stop.”
“She changed her name.”
“I said stop.”
Leo lifted his head, startled by my voice.
