My usually well-behaved daughter, Violet, suddenly threw a tantrum, insisting on a trip to the family's vacation villa on Lake Michigan.
She even threatened me by skipping her equestrian training.
I relented and took her there myself, while her father, Xavier, remained in Chicago, claiming he had family business to attend to.
After two weeks, I was physically and mentally drained, but my daughter insisted she hadn't had her fill of fun and begged to stay a few more days.
My family was already urging me to return.
I booked our return for the next day.
But I never expected that in the dead of night, I would overhear my daughter on an encrypted phone, talking to Xavier:
"Papa, is Penny doing okay? Mom and I are coming back tomorrow. I tried everything to make us stay longer, but it didn't work. You need to get her out of there, fast. Don't let Mom find out, or the Don will be furious!"
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1
I rolled over in the middle of the night. The space beside me was empty. My eyes snapped open and I shot bolt upright.
The bedroom door was ajar, the world beyond it pitch-black.
In the oppressive silence, I could faintly hear my daughter's voice drifting from the suite’s terrace.
I frowned. What was she doing out there so late?
Slipping from the sheets, I crept out of the bedroom. I found my daughter's small form huddled by the terrace railing, clutching an encrypted satellite phone.
"Papa, is Penny in a better mood? Does she like our home?"
"Mom and I are coming back tomorrow. I tried to get us to stay longer so you could have more time with her, but she said no. Mom is so annoying! It's all her fault. If it weren't for her, I could be at the opera with you and Penny right now."
"Papa, you need to get her out of there, fast. Don't let Mom find out, or the Don will be furious!"
A moment ago, I was worried about my daughter; now, it felt as if I’d been plunged into an icy abyss. My mind went blank, and the blood in my veins seemed to freeze.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
My husband, the man I loved with all my heart, and my daughter, the child I had adored for eight years—conspiring to deceive me.
All for a woman named Penny?
A dancer?
My gaze landed on the satellite phone in my daughter's hand. I suddenly remembered Xavier giving it to her under the guise of "enhanced security."
I had thought it was absurd at the time.
Why would a child need a military-grade communication device?
But Xavier had insisted it was to ensure she could contact us under any circumstances.
My daughter had thrown a fit, begging for it.
She’d claimed it was a special gift from her Papa, and that refusing it meant I didn't trust him. My hands had been tied.
I never imagined this phone would become a tool for them to conspire behind my back.
"Mamma?"
My daughter scrambled to her feet when she saw me, panic flashing in her eyes.
I composed myself, forcing a smile. "It's late. What are you doing out here instead of sleeping?"
She was only a child. Her eyes darted away, unable to meet mine as a lie stumbled from her lips. "I... I just missed Papa, so I called him. Mamma, I'm so sleepy. I'm going to bed."
As she spoke, she even managed a convincing yawn.
She tried to slip past me, but I stopped her.
My voice trembled, betraying an anxiety I hadn't yet acknowledged. "Do you love me, Violet?"
My daughter turned and threw herself into my arms, nuzzling her face against me just as she had as a toddler. "I love you the most, Mamma! And Papa too!"
Watching her scamper back to the bedroom, my mind was at war with itself.
One voice insisted it had to be a misunderstanding. The other screamed at me to search for the truth.
Once a seed of doubt is planted, it grows like a weed.
I sank onto the sofa in the dark. Just then, my phone screen lit up.
It was a message from an anonymous number with a photo attached.
I opened it.
The caption on the photo was dated today.
[His princess is back, so where does that leave me?]
The photo was of that woman, Penny, lounging in my bed, wearing a sheer black lace nightgown. Around her neck was the Grimaldi family's signature sapphire necklace—a piece my mother had left me.
Staring at the screen, my hands began to tremble, and my breath hitched in my throat.
A single tear splashed onto the screen, followed by another, and another, until they were streaming down my face.
I tossed the phone aside and buried my face in my hands, a broken sob escaping as tears streamed through my fingers.
Our bedroom, my antique vanity, our bed—all painfully familiar. Even the framed photo of me on the nightstand was perfectly clear.
And that arm draped over Penny’s waist, the one wearing our wedding ring, belonged to the man I had loved for nearly a decade and been married to for nine years—Xavier Valeriano.
