PART 3: THE LETTER UNDER THE FLOORBOARD
I had never pictured Luca Moretti inside my Brooklyn apartment. The place was too small for him. It sounds absurd, but it was true. Luca belonged in rooms with twelve-foot ceilings, limestone fireplaces, hushed employees, and windows overlooking Central Park.
My apartment had crooked floorboards, a radiator that hissed as if it were angry with the world, and a kitchen so narrow I could open the refrigerator only if the oven door was closed. I loved it. Eventually. At first, I hated every inch because it represented everything I had lost. Then it became the place where I learned to sleep alone, where I felt our daughter kick for the first time, where I assembled a secondhand bookshelf by myself at midnight because I refused to call anyone for help. There I became Isabella again, not merely Isabella Moretti.
When Luca came in behind me, he looked around slowly. His gaze stopped on the baby things: a folded stroller against the wall, boxes of diapers, tiny white onesies stacked on the sofa, a sonogram attached to the refrigerator with a magnet. I saw his hand twitch. “When was this taken?” “Twenty-two weeks.”
Vanessa had not come with us. Luca had told his driver to take her home. I walked toward the bedroom. “The floorboard is in here.” Luca followed. My bedroom held a queen bed, one dresser, a reading lamp, and the bassinet I planned to set beside the bed after the baby arrived.
I crouched near the radiator. Immediately, Luca stepped forward. “Don’t.” “What?” “You’re not supposed to be crouching like that.” Despite everything, the familiar irritation in his voice almost made me smile. Almost. “I’m pregnant, Luca. I’m not made of glass.” “Move.” “You don’t live here.” “Isabella.”
Some habits survive divorce better than love. He knelt and pressed the board where I pointed. It lifted. Beneath it lay the cream envelope.
For months I had hated knowing it was there. Once, I had carried it as far as the garbage chute. Then I had brought it back. Maybe part of me needed proof that I had not imagined the cruelty.
Luca took it carefully. He recognized the stationery at once. “It’s from my desk.” “That doesn’t help your case.” “No.”
He opened the envelope, and the separation papers came first. I watched his eyes move across the page. Once. Twice. “This isn’t mine.” “It has your signature.” “It resembles my signature.”
He turned the page toward me. “Look at the L.” “What about it?” “When I sign my full name, the lower stroke crosses beneath the M. It always has.” To me the signature looked exactly like his. But I had rarely studied the letters when he signed legal documents.
He pulled out his wallet, took out a card, and flipped it over. A handwritten signature ran across the back, so small I might never have noticed it. The signature on the letter stopped beneath the o in Moretti. His real one extended farther. “This proves someone copied your name badly,” I whispered. “It proves I didn’t sign this.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. Luca remained standing. For a moment neither of us spoke. Then I asked the question I had been too frightened to ask on Madison Avenue. “What were you going to say that night?” “When?” “The phone call. I heard you in your study. You said, ‘If the evidence is real, our marriage is over.’”
Luca closed his eyes. When he opened them, the anger had left his face. “You walked away.” “Yes.” “The next sentence was, ‘But I don’t believe it is.’” “I was talking to my attorney.” My fingers began to tremble. “He had checked the foundation calendar. There was a scheduled project meeting at the hotel.” “He was confirming the attendee list.” “There were eleven other people.” “I know.”
“You knew?” “By the following morning.” Luca stepped toward me. I raised a hand. “Don’t. You knew the photographs were misleading?” “Yes.” “Before I left?” “When I went upstairs that morning, you were gone.” “So you knew the truth and you let the divorce happen?” “No.” “Then explain it.” “I tried to call you.” “My phone was off.” “I know.” “How?” “Because I called until your voicemail filled.”
“I never saw—” “You changed your number three days later.” My attorney had suggested it after reporters began calling about rumors of our separation. “Why didn’t you come to me?” “I did.” “What?” “I went to the apartment your attorney listed.” “I had moved.” “Yes.” I had stayed in a hotel for four nights before finding Brooklyn, then moved again after photographers found the first building. My attorney handled all communication.
Luca looked toward the window. “I was angry too, Isabella.” There was no defense in his voice. “You left in the middle of the night. Your ring was beside the sink. Your lawyer contacted mine before I could find you.” “I thought you wanted me gone.” “I thought you had decided I wasn’t worth speaking to.”
The truth settled between us, ugly and complicated, painful because neither of us was innocent. Vanessa had manipulated us, but she had not created every weakness she used. She had only found the cracks. “You still doubted me,” I said. “Yes.” Luca did not hide from it. “For almost a week.” “You asked me to prove I hadn’t betrayed you.” “Yes.” “That broke me.” “I know.” “No, you don’t.” “You’re right. But Isabella, I never wanted you to leave without speaking to me. I never wrote that letter.”
For months I had pictured Luca deciding I was disposable. Now I had to face something more painful: that two people who loved each other had failed, and that someone we trusted had stood between those failures and made sure we never found our way back. I looked at the letter. “Why would Vanessa do this?” “I have suspicions.” “About what?” He moved toward the window. “After you left, Vanessa was there constantly.” A bitter laugh escaped me. “I noticed.” “She said she was worried about me.” “Of course.”
“Nothing happened between us.” I hated how easily I believed him. “She wanted something to happen?” Luca did not answer right away. “That’s what I need to understand.” “You don’t need to understand her feelings. You need to understand what she did.” “Then help me.” “No. I spent seven months putting myself back together. I am not becoming part of one of your investigations.” “This isn’t business.” “No. It’s worse.”
Then his phone rang. Vanessa. Three seconds later, a message appeared, and he read it. “What?” He turned the screen toward me. It held a single sentence: I only tried to make you see what she would eventually do to you. I read it twice. “She just admitted it.” “Not completely.” “She admitted enough.” “No. She thinks she can still control the story.”
I studied the message, and then I remembered something I had forgotten because it had seemed meaningless at the time. The morning after the Mercer meeting, Vanessa had called me. She asked whether the presentation had gone well. Then, casually, she asked whether Evan Cole had attended. I had thought nothing of it. He was a consultant on the project.
“Luca.” “What?” “She knew Evan was there.” “When?” “The morning after the meeting.” “Did you tell her?” “No.” “Could she have known from the calendar?” “Maybe.” “No. The general calendar showed the project meeting. Consultant attendance was only in the internal agenda.”
Luca’s eyes changed. I knew that look, but this time I reached the conclusion first. “The photographs weren’t random.” “No.” “Whoever arranged them knew exactly when Evan and I would be there.” “Yes.” “And Vanessa knew enough about the Mercer meeting to name the location months later.” Luca stared at the letter in my hand, and a chill ran through me. The question was no longer whether Vanessa had interfered once our marriage began to collapse. The question was whether she had started the collapse herself.
