The whole East Coast knew I'd gone after Victor.

I bought a newly discovered planet and had it named after him, then presented it to him at the most glamorous gala of the season. When his stomach was acting up and he missed a meeting, I dropped everything and showed up at his door with soup.

He was cold to me the whole time.

He told me he was in love with someone else, a girl with no family name, no connections. Sophia. The family stood in the way of them marrying, he said, but she was the only one he'd ever want.

It hurt, but I let him go. I wished him well and moved on.

His father, though, had other ideas. He wanted Victor to marry me, because I was the Moretti heiress, after all.

I'd almost forgotten Victor entirely when he showed up at my birthday party out of nowhere. That night he drank three bottles of XO, grabbed my arm, and kept asking: "Delora, Delora, do you still love me?"

Even drunk, that face of his did things to me.

When I hesitated, he got serious. He swore that he and Sophia were done, that he'd freed her, wished her well, and that my passion had moved him in ways he hadn't expected. I decided to give him one chance to prove it.

After that night, it all fell into place: dating, proposal, engagement, wedding. Clean and natural as anything. I put Sophia out of my mind entirely.

It didn't last.

On the first day of our honeymoon, just as the plane was about to take off, his phone played that song again. My Heart Will Go On.

He stared at the screen with his thumb hovering over the reject button and couldn't bring himself to press it.

A flight attendant came over to ask him to turn off his phone.

He agonized over it for a long moment. "It's Sophia. Can I take it?"

We were seconds from wheels up. "Turn it off," I said. "Deal with it after we land."

Victor pressed his lips together and declined the call.

But the moment we touched down, his phone started up again. The same song, over and over.

I was already irritated. "Just answer it. Tell her you're on your honeymoon."

But that call changed everything.

It turned out that right as we were boarding, Sophia had been assaulted. That call was her cry for help. Victor booked the next available flight back on the spot, and he left alone, without even asking if I wanted to come with him.

It rained hard that day in Las Vegas. I dragged three suitcases to the hotel by myself, and whatever excitement I'd had was gone.

Victor stayed at the hospital with Sophia for two straight weeks without a single word to me.

When we finally reunited, he shoved a medical report in my face, barely containing the guilt in his voice. "Sophia has severe depression. It's my fault. I should've answered the phone. I owe her this." Then he turned and looked at me, a shadow of resentment in his eyes. "You owe her too."

A chill went through me. "No one owes her anything except the man who attacked her," I said carefully. "Even if you'd answered, you couldn't have stopped it."

That was all it took. Victor exploded.

"It was you! You stopped me from answering! You let this happen to her and now you stand there like it's nothing! If I'd picked up, who would've dared touch her? Who?! You're so good at avoiding blame."

Right. Who was really avoiding blame here. The facts were obvious.

I couldn't keep fighting with someone who'd lost all reason, so I went to the bedroom alone. It wasn't until I closed the door behind me that I realized I was crying, shaking, silent, blindsided by how unfair it all was.

After that, Sophia overdosed on sleeping pills. Slashed her wrists. Multiple times. Every time, Victor was the one who rushed to her, stayed with her, took care of her. There was nothing I could do to stop him from going to "save a life," and everyone decided Sophia's breakdown was my fault.

Then one time he was gone for three days straight and missed a meeting my father had arranged. Because of him, I embarrassed the family.

That night I sat him down for a serious talk. "Victor, all nightmares must come to an end."

Victor smoked in his study all night. The next morning he told me: "I told her I'm done. I won't go back."

I nodded. "I can arrange a private doctor for her."

He laughed, cold. "Let's hope you actually mean that."

I held my tongue, swallowed my pride, and tried to prove something. Yet I failed again, for Sophia had lost control.

My doctor had been treating Sophia for a month when she had an episode behind the wheel and crashed into a woman near the Moretti estate. The woman turned out to be a DEA informant who'd been watching our family.

That night, Victor came home and threw a stack of files in my face.

"Look what you did."

His anger over Sophia's treatment had become routine.

I picked up the pages and sorted them one by one. "The doctor said she'd been making progress. She shouldn't have crashed like that. Maybe she was... drinking..."

Victor sneered. "Here we go again. More blame-dodging."

"I can't believe I ended things with her for you. You're a vicious woman."

His cold indifference cut into me like a blade, slicing through everything I'd once felt for him.

My eyes burned. "Victor, wake up. If I actually wanted to hurt her, it'd be easier than stepping on an ant."

He scoffed. "Of course you wouldn't dare. My father nearly had her killed for opposing our marriage back then, and you knew I had people protecting her. You think I don't know how badly you want her gone?"

At our engagement, he'd held my hands and told me he'd never met anyone as radiant, as genuinely alive, as me. Now he was accusing me of wanting to commit murder.

"You hate her, you're jealous of her, you resent her—"

I didn't realize I was crying until I felt it on my face. I couldn't take any more.

"I have never wished Sophia harm. I respected your past with her. I've put up with all of this because I love you, Victor. What do I have to do for you to stop making her suffering my fault?"

Victor's throat moved. A long silence. Then he spoke.

"Someone has to answer for this accident."

"Delora, if you really haven't done anything to hurt Sophia, then help her. Take the fall. Tell them you were the one driving. No one will touch you. She gets to walk away."

I couldn't move. I hadn't expected him to ask me that.

Sophia had hit a federal informant. The DA's office wanted someone, and they'd made it clear: no low-level pawns. Senators were staying out of it. As the Moretti heiress, if I confessed, it would be worse for me than it would ever be for someone as fragile as Sophia.

He saw me go quiet and kept going. "Sophia's too vulnerable. The DEA will use her to get to the whole family. I can't let that happen." He looked at me with the same warmth that used to mean something, trying to hold me in place with it. "I trust you, Delora. You're the Donna. This is your responsibility."

Yes. Responsibility.

He was responsible for Sophia's illness. And I was responsible for Sophia's crimes, apparently. The reason he'd married me in the first place was because he was supposed to, not because he wanted to.

I had a responsibility too: to myself, for loving the wrong man.

I cut him off mid-speech. With great effort, I nodded.

"Fine. I'll confess. But remember, I'm not doing this for Sophia. I'm doing it for you and me."

Victor didn't understand what I meant at the time. I didn't explain. I walked into the DEA's building and didn't look back.

Three years followed. The memories came faster and heavier until I couldn't breathe. My vision blurred, and then everything went dark.

When I came around, I was in a hospital bed. A dull ache in my abdomen, exactly like that night.

My first day in federal holding, I'd gotten into it with a guard. I won the fight. The price was blood soaking through my clothes, down my legs. The doctor who examined me afterward didn't waste words. "You miscarried." That was the first moment I knew I'd been pregnant.

The baby, like everything between me and Victor, was there and gone. The three years that followed, I survived only because the Moretti name still carried weight inside. Victor never came once. He sent letters through intermediaries, explaining that any mention of me sent Sophia into a spiral, so he had to write in secret.

I touched the flat of my stomach.

“Baby, you're better off. Your father doesn't love your mother.”

Victor's frantic voice cut through.

"Delora! Delora!"

I opened my eyes slowly. He was cradling my face in both hands. "Baby, you're finally awake. You scared the hell out of me. If anything had happened to you, I would've held this entire hospital responsible."

Would you? The thought surfaced on its own. If I told him about the baby, would he actually take responsibility?

But he kissed me before I could finish the thought, pressing his lips to mine. "Delora, I'm sorry. I'll make it up to you. From here on out, whatever it is, I'm on your side. I choose you."

A knock at the door interrupted him.

"Don Caruso, the invoice needs your signature."

After he stepped out, a woman drifted in. The patient tag on her wrist read: Room 311, Sophia Romano.

My first time seeing her in person.

She was pale, very thin, with dry and dull hair, the kind of face men read as tragic and beautiful. Her eyes were too big for her face, and I imagined she looked helpless to anyone who wanted to see it. She gripped an IV pole with one hand, her eyes red.

"You must be Delora," she said quietly. "I should thank you. But I won't. You used your father's power to steal Victor from me. Everything you've ever done for me, you owe me."

I felt my stomach turn. She really was Victor's type, right down to the performative fragility.

"If you weren't in the picture," Sophia continued, "Victor and I would've been fine."

I looked at her. "Really? I was gone for three years. Did that work out for you?"

Her face twisted with fury. "Don't think being a Moretti makes you untouchable. I'm a patient. Everyone makes allowances for me."

"People make allowances for real patients," I said. "Not for people who perform."

She snapped. She lunged forward and ripped the IV line from my hand. The needle tore free, blood sprayed from the back of my hand, and the pain shot straight to my forehead.

The door swung open. Victor, carrying a piece of chestnut cake. My favorite.

He took in the scene and was next to me in an instant, pressing his hand over mine to stop the bleeding. "Delora! What happened?"

His eyes were red as he turned on Sophia. "What did you do?! What is wrong with you!"

Sophia's enormous eyes filled with tears instantly. "Victor... I just... I only wanted to feel her hand, to see if it was cold. I'm sorry... I'm so clumsy..."

She was still talking when the sobs started.

I thought, for one second, that Victor had stood firmly by me this time. But one look at his face told me the moment Sophia cried, the restraint he'd been holding crumbled. All I could do was laugh.