Chapter 1 - The Family That Never Wanted Me
Two years later, I became Roman Kane’s wife.
The wedding was small by Kane standards and enormous by mine. My mother cried before the ceremony even began. My father, who had returned after years of absence with promises he could not afford, did not receive an invitation.
Roman wore a black suit and looked more nervous than he ever did in front of investors, rivals, or reporters.
When the officiant asked whether he took me as his wife, Roman looked directly at me.
“Yes,” he said.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
But like he had made a decision no one could move him from.
For a while, we were happy.
Not perfectly happy. I had learned too much in life to believe perfection was real.
Roman traveled often. I ran a hospitality consulting company from a bright office in Manhattan. We argued about his security team following me too closely. I refused to let his name become the only thing people saw when they looked at me.
He tried.
That mattered.
But his mother, Celeste Kane, never accepted me.
Celeste had the kind of beauty that became colder with age. Her silver hair was always perfect. Her dresses never wrinkled. Her voice never rose, because she had spent decades learning that cruelty sounded more powerful when spoken softly.
She hated that I came from Queens.
She hated that I worked.
She hated that Roman listened to me.
Most of all, she hated that I was not afraid of her.
“You make Roman sentimental,” she told me once during dinner at the Long Island estate.
“I thought that was supposed to be a compliment.”
“It is not.”
Roman had heard her.
He set down his wine glass and said, “Mother, do not speak to Bianca that way.”
Celeste smiled faintly.
“I am only observing.”
“Then observe quietly.”
She did.
For a while.
Then I got pregnant.
At first, I did not tell anyone except Roman.
I had waited until the ultrasound confirmed our daughter’s heartbeat. Roman sat beside me in the doctor’s office with one hand covering his mouth, as though emotion had caught him completely unprepared.
When the doctor pointed to the screen, Roman’s eyes filled with tears.
“My daughter,” he whispered.
Later that night, he placed both hands on my stomach.
“I will protect you both,” he said.
I believed him.
That was the problem.
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I believed protection meant nothing could happen to me.
I forgot that sometimes danger lived inside the house.
