Divorcing the Don: And Then I Took Everything

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lk of my custom loungewear, my hands trembling slightly. For the first time in six years, my heart was beating with genui

shed in. Her usually pristine uniform was rumpled, and her d

ing to catch her breath. "He i

tamper hovering over the machi

er as if the walls were listening. "And two children. They

he marble counter. A cold dread, sharp and sudden, pierced through my

oached the heavy velvet curtains, the unfamiliar sound of a child's laug

red for, sat in her high-backed chair with a boy of about five on her lap. On the leather sofa sat Damien. He was broader, his j

e him. She held a toddler in her arms, wearing a brightly colored, exotic dre

my voice sounding ho

uilt in his pitch-black eyes. Just the

toward the strang

horitative rumble that demanded absolute submission. "

un, but I locked my knees, refusing to fall in front of them

had bled for this family, using my own Rossi dowry to keep the More

, waving a wrinkled hand. "Letters could not explain. It is

sickeningly sweet smile. "Leo, *mio caro* (my

brant skirts. "No," his high voice rang out in the

g for a denial, for some explanatio

g my last illusion. "Cora and the children will

rational security, isolating myself in the East Wing. I had made myself a ghost in my ow

weet, almost triumphant smile played on her lips. "Isabella, I

, icy register. The naive, loving girl who had waited six years di

out of the parlor. My heart was a graveyard, but my mind was already calculating. I headed straight for the only