His new fiancée laughed at my pregnant belly while someone nearby started recording the whole scene. I was desperately trying to hold back my tears when three men in black suits walked into the supermarket, followed by the most feared mafia boss in Chicago. But when he walked straight toward me, pulled me into his arms, and kissed me in front of everyone, my ex-fiancé turned completely pale.
PART 1
My ex-fiancé threw a hundred-dollar bill at my feet and announced, in front of the whole store, that I didn’t have enough money to feed the child I was carrying. The worst part was that the baby was his too.
My name is Tessa Marlowe. I’m twenty-seven, and I was five months pregnant. That afternoon I walked into a grocery store in Chicago with seventeen dollars in my account and a list written on the back of a doctor’s appointment card. I needed milk, oatmeal, and the prenatal vitamins I’d put off for a week. I put the cheese back in the cooler after adding up the prices for the third time.
“Well, look who’s counting pennies.”
I recognized the voice before I turned around. Grant Whitaker wore a watch that cost more than a year of my old salary. Beside him stood Brielle, the woman he had cheated on me with while we were planning our wedding. Now she was wearing the ring he’d bought her two months after he left me.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to get past with my basket.
Grant closed the gap between the coolers.
“So that’s how you plan to raise my kid? On discount milk?”
I froze. Ever since he found out about the pregnancy, he had avoided acknowledging it to his family. Hearing him admit it here, just to use it as an insult, turned my stomach.
“Don’t talk about him like he’s a problem you found on the street.”
Brielle burst out laughing.
“Oh, Tessa. You should be grateful Grant still cares about you.”
He pulled several bills from his wallet and waved one in front of my face. A woman stopped pushing her cart. A kid lifted his phone to record us.
“Here. So nobody can say I abandoned a pregnant woman,” Grant said.
I didn’t reach for it. On my worst nights I had calculated how far short I was on rent, but I knew he would turn that money into a story about his generosity and my helplessness.
“Keep it.”
The bill fell beside my shoes.
“You were always too proud,” he spat. “And now you don’t even have your dad to bail you out.”
I felt the blood rush to my face. My father, Walter Marlowe, had died six years earlier. Grant knew I still kept his books and a small silver compass he’d given me before he died. He also knew the ruling on his death, medication poisoning, had never let me rest.
“At least my dad knew how to respect people,” I answered.
Grant looked at the chain peeking out from under my blouse.
“You’re still wearing that cheap trinket. You should sell all his stuff and stop living in the past.”
The sentence struck me as strange. In the three years we were together, he had pushed far too hard for me to get rid of Walter’s filing cabinet. He said it took up space and kept me from starting over. I never understood why a pile of old papers bothered him so much.
“Move, Grant.”
“Or what? You’ll find another rich guy to support you?”
Just then the automatic doors slid open. Three men in dark suits walked in, watching the exits. Behind them came Vincent Rossi.
In Chicago, people talked about him in low voices. He owned trucking companies and warehouses, and his former partners had been linked to operations nobody dared explain. Some called him the Boss. I had seen him only once, at my father’s funeral.
Vincent took in the bill on the floor, the phone still recording, and my hand on my belly. He walked straight toward me. Before I could ask what he was doing there, he put an arm around me and kissed me.
I jerked away. Grant stepped back, white as a wall.
“Do you want to repeat what you just said to her?” Vincent asked without raising his voice.
Brielle tugged at Grant’s sleeve.
“Let’s go.”
“It was a joke,” he stammered.
“Then apologize to her. Not to me.”
“Tessa… I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want your apology for the camera,” I said. “I want you to never humiliate me again.”
The manager came over and asked Grant to clear the aisle. He picked up his bill and left with Brielle, avoiding the eyes of the other customers.
I turned to Vincent.
“You had no right to kiss me, either.”
He lowered his eyes for a moment.
“You’re right. That was reckless. It won’t happen again without your permission.”
I thought he would leave. Instead, he pulled a small silver object from his pocket. It was the exact other half of my compass.
“Walter asked me to keep this,” he said. “And to tell you the truth when the Whitakers came near you.”
My mouth went dry.
“What truth?”
Vincent looked toward the exit where Grant had just disappeared.
“That he probably didn’t fall in love with you by chance. His father has spent six years looking for something Walter left you.”
