Chapter 9

After the North Harbor meeting, I stayed in New York to complete the Moretti contracts. Three days later, Dominic came to my office with a Valenti audit report. His face showed that he had not slept.

He told me Helena had used money from the widows' fund to renovate the nursery and had failed to review two dock accounts. I reminded him that the Valenti family's problems were no longer mine. Dominic said he understood, but the mistakes had made him remember that they never happened when I was there.

Victoria entered with an old file box from the Valenti estate. She was my chief attorney and oldest friend, and she had protected my succession papers for twelve years. The box contained letters I had written to Dominic before our marriage.

He picked up a birthday card and read the line on the back. "Everyone sees the Don. I still see Dominic." Then he took out his phone and found the first private message Helena had sent him a year earlier. "Everyone sees the Don. I see the man behind the title." The words were nearly the same.

Helena had worked in the Valenti finance office for three years. She had access to estate expenses, medical records, and old files. She knew about his stomach problems, his dislike of thunderstorms, and the words that would make a powerful man feel understood. She had studied the parts of him I had spent years caring for and used them to win his attention.

Dominic said he had thought Helena understood him. I told him that she knew what he wanted to hear.

My assistant announced Helena before I could answer, and Helena pushed through the office door. The weakness she had shown at the gala was gone. She demanded to know whether Dominic planned to send her and the baby away so he could beg me to return.

Dominic threw the audit report onto the desk and ordered her to explain the missing money. Helena glanced at it and said she had used the money for the baby's room because the child would be a Valenti heir.

When Dominic told her that the money belonged to the families of men who had died for them, Helena became impatient. She said nobody had told her, she was pregnant, and she could not manage every detail as I had. She needed her own life, and Dominic had fallen in love with her because she was not a woman who spent every day serving a house and a family.

Dominic looked at her, and the last of his attachment disappeared. He had chosen Helena because she made his life feel easy. She never challenged his mistakes or asked him to carry his share of the home. She only told him that she understood.

When real pressure arrived, Helena stepped away. Once she gained access to his life, she wanted the rewards without the responsibility. After security escorted her out, Dominic remained in front of my desk.

He said he had never loved her. I told him that did not make his betrayal smaller. Dominic answered that he understood that now. His eyes filled with tears because he finally knew he had left the woman who truly understood him and chosen a woman who had studied her.