Chapter 1 - ONE BITE
Alessandro Romano kept the slice of bread extended across the breakfast table.
“One bite.”
Isabella stared at it.
Morning sunlight poured through the tall windows of the Romano estate and turned the silver coffee service almost white.
She looked flawless in a cream silk dress, her dark hair falling perfectly across one shoulder.
For two years, Alessandro had watched men lose their judgment around that face.
He had never expected to become one of them.
Isabella smiled.
“You’re being strange this morning.”
“Am I?”
“You haven’t touched your breakfast.”
Alessandro leaned back.
“And you seem very interested in whether I do.”
Her fingers tightened almost invisibly around her coffee cup.
Across the room, six-year-old Sofia stood beside the doorway clutching her old cloth doll.
The little girl looked terrified.
Her mother, Elena, was one of the estate housekeepers.
Sofia was not supposed to be in the formal dining room.
She certainly was not supposed to accuse the future Mrs. Romano of anything.
Alessandro looked back at Isabella.
“Eat it.”
Her smile finally broke.
“Why?”
“Because you told me yesterday that this butter was imported from France.”
“It is.”
“You said it was your favorite.”
“It is.”
“Then take a bite.”
Silence filled the room.
Alessandro’s security chief, Marco Bellini, stood near the far wall.
He had worked beside Alessandro for fourteen years.
He understood the change in his boss’s voice.
He quietly locked the dining-room doors.
Isabella noticed.
Her face lost color.
“Alessandro.”
“One bite.”
She set down her cup.
“This is ridiculous.”
“So prove it.”
Her eyes flicked toward Sofia.
Only once.
But Alessandro saw it.
That was enough.
He lowered the bread.
“Marco.”
“Yes, boss.”
“Seal the kitchen.”
Isabella stood abruptly.
“You cannot seriously be listening to a maid’s child.”
Sofia flinched.
Alessandro’s expression hardened.
“She has a name.”
Isabella laughed nervously.
“This is humiliating.”
“For whom?”
“For me.”
Alessandro looked at the untouched bread.
Then back at his fiancée.
“That depends on what’s in this.”
Isabella crossed her arms.
“You think I poisoned you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Sofia whispered from the doorway.
“I saw the lady put drops on it.”
Every person in the room froze.
Isabella turned.
“You little liar.”
Sofia stepped backward.
Alessandro was on his feet before Isabella finished the sentence.
“Do not speak to her again.”
His voice was quiet.
That frightened Isabella more than shouting would have.
Marco moved between them.
Alessandro knelt several feet from Sofia.
“What did you see?”
She hugged her doll.
“Yesterday.”
“In the pantry.”
“Miss Isabella had a tiny blue bottle.”
“She put drops in the butter bowl.”
“Did she see you?”
Sofia shook her head.
“I was under the table.”
“Why?”
“Playing hide-and-seek.”
Alessandro almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Sofia added something that wiped every trace of warmth from his face.
“She said on the phone that you were almost weak enough.”
Isabella stopped breathing.
Alessandro slowly stood.
“What exactly did she say?”
Sofia squeezed her doll tighter.
“She said, ‘A few more mornings and he won’t be a problem.’”
Alessandro looked at the woman he had planned to marry in six weeks.
May you like
And for the first time, Isabella stopped looking like his future wife.
She looked like a suspect.
