Chapter 94
She waited a week
Seven days of silence.
She hadn’t planned to wait that long. She’d told herself she’d give him two days. Three, tops. Enough time to cool down, breathe, process what she’d told him. That’s what people did when they were scared. They pulled away. They panicked. But then they came back.
Luca would realize that she had never cheated on him and come to his senses.
She told herself that every morning. Whispered it like a prayer while she stared at her phone, thumb hovering over his contact. Every time it buzzed, her stomach flipped. Every time it didn’t, something inside her cracked.
She left messages. One voicemail.
“Please call me.”
He never did. He ignored her calls and voicemail.
By day five, her hope had started rotting. It didn’t crumble–it curdled. Turned bitter. Sour. Something she didn’t recognize. She told herself she wouldn’t call again. That if he wanted to talk, he’d talk. That she had dignity. That she wasn’t going to beg. She couldn’t do that to herself after everything. The names he had called her.
But on day six, at 2:03 a.m., she called anyway.
He still didn’t answer.
The next morning was when the nail went in the coffin for her hope. Not from him. Not from a phone call or an apology or any ounce of human decency.
No.
She found out in a headline.
“Heir to the De Santis Empire Set to Marry Italian Royalty.”
The photo was sharp. Luxurious. Carefully staged. Luca was in a dark suit, hand resting lightly on the waist of a girl who looked like she belonged in a school uniform, not an engagement announcement. The caption said she was the daughter of some old–money family from Rome. Eighteen years old. Barely legal.
A baby.
Sutton stared at the screen like it had punched her.
She read it again.
Then again.
Her stomach didn’t drop so much as it hollowed. Like someone had scooped out her insides with a spoon and left the shell of her behind to figure it out. She felt raw.
Eighteen.
He was marrying someone who probably still lived with her parents. Someone who hadn’t even been alive the year he graduated from college. Someone soft. Moldable. Obedient. The perfect little Italian virgin wife for a man with a legacy to protect.
The image was absurd. And it was real.
1/3
She didn’t know how long she sat there, staring at the screen, but her hand eventually moved on its own–closed the browser, locked the down gently like it might explode.
Then she stood, walked across the apartment, and threw the phone against the wall with everything she had.
it hit hard. Cracked. The screen shattered.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at it like it was bleeding.
Her eyes were dry. She didn’t have time for tears–only action.
She had begged him to listen to her. Only told him the truth. And he’d disappeared. Replaced her with a teenager.
A baby.
She needed to leave. And she needed to do it now.
The call to her agent happened hours later.
Her voice didn’t even shake. “I’m done,” was all she said.
“What?”
“I’m canceling the contract,” Sutton said, more firmly this time.
There was a beat of silence, then the woman exploded. Screaming into the phone so loud Sutton had to put away from her ear.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind? Do you know how many campaigns you’re walking away from? We just signed Milan. You’re throwing away your
career!”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t care? Are you drunk? Is this about a man? Jesus, Audrey-”
“I don’t want to model anymore,” she said, voice flat. “I’m going home.”
Another pause. Then the venom.
“If you walk now, you’ll never work in this industry again. You hear me? I will blacklist you.”
“Good. Because Audrey is about to die.” Sutton didn’t expand on what she meant.
She hung up before she could be talked out of it. Before the begging started. Before the insults got personal.
She didn’t tell her agent she was pregnant. Didn’t say a word about Luca or the baby or how her entire life had just caved in. No one needed to know. No one deserved to. Audrey would just stop existing.
By midnight, her suitcase was half–packed.
She moved around the apartment like a ghost, tossing clothes into bags, pulling artwork off walls–but leaving them. She would only be taking what fit into suitcases. The vanity drawer stuck. She yanked it open and stared down at the test.
Two pink lines. Still clear. Still there.
She picked it up.
Held it.
Then dropped it into her purse. She was going to post it to Luca before she got on her flight home.
Chapter 9.
The next morning, she booked a one–way flight.
No return
No forwarding address.
She left a note for the cleaning service with the keys and paid the last month’s rent in advance. The woman at the front desk tried to chat with her on the way out. Asked if she was okay. Said she looked pale.
“I’m fine,” Sutton lied. “Just tired.”
The cab ride to the airport was quiet. She got the cab to stop at a post office on the way and posted the test to Luca’s office.
She didn’t cry.
Not until the plane took off.Not until the ground shrank beneath her.
He never knew her real name.
All this time, she’d been Audrey.Just Audrey.
Now she was going home.
Back to the place where she had grown up. The name she’d erased. The sisters who didn’t know what the hell she’d been through this week.
She was going home. Tears slid down her face.
Back to the version of herself she thought she’d left behind for a while longer. The only job she’d get back home was a programming job. No modeling. That part of her life was over.
She didn’t know what would happen next.
But she knew this: she wasn’t waiting anymore.
Not for Luca.
So Audrey boarded the plane home.
But she became Sutton Warner the minute her plane landed. Untraceable. It was her last fuck you to Luca. Not like she believed he would try and find her. He had made his choice. But in her mind that wasn’t the point.
