Page 68 of Daddy's Ring
"Not for lack of wanting." I'm shaking slightly, adrenaline finally catching up. "How soon can we get the annulment processed?"
"I'll have our lawyer start the paperwork tomorrow. With Frank agreeing and Bianca's clear infidelity, probably a few weeks." He sets the deck down. "But you realize the hard part isn't over, right? Bianca was the easy problem."
"Zola." I sink back into my chair, suddenly exhausted. "Yeah. I know."
"You're free now." Stellan stands, claps a hand on my shoulder. "Or you will be soon. So go figure out how to convince the woman you love that you're worth taking back."
I look up at him. "Any advice?"
"Grovel." He heads for the door. "Grovel like your life depends on it. Because based on the last eight years, it kind of does."
18
DECLAN
The movers arrive at nine the next morning.
I'm standing in the kitchen with coffee I haven't touched when the doorbell rings. Stellan appears from the living room where he's been working on his laptop—he showed up at seven without being asked, took one look at my face, and settled in like he planned to stay all day.
"That'll be them." He closes his laptop, stands. "You want to supervise or should I?"
"You." I can't watch strangers box up Bianca's things without wanting to set everything on fire. "I'll be upstairs."
But I don't go upstairs. I stand at the window in the formal dining room—the one I've never eaten in, never even sat in—and watch as three men in matching shirts start loading boxes into a truck. Dorian's truck, I realize. He sent his own people to collect her.
The irony would be funny if I could feel anything resembling humor right now.
Stellan directs them with the kind of precision he brings to everything. Points to Bianca's car still in the driveway, watches as they load it onto a flatbed. Her clothes come out in garmentbags, her shoes in labeled boxes, her expensive art that I never looked at wrapped in protective paper.
It takes four hours.
Four hours to erase eight months of a marriage that never should have happened. Four hours to clear out the remnants of Uncle Vittorio's final manipulation. Four hours to reclaim space in a house I've hated since the day I moved in.
When the last box is loaded and the trucks pull away, I'm still standing at that window. The house feels different now—emptier, but not in a bad way. Like a wound that's been cleaned out, raw but ready to heal.
Stellan finds me there.
"They got everything." He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. "Vale confirmed she's moved into his place in Manayunk. Sent his thanks for not breaking his face."
"Day's not over yet."
"Fair." He moves into the room, stands beside me at the window. "What now?"
I look around the dining room. At the table that seats twelve, the chandelier that cost more than most people's cars, the china cabinet full of dishes I've never used. At the formal living room visible through the doorway with its pristine furniture and decorative pillows arranged just so.
"I want to burn it down."
Stellan doesn't laugh. Doesn't tell me I'm being dramatic. He just nods slowly, like he's actually considering it.
"You could." His voice is measured, careful. "Accidentally leave the stove on, electrical fire, insurance fraud. I know a guy."
For a second, I seriously consider it. Watch the fantasy play out—flames eating through the expensive crown molding, smoke blackening the walls, the whole structure collapsing in on itself until there's nothing left but ash and the memory of the worst year of my life.
"But," Stellan continues, "that seems like a lot of work when you could just sell it instead."
"Sell it." I taste the words, trying to make them feel real.
"Yeah. Get rid of it properly. Use the money for something that doesn't make you homicidal." He pauses. "Like maybe fixing up that old house you've been pretending doesn't exist."
