Three seconds before I was supposed to marry another woman
PART 2
I caught Chloe’s wrist before she could pull the cardigan around herself.
Her eyes widened.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
I stepped closer.
The apartment above Henderson’s Diner was small enough that the refrigerator hummed from the kitchen six feet away. Rain tapped the windows. A saucepan sat forgotten on the stove, and the smell of tomato soup drifted through the room.
Chloe stood barefoot in black leggings and a thin gray shirt, holding the cardigan against herself like armor.
I loosened my grip immediately.
“Sorry.”
She looked at my hand, then at me.
“You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Apologizing like you accidentally wandered into somebody else’s life.”
For a woman who claimed to hate confrontation, Chloe Henderson had an extraordinary talent for cornering me with sentences.
I leaned against the kitchen counter.
“You were covering yourself.”
“So?”
“So you always do.”
Her expression shuttered.
“Arthur.”
“You turn away when you change. You pull blankets over yourself. You wear sweaters in August.”
“They’re comfortable.”
“You nearly melted last Thursday.”
“That was unrelated.”
“It was ninety-one degrees.”
“I run cold.”
“You threatened the air conditioner.”
“It started the argument.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
“What are you trying to say?”
I should have known better than to make the moment complicated.
But complicated was how I had lived most of my life.
So instead of simply telling her what I felt, I stepped toward her and took the cardigan gently from her hands.
She let me.
“You don’t have to hide from me.”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
“I’m not hiding.”
“You are.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Probably.”
That startled a laugh out of her.
I smiled.
“But I know what I see.”
“And what exactly do you see?”
I looked at her.
Not theatrically.
Not slowly enough to make her uncomfortable.
Just honestly.
“You.”
She rolled her eyes.
“That is a terrible answer.”
“I’m serious.”
“Arthur Romano, feared by half the city, defeated by basic communication.”
“More than half.”
She laughed again.
Then I touched her cheek.
“You’re beautiful, Chloe.”
She looked down.
“I wasn’t asking you to say that.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
Her eyes lifted to mine.
There were some silences that asked to be filled.
That one asked me not to.
So I stayed there.
Eventually, she whispered, “I’ve spent a lot of years thinking if I could just take up less space, people would have less to criticize.”
My chest tightened.
“Who taught you that?”
“Enough people.”
“I’d like a list.”
She gave me a warning look.
“For completely mature reasons.”
“No.”
“Fine.”
I brushed my thumb along her cheek.
“I like the space you take up.”
Her breath caught.
“That sounds ridiculous.”
“It probably is.”
Then she kissed me.
And for the first time in my life, ridiculous felt better than powerful.
Seven months later, those words came back to me in a private hospital corridor while a doctor told me Chloe and our child were safe.
“The baby is doing well,” Dr. Patel said.
I had not realized I was holding my breath until it left me.
“And Chloe?”
“Exhausted, dehydrated, extremely stressed, but stable.”
“The blood?”
“Minor bleeding. Frightening to see, but everything we’ve checked so far is reassuring.”
I closed my eyes.
Safe.
Both safe.
That was all I needed for one moment.
Then the doctor added, “She’s asked not to have visitors yet.”
My eyes opened.
“I’m the baby’s father.”
“I understand.”
“Does she?”
Dr. Patel gave me the kind of level look that made it immediately clear that titles, money, family names and security details meant nothing on her floor.
“She gave us your name herself.”
Something in my chest loosened.
“Then why can’t I see her?”
“Because she asked for twenty minutes.”
I glanced at my watch.
“How long has it been?”
“Four.”
Leo, standing several feet away, coughed into his fist.
I ignored him.
Dr. Patel almost smiled.
“Mr. Romano, I suggest you learn to survive sixteen more.”
Then she walked away.
Leo came beside me.
“You heard the doctor.”
“Yes.”
“She said they’re safe.”
“Yes.”
“You look like you’re planning to interrogate the clock.”
I turned toward him.
“What happened at the cathedral?”
His expression changed.
“We cleared the building without incident. Police took the cup.”
“And?”
“The field test showed something wasn’t right. They’ll need a lab to identify it.”
“Crofts?”
“Don’t know.”
“Malcolm?”
“Don’t know.”
“Vivien?”
Leo hesitated.
That was enough to make me turn fully toward him.
“What?”
“She refused to leave.”
“Why?”
“She said she wants to talk to you.”
“About?”
“The wine.”
I stared at him.
“Where is she?”
“Private waiting room.”
I took one step.
Then stopped.
Chloe was behind a door down the hall.
Seven weeks.
Seven weeks since I had walked out of her apartment and told her we were finished.
I had rehearsed that conversation for two days.
None of the rehearsals had prepared me for the way Chloe looked at me afterward.
Not furious.
Not dramatic.
Confused.
That had been worse.
She had stood in the same kitchen where she’d kissed me beside the stove and stared as if I’d suddenly begun speaking another language.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“People don’t go from asking whether I want Thai food for dinner to ending a relationship because nothing happened.”
“I made a mistake.”
Her face had gone pale.
“Us?”
“Yes.”
Even now, remembering that lie made me ashamed.
She had folded her arms around herself.
I noticed the oversized sweater.
I noticed how tired she looked.
What I did not notice was that she was nearly five months pregnant.
Or perhaps I had noticed changes and chosen easier explanations.
Chloe had always preferred loose clothing.
She had been nauseated.
She said she’d had a stomach bug.
She stopped drinking wine months earlier.
She told me it made her headaches worse.
I believed every answer because trust meant I didn’t inspect her life for inconsistencies.
Now I understood that sometimes trust and avoidance wore similar faces.
“You don’t mean that,” she had said.
“I do.”
“Look at me.”
I had.
That was the worst part.
“You love me.”
I said nothing.
Her eyes had filled.
“Arthur.”
I wanted to tell her everything.
That my father had left behind agreements tying our family businesses to the Crofts.
That after years of lawsuits, retaliatory contracts, political pressure and financial sabotage, both sides were nearing collapse.
That my brother’s death had made me the only Romano with authority to negotiate.
That Malcolm Croft had proposed a merger strengthened by marriage.
That unnamed people had already begun asking questions about Chloe.
Her address.
Her diner.
Her routines.
And I had panicked.
I had convinced myself there was only one way to make her uninteresting to everyone watching me.
Break her heart convincingly enough that even my enemies believed she no longer mattered.
So I looked at the woman I loved and said, “Whatever I felt isn’t enough.”
She became perfectly still.
Then she nodded.
Once.
“Get out.”
I had.
I told myself it was courage.
Seven weeks later, standing in a hospital corridor, I finally knew it had been fear wearing an expensive suit.
My phone vibrated.
Leo answered his before I reached mine.
His face hardened.
“It’s the lab.”
He listened.
Then looked at me.
“There was a toxic compound in the ceremonial wine.”
The world seemed to narrow.
“Enough to hurt someone?”
“Yes.”
“Kill them?”
“They won’t speculate yet.”
That was enough.
“Get Vivien.”
She walked into the consultation room without her veil.
Someone had found her a black coat to put over her wedding dress.
White silk showed beneath it.
For a bizarre second, we must have looked like actors who had wandered out of different scenes.
I was still wearing my tuxedo.
She was still dressed to marry me.
Neither of us had married anyone.
Vivien sat across from me.
Leo remained near the door.
“Chloe was right,” I said.
“I know.”
Two words.
Quiet.
Certain.
I stared at her.
“You know.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
My hands flattened on the table.
“Before the ceremony?”
“Twenty-three minutes before.”
Leo shifted.
“You knew there might be something in the wine and didn’t stop the wedding?”
“I didn’t know there was poison in it.”
“What did you know?”
“That the bottle had been changed.”
I stared at her.
Vivien reached into her coat and removed her phone.
“There are two ceremonial bottles. One for the toast during the service and another for the reception. Both came from my grandfather’s cellar.”
She opened a photograph.
“The cathedral coordinator sent me this picture while they were setting up.”
Two wine bottles sat on a table.
One carried a cream label.
The other looked nearly identical.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“The seal.”
I looked closer.
“I don’t see anything.”
“You wouldn’t. My grandfather marked every bottle he intended to keep longer than twenty years with a small gold line beneath the wax.”
I looked again.
One bottle had it.
One did not.
“So the cathedral bottle was replaced.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did.”
“To whom?”
“My father.”
Of course.
“What did Malcolm say?”
“That the coordinator must have mixed up the bottles.”
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
She met my eyes.
“So I texted Chloe.”
I forgot how to breathe.
“What?”
Leo came away from the wall.
“You’ve been talking to Chloe?”
“For three weeks.”
Every assumption I had made since the cathedral shifted.
“Why?”
Vivien placed her phone on the table.
“Because Chloe contacted me.”
I stared at her.
“For what?”
“She wanted to know whether I actually wanted to marry you.”
I almost laughed, except nothing was funny.
“And what did you say?”
“That I didn’t.”
The answer was immediate.
“You agreed to the marriage.”
“So did you.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Yes, Arthur. I agreed. Because my father’s company is carrying more debt than the market knows. Because the Romanos hold contracts we need. Because your family needs our distribution network. Because every adviser around us spent six months insisting that combining the families would stabilize everything.”
Her jaw tightened.
“And because after watching the two of you make decisions for everyone else my entire life, I wanted one year without another crisis.”
The anger left her voice.
“I was tired.”
For the first time, I looked at Vivien not as Malcolm Croft’s daughter or my almost-wife.
Just as Vivien.
Thirty-two years old.
Raised inside the same machinery I had inherited.
Expected to convert herself into a solution.
“You could have said no.”
“So could you.”
That stopped me.
She continued more quietly.
“But neither of us believed we could.”
Leo looked away.
I sat back.
“How did Chloe get your number?”
“She called my office.”
“And told you she was pregnant?”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“She didn’t?”
“I learned today with everyone else.”
That somehow made Chloe’s arrival more extraordinary.
She had crossed the city seven months pregnant without knowing whether I would even believe her.
“Why was she investigating the wedding?”
Vivien’s expression changed.
“Because your brother left something behind.”
My pulse stumbled.
“Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
Nobody used my brother’s name around me casually.
Gabriel had been older by four years.
He was supposed to inherit everything.
He was patient where I was impulsive, diplomatic where I was blunt, and capable of remembering the birthdays of people he’d met once.
Three years earlier, his car had gone through a barrier on a rain-slick highway outside Milwaukee.
The police called it an accident.
I had spent years trying not to imagine his final seconds.
“What did he leave?”
“A ledger.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Vivien nodded.
“Not a company ledger. A private one.”
“Where?”
“With Chloe’s mother.”
That sentence made no sense.
“Chloe’s mother died five years ago.”
“I know.”
“How did Gabriel know her?”
“Evelyn Henderson worked bookkeeping contracts for half the restaurants on the North Side.”
Including, apparently, businesses connected to us.
Vivien continued.
“For several years she handled accounts for a hospitality company jointly owned by people connected to both our families.”
“Connected how?”
“She found payments that didn’t match the services being provided.”
Leo pulled out a chair.
“What kind of payments?”
“Consulting. Security. Vendor retainers. Charitable donations.”
My stomach tightened.
“Money laundering?”
“I don’t know.”
“Embezzlement?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“That Gabriel knew something was wrong.”
The room went silent.
“He visited Evelyn,” Vivien said. “She made copies. He asked her to keep them somewhere outside both families.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn’t know who he could trust.”
Those words landed harder than they should have.
My brother had been surrounded by us.
And he hadn’t known who was safe.
“After Gabriel died,” Vivien continued, “Evelyn put everything away. Then she got sick. Chloe inherited boxes she never opened.”
“Until when?”
“Two months ago.”
I closed my eyes.
Before I left her.
Before the wedding.
“Did Chloe try to tell me?”
Vivien gave me a long look.
“I don’t know.”
That meant yes.
Or at least probably.
I remembered Chloe standing in my office one evening six weeks before our breakup.
She had brought dinner.
I had been reading merger documents.
She sat opposite my desk and said, “Arthur, did Gabriel ever know my mother?”
My phone rang.
I held up one finger.
Five minutes became twenty.
When I finally hung up, Chloe had packed the food away.
“What were you saying?”
“Nothing.”
I had believed her.
Now I understood how many times “nothing” had been something waiting for my attention.
I rubbed my face.
“What was in the ledger?”
“Payments beginning five years before Gabriel’s death.”
“To whom?”
Vivien looked at Leo.
Then back at me.
“That is where it gets complicated.”
“It’s been complicated since a pregnant woman interrupted my wedding to tell me someone poisoned the wine.”
“The payments went to companies tied to Croft executives.”
I felt no surprise.
“And Romano executives.”
There it was.
“Names.”
“Not in the ledger. Initials.”
“Which?”
“V.R.”
My uncle Vincent Romano.
My father’s younger brother.
The man who had advised me to marry Vivien.
The man who told me Chloe had become a security risk.
The man who had arranged extra protection around her diner without telling her.
My mind resisted it.
“That could mean anyone.”
“It could.”
“What else?”
“M.C.”
Malcolm Croft.
I said nothing.
Vivien’s face tightened.
“My father’s initials.”
Leo swore quietly.
“But Chloe didn’t believe either notation was enough to accuse anyone,” Vivien said. “So she started comparing dates.”
“What dates?”
“Transfers. Contracts. board votes. Trips Gabriel took.”
“And?”
“She found one transfer from the week before Gabriel died.”
My entire body went cold.
“Don’t.”
Vivien stopped.
“Don’t turn my brother’s death into a theory unless you have proof.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
His accident had already stolen enough years from me.
I would not build conspiracies around grief because numbers looked suspicious.
Vivien seemed to understand.
“She thinks his death was an accident.”
I looked at her.
“She told you that?”
“Repeatedly.”
Something loosened inside me.
Of course Chloe would be the person protecting me from a conclusion I hadn’t even reached yet.
“She thinks Gabriel discovered financial fraud,” Vivien said. “Nothing more.”
“Then why the wine?”
“We don’t know.”
A knock sounded.
Dr. Patel opened the door.
“Mr. Romano?”
I stood so quickly the chair moved.
“Chloe?”
“She’ll see you now.”
Nothing else mattered.
The hospital room was dim.
Rain streaked the windows.
Chloe lay propped against white pillows wearing a pale blue hospital gown.
Her hair was still damp at the ends.
For one impossible second, I saw the woman from Henderson’s Diner again, holding a frying pan and ordering me not to bleed on produce.
Then my eyes dropped to her stomach.
Our child.
She followed my gaze.
“You can come closer.”
I moved toward the bed.
Slowly.
“Doctor says you’re both okay.”
“She told me.”
I stopped beside her.
There were a thousand things I wanted to say.
I chose the simplest.
“I’m sorry.”
Chloe looked toward the window.
“For which part?”
Fair question.
“All of it.”
“That is suspiciously broad.”
“You nearly collapsed in a cathedral while I was marrying someone else.”
“Technically, you weren’t married yet.”
“Chloe.”
She looked back at me.
Tired.
Guarded.
Still Chloe.
I swallowed.
“I left you because I thought people were watching you.”
Her expression didn’t change.
“I know.”
I stared.
“You know?”
“Your uncle told me.”
My stomach dropped.
“When?”
“Five days after you left.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“That you had made a difficult decision because being associated with me had become unsafe.”
Anger flashed through me.
Not toward her.
Toward myself.
I had believed secrecy protected her.
Instead, it left her receiving explanations from Vincent.
“What else?”
“He offered me money.”
My jaw tightened.
“Did you take it?”
She looked offended.
“Arthur.”
“Sorry.”
“I considered hitting him with the envelope.”
“That sounds more like you.”
“I was pregnant.”
The attempt at humor vanished.
My gaze lowered again.
“You knew before I left.”
“Yes.”
That answer hurt.
“How long?”
“Eleven days.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes filled.
“I tried.”
Every memory from those eleven days returned with brutal clarity.
Late meetings.
Canceled dinners.
The merger.
The Crofts.
My decision already forming.
“I tried twice,” she said. “The first time you took a call halfway through dinner.”
I remembered.
“The second time was the night you came over and told me we were finished.”
I sat down.
“I had the sonogram photograph in my pocket.”
I closed my eyes.
“Chloe…”
“I was going to tell you as soon as you sat down.”
Her voice remained quiet.
“That was why I kept asking you to look at me. I thought if you looked at me long enough, you would see something was wrong.”
“I didn’t.”
“No.”
No accusation.
That made it worse.
“I should have told you anyway.”
I opened my eyes.
She was staring at her hands.
“But then you said I’d been a mistake.”
“You were never a mistake.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
“Vivien told me.”
I blinked.
“Vivien.”
“She is surprisingly tolerable.”
“I’m discovering that.”
Chloe smiled faintly.
Then it disappeared.
“Arthur, what you did still matters.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s safest for me by removing me from the decision.”
“I know.”
“And being afraid doesn’t make lying noble.”
“I know.”
She finally looked at me.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because arguing would mean I’m still missing the point.”
That surprised her.
A little.
I leaned forward, forearms on my knees.
“I was afraid someone might use you to get to me. I thought if I ended things and married Vivien, everybody would stop looking at you.”
“They didn’t.”
“No.”
“They looked harder.”
I swallowed.
“I know.”
Her hand moved instinctively across her stomach.
I followed it with my eyes.
“May I ask something?”
She nodded.
“Boy or girl?”
Something in her face softened.
“Girl.”
The room blurred for half a second.
“A daughter.”
“Yes.”
I laughed quietly.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the idea was too large to fit inside me any other way.
“Does she have a name?”
Chloe hesitated.
“I’ve been calling her Bean.”
“Bean Romano.”
“No.”
I looked at her.
“Bean Henderson.”
“Right.”
The correction was gentle.
Necessary.
I nodded.
“Henderson.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then Chloe reached into the drawer beside the bed.
She removed a folded paper.
“Vivien told you about Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“This came from my mother’s files.”
I took it.
It was a photocopy of a handwritten note.
Gabriel’s handwriting.
I recognized it instantly.
Evelyn—if anything happens to me, do not assume it is connected. Accidents happen and fear makes patterns where there may be none. Give these records only to someone who will verify before accusing. A.R. is not ready. V.R. knows more than he says. M.C. is afraid of what V.R. knows.
My eyes stopped.
“V.R. knows more than he says.”
“Yes.”
“Vincent.”
“Probably.”
“And Malcolm was afraid of Vincent.”
“That’s how I read it.”
I reread the note.
“What does A.R. mean?”
Chloe looked at me.
“You.”
Of course.
Arthur Romano is not ready.
My dead brother had known me better than I wanted him to.
“Why weren’t you at home this morning?”
I asked the question carefully.
“If you knew something was wrong with the wine, why didn’t you call Leo?”
“I tried.”
Leo had mentioned nothing.
“My phone disappeared last night.”
I stiffened.
“Disappeared?”
“At the diner. I put it beside the register. Ten minutes later it was gone.”
“Who was there?”
“Employees. Customers. Delivery people. Nobody suspicious.”
“And you came to the cathedral alone.”
“I borrowed Mrs. Henderson’s car.”
“Your aunt?”
“Yes.”
“You drove in that rain?”
Chloe’s eyebrow lifted.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
I stopped.
She almost smiled.
“I wasn’t going to wait.”
“Why not call the police?”
“I did. From a gas station.”
“And?”
“I told them I had evidence somebody may have tampered with wine at a private event involving two families currently receiving enough threats that apparently half the calls about you are fake.”
That sounded depressingly plausible.
“So you came yourself.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t have had to.”
“No.”
That answer contained everything.
I reached toward her hand.
Stopped before touching it.
Chloe noticed.
Then turned her palm upward.
Permission.
I placed my hand over hers.
For the first time in seven weeks, I touched her.
My throat tightened.
“I missed you.”
She looked down at our hands.
“I missed you too.”
Hope rose too quickly.
Then she added, “That doesn’t fix anything.”
“I know.”
“But it matters.”
I nodded.
“Yes.”
A knock sounded again.
Leo entered.
One look at our joined hands, and he almost backed out.
“What?”
I asked.
He closed the door.
“We found Chloe’s phone.”
“Where?”
“The cathedral.”
Chloe sat straighter.
“What?”
“In a maintenance corridor behind the sacristy.”
“How did it get there?”
“We don’t know.”
Leo held up a sealed evidence bag.
“The police already copied what they needed. There’s one message on it you both need to see.”
He turned the screen toward us.
An unsent draft.
Typed from Chloe’s phone at 9:17 that morning.
Not by Chloe.
Her face went pale.
The message read:
Arthur, I lied about the baby. There is no child. I wanted to stop the wedding. I’m sorry.
I stared at it.
Someone had intended to make Chloe look unstable.
To discredit anything she said if she arrived.
“Can they trace who typed it?”
“They’ll try.”
“When was her phone taken?”
Chloe answered.
“Last night around eight.”
Leo nodded.
“And whoever had it brought it inside the cathedral this morning.”
Meaning the person had access.
Staff.
Security.
Family.
Wedding party.
I looked at the hospital door.
“Who knew Chloe was pregnant?”
“No one,” she said.
Then she stopped.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
“Almost no one.”
“Who?”
“My doctor.”
“Anyone else?”
“My aunt.”
“Chloe.”
She looked at me.
“And Vincent.”
The room went silent.
I stood.
“How did Vincent know?”
“When he came to offer me money, I was sick.”
“That doesn’t mean pregnancy.”
“He saw the vitamins on the counter.”
“Did you confirm it?”
“No.”
“Then how—”
“He asked.”
She swallowed.
“And I didn’t answer.”
Leo was already reaching for his phone.
But Chloe shook her head.
“Wait.”
She pulled her hand from mine and reached for her bag.
“The ledger isn’t the only thing.”
She removed a small flash drive.
“My mother kept digital copies.”
“Of what?”
“Emails.”
I looked at her.
“Between?”
“Gabriel and Vincent.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Have you read them?”
“Some.”
“What do they say?”
“That Gabriel was planning to remove Vincent from the company.”
I stared at her.
“For fraud?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“He died before the board meeting.”
Silence.
Chloe touched my arm.
“Arthur, remember what Gabriel wrote. He specifically said not to connect his accident automatically.”
“I remember.”
“And the dates don’t prove anything about his death.”
“I know.”
But my brother’s handwriting burned in my mind.
V.R. knows more than he says.
Leo’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then his eyes moved to me.
“What?”
“The cathedral security footage came in.”
“And?”
“Someone entered the service corridor carrying a catering crate forty-two minutes before the ceremony.”
“Who?”
Leo looked at Chloe.
Then back at me.
“Your uncle Vincent.”
I said nothing.
Leo continued.
“But he wasn’t alone.”
He turned the phone around.
The image was grainy but unmistakable.
Vincent walked through the corridor beside a second person.
Someone I knew.
Someone who had stood near the altar while Chloe warned me not to drink.
Someone who had spent seven weeks helping organize every detail of my marriage to Vivien.
I stared at the screen.
“No.”
Chloe’s fingers closed around my sleeve.
May you like
Beside Vincent was Malcolm Croft.
And between them, clearly visible in Vincent’s hand, was the replacement bottle of wine.
