Chapter 4
Victoria came to the estate two days later with an attorney.
Rocco agreed to meet her.
She wore no engagement ring.
She had removed it herself.
Rocco noticed.
He did not comment.
Victoria sat across from him.
“I love Noah.”
Rocco’s expression did not change.
“You destroyed the device he needs to hear.”
“I know.”
“You lunged at him afterward.”
“I was trying to stop him from repeating something he misunderstood.”
“By grabbing him?”
Her eyes filled.
“I panicked.”
Rocco was becoming tired of that word.
People used panic as though fear erased the decisions made inside it.
“What adoption were you planning?”
“I wasn’t planning one.”
“You opened a file.”
“I asked questions.”
“Why?”
Victoria looked at her attorney.
He gave no signal.
She answered.
“Because after we married, I wanted to become his legal mother.”
Noah’s biological mother had died shortly after his birth.
Rocco had raised him with household help ever since.
Victoria had been in Noah’s life for eighteen months.
The idea itself was not absurd.
The secrecy was.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid you’d think I was after something.”
Rocco almost laughed.
“That concern aged badly.”
Victoria flinched.
Then Rocco asked:
“Did Marcus suggest adoption?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
There it was.
“Why?”
“He said Noah needed stability if anything happened to you.”
“And the trust?”
Victoria looked confused.
Or pretended to.
“What trust?”
Rocco watched her carefully.
“Marcus asked my attorney whether a family member could replace Noah’s trustee.”
“I didn’t know that.”
For the first time, Victoria’s surprise looked genuine.
That complicated matters.
She may not have known every part of Marcus’s plan.
But she knew enough to destroy Noah’s hearing aid.
Rocco stood.
“We’re done.”
Victoria rose.
“Rocco, please.”
He looked at her.
“Until I know exactly what my son heard, there is no wedding.”
Her face collapsed.
The postponement was not yet public.
But the relationship had already changed.
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Rocco was no longer investigating whether Victoria had made one terrible mistake.
He was investigating what kind of future she and Marcus had been preparing around his son.
