Page 135

She covered her mouth, trying to hold back the laugh bubbling up in her chest.

Her eyes, once guarded, softened as they lingered on the cake.

A moment later, her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible but full of quiet fondness.

“Lorenzo Moretti… you hopeless little fool.”

Before Lorenzo could even set foot inside the Moretti mansion, a cane shot out and smacked hard against his hip.

“What the—!” Lorenzo staggered back, eyes wide, breath knocked from his lungs. He clutched his side, pain shooting through the muscle.

Grayson Moretti’s voice thundered across the marble hallway, sharper and angrier than Lorenzo had ever heard.

“You divorced Krystal?!”

Grayson stood in front of him—his gray hair tousled, his cane gripped with the fury of a man thirty years younger. His usually calm eyes burned with disbelief and barely-contained rage.

Without giving him a second to speak, the old man raised the cane again and smacked him—once, twice, without holding back.

Lorenzo winced, grabbing the cane mid-air. “Grandpa—stop hitting me! I didn’t want to divorce her! She insisted on it.”

Grayson’s jaw clenched. He was seething. His knuckles went white around the cane as he turned on his heel and stormed back into the living room, grumbling curses under his breath.

“Sheinsisted?” he barked, the words echoing through the grand space. “Why would she insist on divorcing you ifyouweren’t the problem?”

Lorenzo followed him, jaw clenched, his voice low. “Because Iwasthe problem,” he muttered, almost under his breath.

Grayson spun around mid-walk and slammed the cane into Lorenzo’s leg again.

“Goddammit!” Lorenzo hissed through his teeth.

“Exactly!” Grayson barked. “You were the problem. And now you have theaudacityto act like the victim?”

With a loud huff, Grayson reached the couch and dropped onto it with a grunt, still muttering curses under his breath. The grand chandelier above them shimmered in the silence that followed.

“She saved your damn life,” he growled, “and this is how you repay her? You let her walk away without even putting up a fight?”

Lorenzo paused in the hallway, heart skipping. “What are you talking about?”

Grayson looked up, his eyes filled with disappointment and rage.

“You remember when your hands wouldn’t stop shaking?” he began slowly. “When you couldn’t even hold a pen steady, and you refused every doctor I sent your way?”

“Yeah…” Lorenzo said cautiously. “But the symptoms went away on their own?”

Grayson scoffed, his gaze scorching. “No. They didn’t fade on their own, you arrogant fool. Krystal treated you.”

Lorenzo’s body went still.

His jaw worked, but no words came. “What?” he finally whispered.

“All those meals she made for you, those exact times she insisted you eat—even when you were busy or annoyed? That wasn’t just about feeding you. That was your medicine. She was curing your damn condition while you were too blind to see it.”

Lorenzo’s chest tightened, something in him cracking. “She never said anything.”

“She didn’t need to,” Grayson said bitterly. “She married you to repay a favor.Myfavor. I sponsored her education because she was a brilliant girl. I knew she was Astra. So I asked her to treat you without telling you the truth. Because if you knew, you would’ve refused again even if it killed you.”

Lorenzo’s breath hitched. His mind reeled, but Grayson wasn’t done.