THE MAFIA BOSS THREW OUT HIS PREGNANT WIFE FOR A MISTRESS... BUT FORGOT WHO BUILT HIS EMPIRE

Chapter 05 - The Nursery Door

Mara did not go alone.

She took Elena and a folder of the forged documents. Elena brought her legal pad and asked to be present as Mara's attorney. If Roman refused, they would leave. Mara no longer went into difficult rooms relying on memory alone.

He objected.

"Is this necessary?" he asked, standing beneath the chandelier where he had dismissed his wife forty-eight hours earlier.

"For me, yes," Mara said.

He looked older than he had on Tuesday. There was stubble across his jaw and a small nick on his thumb. She knew he bit at that cuticle when he was afraid.

"I wanted to talk to you privately."

"You had a decade to do that."

Elena sat in the library with a clear view of the hall. Roman motioned Mara toward the nursery. She followed at a distance, past the portraits of his parents and the staircase runner she'd picked with his mother.

A lock had been fitted to the nursery door.

Mara stopped. "What is that?"

Roman looked at the brass fitting. "Nico had it done. They were painting."

"The room was finished."

"I told him not to touch it."

Mara examined the lock. Someone had installed it on the outside, with a keyhole but no handle. She could not think of a harmless reason to secure an empty room in that way. Then she noticed the frame had been scratched around the new plate; someone had been in a hurry.

Roman reached for a key. His hand shook slightly.

Inside, the walls were still pale yellow. The crib stood where Mara had left it. But the quilt was gone, and the dresser drawers were empty. In the corner was a packing case labeled in black ink: *Vescari Child — Temporary Residence*.

She opened it. On top lay a packet from a private residential recovery center outside Geneva, Illinois, specializing in "perinatal psychiatric stabilization." Beneath were blank admission papers for a patient named Mara Bellini Vescari.

Roman said, "I haven't agreed to this."

"Who ordered it?"

"Nico thought it might be necessary if your condition worsened."

"My condition?"

"They told me you hadn't been sleeping. That you were fixated on the property transfer."

Mara's laugh sounded unfamiliar. "I am fixated on a forged document because someone forged it."

He rubbed his face. "Mara, please. I never wanted you in a facility. I told them that."

"And what did you do when they brought you the papers?"

He didn't answer.

A corner of a photograph protruded from beneath the admission packet. Mara pulled it out. It showed her standing at the textile mill before the renovation, wearing a blue hard hat, talking to a group of workers. Roman stood beside her, younger and grinning. On the back he had once written, *This is the woman who made me possible.*

It had lived on his desk for years.

"Why is this here?"

"Nico wanted anything with your signature on it. The bank was asking questions."

So even the little tenderness he had preserved had been used against her.

"You gave them access to my handwriting," she said.

She found a small paper star caught between the dresser and the wall. She had cut it from a sheet of gold wrapping paper the night they learned the baby was a girl. Roman had held the ladder while she hung a dozen above the crib. Now the others were gone; this one had fallen where the packers couldn't see it.

"Do you remember what you said when we painted this room?" she asked.

Roman looked at the star. "That she'd grow up knowing the whole house was hers."

"You said she'd never need to ask permission to belong here."

For once he had nothing to offer in reply. Mara put the paper star in her pocket. She wanted something of the room that had no lock and no price.

Roman moved closer, then stopped when she stepped away.

"The company was failing."

"You told me it was prospering."

"Our new contracts were delayed. Nico said the buyers would pull out if I didn't move quickly. I had men to pay, ships to unload. The bank was threatening to take the fleet."

"Then you should have told me before you borrowed twenty-eight million dollars."

"You would have said no."

"I would have asked where it was going. That's not the same thing."

Roman sat on the low nursery chair. The sight was unbearable: this large man folded into a seat chosen for a sleepless mother to nurse her child, still talking as though he were the injured party.

"I thought once the sale closed I'd clear the debt. We'd have time to start over."

"With Bianca?"

He looked at the floor.

"You made her the lady of this house while I was carrying our daughter. You called me dramatic. You told me I had nowhere to go. Now you want me to believe you planned to bring me home?"

"The affair started when I thought you'd stopped caring about me."

Mara studied him. "I was running your payroll, Roman. I was sitting with your mother when her knees hurt and she didn't want you to know. I was saving for the daughter we've wanted for eight years. If you needed me to admire you more, you should have told me."

His eyes shone, but she had seen men weep at funerals and still steal from widows. Tears were not evidence.

"Did you sign a referral for me to be assessed at a psychiatric clinic?"

He shook his head too quickly.

"Roman."

"Nico's attorney showed me a precautionary authorization. They said the bank needed proof the business could continue if anything happened to you before delivery."

"You signed it."

"Yes."

Mara let herself feel the full weight of that small word. Not because he had known everything, but because he'd known enough to ask, and chosen not to.

She put the admission packet back on the dresser. "Elena will need a copy."

He nodded. Then he looked toward the hall. "You shouldn't have come here today."

"Why?"

"Nico's meeting with the lender upstairs. He's brought someone."

Mara felt the baby move. "Who?"

Roman stood, his expression changing. "They told me she was a specialist."

Footsteps sounded overhead. A woman spoke, too far away for Mara to hear the words. A moment later she appeared at the top of the staircase.