Chapter 13 - I DIVORCED HIM ANYWAY
Six months later, I signed the divorce papers.
People were surprised.
Dante was not.
He arrived at my attorney’s office alone.
No objections.
No negotiations.
No last-minute declarations.
He signed exactly where Rachel pointed.
Then looked at me.
“Are you okay?”
The question nearly broke me.
Not Are you sure?
Not Is this what you want?
Are you okay?
“Yes.”
He nodded.
Carlo was with my sister that afternoon.
Healthy.
Round-cheeked.
Already capable of making Dante cancel any meeting by sneezing.
We had settled custody privately.
Three afternoons each week.
Alternate weekends once Carlo was older.
No armed security unless independently justified.
No unannounced appearances.
No Moretti family employees around the baby without background checks.
Dante agreed to everything.
After signing, he stood.
“I’ll see you Thursday.”
“For Carlo.”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“Always for Carlo unless you say otherwise.”
Then he left.
I cried in Rachel’s office for twenty minutes.
Not because I wanted the marriage back.
Because sometimes ending something necessary still hurts.
The investigations continued.
Father Dominic received federal charges.
Jonathan pleaded guilty and returned the stolen foundation funds.
Natalia testified against the remaining financial network.
Rafael admitted his role in hiding my father’s death and accepted responsibility.
Giulia returned permanently from Florence and began, awkwardly, becoming a grandmother.
Dante sold the penthouse.
I learned that from someone else.
He moved into a townhouse ten minutes from me.
Not five.
Not next door.
Ten.
Close enough for Carlo.
Far enough to respect me.
I returned to the foundation when Carlo was four months old.
Not as Mrs. Moretti.
As Isabella Romano.
The board elected me executive chair.
The first thing I did was publish every historical financial irregularity we legally could.
Donors expected disaster.
Instead, contributions increased.
People trusted transparency more than mythology.
Two years passed.
Dante built a legitimate logistics company.
No Moretti in the name.
No cash businesses.
No inherited contracts.
No men who lowered their voices when he entered.
At first he hated it.
Then he became good at it.
He never asked me to reconcile.
That made reconciliation possible.
We started with coffee after Carlo’s preschool events.
Then dinners.
Then one night, after Carlo fell asleep against Dante’s chest, I noticed Dante watching me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Dante.”
He smiled.
“I’m trying not to ruin a good evening by wanting more from it.”
The old Dante would never have said that.
I sat beside him.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
My heart tightened.
“But not if wanting you means taking something you aren’t offering.”
I looked at the man who had once rested his hand on Natalia’s waist beneath crystal chandeliers while I stood pregnant across the room.
He was not innocent.
He never would be.
Neither was he unchanged.
Then my phone vibrated.
An email from Elias.
Subject:
CARLO ROMANO’S FINAL ACCOUNT.
My father had left one last financial account hidden under my biological father’s name.
Inside was not money.
It was a video.
Recorded two days before his death.
May you like
And in the first ten seconds, my father looked directly into the camera and said:
“Isabella, if you married Dante anyway, I hope he became the man Lorenzo believed he could be.”
