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Bianca leaves her chair with her usual fluid grace, her head high and her nose in the air as she glides to the stand and settles into the seat behind it. She never glances in Lorenzo’s direction while the bailiff swears her in, but when I look over, I find him glaring at the side of her face with open disdain. Prick.

Ezra carries a folder casually as he strolls toward where Bianca is seated, flashing her his best smile. It’s dangerous, that smile. “Good morning, Mrs. Casiraghi. It’s good to see you again.”

“Save your pleasantries,” she tuts. “Ask your questions.”

“Right,” Ezra chuckles, unruffled. “Straight to business then.”

Now that I’m allowing myself to appreciate it, it really is amazing, the way he can remain calm under almost any circumstances. I once thought his general aloofness to be an insult to the craft, but I realize now that it’s a carefully constructed persona meant to unsettle someone with a weaker composure than Bianca’s. As it is, I’m not worried for her.

“Now, Mrs. Casiraghi,” he starts, keeping his attention on the page in front of him as if he’s trying to remember what he was going to ask. I know that’s a tactic as well. I fight to roll my eyes.“We spoke briefly while you were being deposed on the events of 1994, do you remember?”

“I remember,” Bianca answers primly.

“Now, just to clarify for the rest of the court, those events included you filing for divorce from your husband, Mr. Casiraghi, correct?”

“Correct.”

“But you didn’t follow through, is that right?”

“You continue to be right, yes,” she says, a heavily veiled irritation laced into her tone that others might not catch, but I do. I have to bite back a laugh.

“Can you tell me why you withdrew your petition of divorce only a month after filing?”

Bianca laces her fingers in her lap, and I find myself nodding almost imperceptibly, waiting for her to give the carefully practiced reasoning we went over during prep.

“I was very young,” she says. “Lorenzo worked many hours in that time. I barely saw him. I grew lonely. We had a whirlwind romance in Italy before we moved here, and when that changed, I did not handle it well.”

“I see,” Ezra replies thoughtfully. He glances down at his notes again. “So you just decided to work it out?”

“Yes,” she says. “I loved my husband, and we talked. We agreed to make it work.” Her eyes narrow slightly. “Not prudent on my part, it seems.”

“Mrs. Casiraghi,” Harding sighs. “If you could keep your answers relevant to the question at hand, please.”

Bianca nods stiffly.

I know what’s coming, and we’ve prepared for that too, but still I tense in my chair, watching Ezra closely as I wait for him to deliver the inevitable blow.

“So you withdrawing your petition had nothing to do with your trust fund seeing major losses only weeks after you filed for divorce?”

My eyes flick to Bianca, silently encouraging her.You’ve got this.

“It did not,” she tells him coolly. “My trust fund is handled by lawyers like yourself, Mr. Hart. I am only privy to significant changes when it is made clear that my trust is in real danger. My advisor foresaw loss, and explained to me later that it was not of concern, that he expected it to reconcile within a few short months. And it did. I was not made aware of such losses until many months after they occurred. By then, the problem had solved itself. The two events have nothing to do with one another.”

“I see,” Ezra muses calmly. Too calmly, I think. His uncanny ability to remain unperturbed might be impressive, but it can also be frustrating as hell. “Perhaps they don’t.”

I suck in a quiet breath. There’s no way it could be that easy. I expected arguments, a full-on fight, counters—anythingbesides a quiet acquiescence. But Ezra is turning away from the stand, still looking at his notes with a frown as if at any moment he might pass the witness.

Wow,I think with astonishment.I am so going to tease him later about being too eager to make me dinner again.

But Ezra isn’t done, as it turns out.

“Ah, wait,” he says with a puzzled expression, as if he’d almost just forgotten whatever he is about to say. “Actually, I had another question about your divorce petition.”

“Ask as many as you like,” Bianca tells him. “My answer will stay the same.”

“Of course,” he says with a sly grin that makes my stomach flutter with both arousal and anticipation at whatever bogus thingAlexander has no doubt fed him to counter with. “I just wanted to clarify…” He takes one last look at his notes, and I realize I’m leaning in just a little. “Did you not accuse your husband of being unfaithful then as well?”

My entire body goes rigid.