Chapter 7

Three days later, Dominic's mother called me. She had been the Valenti family's matriarch before I married Dominic, and she was the only person in his family who had treated me as a daughter. She did not ask me to forgive her son. She said several things that belonged to me were still at the old Valenti estate and asked me to collect them.

When I arrived, she was sorting through an old wooden box. Dominic was sitting in the living room because she had asked him to be there. The box held no jewelry. It contained the holiday lists, medical schedules, and family albums I had organized over the years.

His mother opened the album to a photograph of me helping Dominic's father through physical therapy. I had miscarried two weeks earlier, but the former Don had suffered a stroke and the family was fighting over succession. I had not taken time to recover.

"Do you remember this?" she asked Dominic. "Isabella barely slept for three months. She took your father to therapy during the day and waited for you to finish meetings at night. Then she got a fever and failed to arrange one dinner. You told her in front of the staff that those duties were expected from a wife."

Dominic's face lost color. He had forgotten the words, but I had not. I had gotten out of bed with a high fever and fixed the seating because I did not want the senior men to question him.

Dominic said he had been exhausted then. His mother answered, "She was exhausted too. She gave this family years of work. You accepted it for so long that you made her believe it had no value."

Dominic looked at me, and shame replaced the panic I had seen since the divorce. When he asked why I had never told him, I asked what I had been expected to say. I could have told him I was tired, but I should not have needed to remind a husband to thank his wife.

He had no answer. Whenever I tried to talk about my own life, he said the family was in a critical period. Whenever I tried to return to the meetings, he said dangerous business was no longer my concern. He made my world smaller, then blamed me for only understanding the home.

Dominic's mother had also asked Helena to come because Helena was already living at the main estate. She handed Helena the guest list for the next family memorial dinner and asked her to take over the duties of the woman of the house.

Helena read one page and pushed it back. "I will not do this. I am pregnant, and I have my own life. I will not spend my future on a husband and his family as Isabella did." Dominic looked up sharply. Those were the same beliefs he had used to dismiss my life. Hearing them from Helena forced him to understand what they meant.

Helena softened her voice and reminded him that he had loved her because she was different from me. She said she understood his pressure, but she also needed to be herself. She was right to want her own life. Dominic had been the one who demanded that I give up mine, then praised another woman for refusing to do the same.

I picked up the box and walked toward the door. Dominic apologized behind me. For the first time, he offered no excuse and did not ask me to understand him. The apology came after I had stopped needing it.