Chapter 10
The truth was not that Victoria accidentally heard Grace’s melody.
She heard Grace play it because Victoria had been secretly inside the Moretti estate while Grace was alive.
And Adrian had brought her there.
Adrian and Victoria had been in a relationship for nearly two years before Dante ever believed he had met her.
It began through charity work.
Victoria’s event company was struggling.
Adrian offered Moretti contracts.
Then legitimate work became inflated work.
Inflated work became false billing.
And the relationship became personal.
Adrian hid both.
Victoria did not meet Dante by coincidence after Grace died.
Adrian arranged the introduction.
By then, their romantic relationship had ended badly, but the financial fraud still connected them.
They needed access.
Influence.
And, most importantly, silence about what Grace had discovered.
Grace had caught them together in the estate seven weeks before her death.
Not in a bedroom.
In the side study beside the music room, arguing over invoices Victoria wanted Adrian to stop using.
Grace had entered carrying Lily.
The child was restless.
Grace placed Lily in the small daybed near the piano and began playing her familiar melody until she settled.
Victoria stood in the adjoining room.
She heard every note.
Including the ending Lily rarely stayed awake long enough to hear.
After Lily fell asleep, Grace confronted them.
She already suspected the false invoices.
Now she understood why Adrian had been protecting Victoria.
Grace ordered Victoria out of the house.
She told Adrian she was finishing the audit and telling Dante herself.
Adrian begged her to wait.
Victoria begged her not to destroy her.
Grace refused.
Then, seven weeks later, Grace died in an unrelated highway accident before completing the audit.
Adrian canceled it using her credentials.
Victoria closed her company.
Both convinced themselves the danger had passed.
Until Adrian made the next decision.
He introduced Victoria to Dante.
The logic was ugly but practical.
If Victoria remained outside the Moretti family, she was a loose end with financial records connecting her to Adrian.
If she became Dante’s partner, she gained both protection and a reason to keep the past buried.
Victoria also had access to the legitimate Moretti businesses she feared could eventually expose the old payments.
Adrian believed proximity would protect them both.
Victoria eventually accepted because the alternative was admitting to fraud and telling Dante she had once been secretly involved with his cousin.
Then Dante genuinely fell in love with her.
That made the lie harder to stop.
Not impossible.
Harder.
And Victoria chose to continue it.
The melody at the engagement reception destroyed everything because Victoria had played something she could only have learned during the life she claimed never existed.
The three clues now fit together.
Her complete knowledge of Grace’s private song.
Her car at Adrian’s office before Grace died.
Grace’s warning that Adrian had brought “her” into the house.
Dante sat across from Victoria after her attorney finished confirming the timeline.
“You stood in my home while my wife played that for our daughter.”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“And eight months later, you let me introduce you to Lily like you were a stranger.”
“Yes.”
Dante looked at Adrian.
“You arranged it.”
Adrian did not defend himself.
May you like
“Yes.”
For the first time since the piano stopped, nobody in the room had another version left.
