Everyone called me a shameless bitch, while Magnus was hailed as the Don who upheld his family's honor in the face of betrayal. Lori was celebrated as the legendary woman who had captured the Don's true love.
His supporters sent me countless death threats, threw dead rats at the manor gates, and spray-painted the walls with obscene graffiti in screaming red paint.
During this time, Magnus escorted Lori to Europe's most exclusive casinos and private galas, pointedly visiting every city where I'd once dreamed of seeing art exhibitions with him.
But even then, I couldn't bring myself to give up on the years of love we had shared.
After all, besides my father, he was the only one in this world who had ever loved me, the only one who had ever treasured me.
When I was eighteen, my father, a disgraced politician, took his own life amid a swirling scandal.
A month later, at what should have been my coming-of-age party, the bank seized the home I grew up in.
The Gallo family descended like vultures to pick apart my family's last assets before tossing me out onto the street.
The Chicago winter that year was bone-chillingly cold.
Just as I was about to freeze to death in some forgotten alley, it was Magnus who scoured the entire city in his black Bentley to find me and bring me into his world.
He wrapped me tightly in an expensive cashmere blanket, his voice laced with anger and pain.
"Why didn't you come to me?"
"Isabella, I want you to remember something: even if the whole world abandons you, I, Magnus Moretti, will always want you!"
From then on, Magnus took me under his wing, using all his power to shelter me.
He enrolled me at the University of Chicago. In a place teeming with the elite and powerful, the daughter of a disgraced official was an anomaly. Everyone was just waiting for me to become a laughingstock.
But at a university ceremony celebrating a massive donation, Magnus declared in front of everyone:
"Isabella is mine. Anyone who touches her makes an enemy of the entire Moretti family."
To help me escape the shadows of my past, he showered me with luxury. Michelin-starred chefs flew in the freshest ingredients for me every day.
The moment Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week concluded, the latest custom gowns would be waiting in my closet.
Once, after a visit to the Louvre, I casually mentioned how I wished I had a studio with a view. He then built me a massive glass conservatory on the priceless shoreline of Lake Michigan.
Magnus's devotion to me became the talk of Chicago.
He spoiled me until I was so delicate, so naive, that I even developed a willfulness I never thought I'd possess again.
Whenever I woke from nightmares of my father's death, crying that he, too, might one day abandon me, he would promise me again and again, his voice a low, tobacco-scented rumble:
"Don't ever be afraid, Bella. I'd have to be in hell to stop loving you."
How could I ever let go of a man like that?
