Chapter 11 - THE FLASH BULBS IN THE DRIVEWAY
I ran back upstairs, my bare feet slapping against the marble.
I burst into the bedroom. Luca was already sitting up, checking his phone. His expression was thunderous.
"She's at the gate," I gasped.
"I know. Marco's replacement just texted me." Luca stood up, ignoring his bruised ribs, and threw on a fresh shirt.
"Reporters?" I asked, panic rising. "Luca, if she tells them about Liam—if she spins this—"
"She's desperate," Luca said coldly. "My mother froze her family's accounts this morning as punishment for the police arriving last night. Vanessa is trying to force a public scandal to get a payout."
"What are we going to do?"
He walked over to me, grabbing my shoulders.
"Get dressed. Put Ellie in something nice."
"You want us to go down there?" I stared at him in horror. "To the press?"
"Vanessa thrives in the shadows," Luca said, his eyes blazing with absolute authority. "She thinks I'll pay her to go away. She thinks I'm ashamed of you."
He touched the gold crest on my chest.
"I'm going to show her exactly how wrong she is."
Twenty minutes later, the massive iron gates of the Moretti estate swung open.
Three news vans were parked on the street. Cameras flashed immediately.
Vanessa stood in the center of the driveway, wearing oversized sunglasses, playing the role of the heartbroken, discarded fiancée.
"He cancelled the wedding because he was manipulated!" Vanessa was yelling to a reporter. "By a grifter! A maid who used her child to—"
She stopped dead.
Luca walked out of the front doors.
He didn't look like a man hiding a scandal. He looked like a king.
But it wasn't him that made the reporters go quiet.
It was us.
I walked beside him, wearing a simple, elegant navy dress I'd found in a guest closet.
And Luca was carrying Ellie on his hip.
Ellie had her arms wrapped around his neck, smiling down at the flashing cameras.
Vanessa’s jaw dropped. "Luca... what are you doing?"
Luca ignored her. He walked directly to the microphones.
"Miss Bellini seems confused about the events of last night," Luca said smoothly, his voice echoing across the driveway. "The engagement was terminated because I discovered she was attempting to illegally adopt a child belonging to the woman I love."
The reporters erupted in questions.
Vanessa turned purple. "That's a lie! She's a maid! She's a nobody!"
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Luca looked at Vanessa with such pity it was almost worse than anger.
"Madison is my partner," Luca stated to the cameras. "And as of this morning, she is the co-owner of the Moretti estate."
