Chapter 2 - The Test at the Table
The door at the far end of the dining room opened with a soft, familiar click.
Isabella walked in.
She wore a crisp white silk blouse tucked into a high-waisted dark skirt, her dark hair pinned back with a pearl clip. She smelled of expensive jasmine oil and morning rain. In her hand was a small stack of mail—charity gala invitations, bank statements, and architectural sketches for the wedding pavilion we were building in the garden.
“Good morning, darling,” she said, her voice smooth and sweet like honeyed tea. She glided across the polished marble, stopping beside my chair to kiss my cheek.
Her skin was cool. Her perfume was light. She seemed as effortless and pure as the autumn sun streaming through the windows.
Then her eyes flicked downward.
She saw Emma standing by my knee, holding her button-eyed doll.
A micro-expression—so subtle that no ordinary man would have caught it—flashed across Isabella’s flawless face. A tiny tightening at the corner of her eyes. A instantaneous pause in her breathing.
“Emma,” Isabella said smoothly, her smile never slipping. “What are you doing in here so early? Shouldn't you be downstairs helping your mother with the linens?”
“I was wiping the table, Miss Isabella,” the child whispered, stepping back half a pace and holding Rosie tighter.
“You are a very diligent little girl,” Isabella purred, reaching out to pat Emma’s head. But Emma flinched away, ducking her head down.
Isabella’s hand hovered in the air for a fraction of a second before she casually dropped it to her side. She turned her radiant smile back to me.
“Did you sleep well, Gabriel? You look somewhat pale this morning.”
“I slept enough,” I replied softly. My tone was calm, completely stripped of emotion. “Sit down, Isabella. Have breakfast with me.”
“Oh, I already had tea in my dressing room, darling,” she said, gesturing toward the mail. “And I have so many phone calls to make for the florist today—”
“Sit,” I repeated.
It was not a request. It was the low, quiet register of Don Romano. The voice that made capos freeze in their seats and police chiefs check their watches.
Isabella hesitated. The pearl clip in her hair caught the sunlight as she slowly pulled out the chair directly across from mine and sat down.
“Is something wrong, Gabriel?” she asked, tilting her head with innocent concern. “You sound stern.”
I didn't answer right away. I picked up the silver butter knife resting beside my plate.
Slowly, deliberately, I plunged the blade into the porcelain dove dish. I scooped out a generous portion of the smooth, yellow butter and spread it across a warm piece of crusty bread. The butter melted instantly, glistening under the morning light.
I set the bread on a small white porcelain plate and pushed it across the long table toward her.
“Eat,” I said.
Isabella looked at the plate. Then at me.
“Gabriel, I told you, I’m not hungry—”
“It’s fresh sourdough from the bakery on Atwells Avenue,” I said, leaning back in my leather armchair and resting my chin on my hands. “You always say it’s your favorite.”
“Yes, but with the wedding planning, my stomach has been so sensitive lately—”
“Just one bite, Isabella.”
The dining room fell into absolute silence. The only sound was the faint ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer.
Emma stood beside my chair, her wide brown eyes fixed entirely on Isabella.
Isabella’s breath hitched. She looked down at the buttered bread sitting in front of her. Her hand reached out toward the silver fork, her fingers trembling slightly before she pulled them back as if the metal were white-hot.
“Gabriel… this is absurd,” she stammered, a thin crack finally appearing in her polite facade. “Why are you staring at me like that? What is going on?”
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“You told Emma last night that this was just medicine to help me sleep,” I spoke, my voice dropping so low it sounded like gravel grinding under a boot. “I want to see how well it helps you sleep.”
Isabella’s face went completely drain of color. The radiant, beautiful woman sitting across from me vanished in an instant, replaced by a pale, terrified stranger whose eyes darted frantically toward the exit.
